ACLU fails to tell the whole truth
Reporting about the SGA, not a record of it: The Johns Hopkins News-Letter published this and the SGA did not write it, file it, or approve it. The archive holds it because the article itself uses the phrase “student council”.
Summary
- This Johns Hopkins News-Letter article covers Eric Wolkoff’s argument about the ACLU, the Patriot Act and efforts to lobby the JHU Student Council.
- The News-Letter reported that the ACLU enlisted students to lobby the JHU Student Council to pass legislation condemning the Patriot Act.
- The paper reported that the ACLU claimed section 215 could allow government surveillance of library habits and online activity.
- The article adds that the Justice Department said terrorism investigators were not interested in ordinary Americans’ library habits and that the Patriot Act protects First Amendment rights.
- The reporter writes that the government could already obtain library records, while the law allowed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to issue subpoenas secretly instead of using the public grand-jury process.
- According to the article, the law requires the government to show that records support an authorized foreign-intelligence or terrorism investigation, with limits involving First Amendment activity.
- The News-Letter article states that a House Judiciary Committee review found no concern that this authority was being misused or abused, and it says no court had declared a Patriot Act provision unconstitutional.