A federal appeals court has sent back to a lower court a case challenging the government's ability to issue secret orders to businesses and other organizations (such as libraries) demanding that they hand over their clients' electronic records. Academic library groups have been following the case closely since at least one library group has received such an order. National-security letters are issued without a judge's approval, and recipients, at least initially, can tell only their lawyers that they have received them.
In the other ruling, in a case from Connecticut, the appeals court dismissed a library group's challenge to the gag provision of a national-security letter it received. The U.S. Department of Justice, in a court document filed last month, reversed course and said the group, The Library Connection of Windsor, was free to publicly identify itself.
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education May 25 2006
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