More Reforms Needed for National Security Letters, EFF Says
Changes made to the National Security Letter (NSL) statute are often overlooked in discussion about the impact of the USA Freedom Act and reforms to the intelligence community, wrote Electronic Frontier Foundation Executive Director Cindy Cohn and Deputy Executive Director…
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Kurt Opsahl in a blog post Monday. “USA Freedom did not fix the problem of overbroad, potentially eternal gag orders, or the fact that the NSL statute relegates the court to little more than a rubber stamp,” Cohn and Opsahl wrote. In a ruling made public last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco used the minimal changes as “cause for another delay in considering the constitutionality of NSLs in two” EFF cases, they said. Gag orders will continue to prevent EFF’s clients from “participating fully in the debate around USA Freedom” and the debate on national security surveillance in general, Cohn and Opsahl said. “While we’re extremely disappointed, we will continue to push forward to get the gags lifted, allow our heroic clients to speak freely, and seek to have the NSL statute declared unconstitutional.”