Silent suits: challenging secrecy ... in secret.

• Author: Sanchez, Julian
• Position: Citings

ALMOST A YEAR ago, the satirical newspaper The Onion ran the headline "Revised Patriot Act Will Make It Illegal to Read Patriot Act." That restriction is still confined to the world of parody--but just barely.

In April the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed that it had filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York challenging the FBI's authority to issue national security letters, extrajudicial demands for information whose scope was expanded by the PATRIOT Act. But the announcement came weeks after the complaint was filed, because the case itself was subject to the sort of gag order that prevents those served with national security letters from talking about them.

Now the information sluice gates are open--sort of. Following negotiations with the government, the ACLU has released a highly redacted version of its complaint in the case of [CENSORED] and ACLU v. Ashcroft. According to lead counsel Jameel Jaffer, the group cannot even officially confirm that it has a client in the case, although the legible portions of the complaint appear to refer to an Internet access provider. Even the briefing schedule in the case was at one...