This is not one of those times.
Some background: Section 505 of the extremely controversial Patriot Act grants the government the authority to draw up "National Security Letters" granting them access to the financial histories, telephone and Internet records, and credit reports of anyone they want, without judicial oversight, so long as they claim that it is needed to protect against terrorism and so long as they provide certain Congressional committees with the names of the people investigated twice a year. The people who recieve these letters cannot contest the investigation, nor can they tell anyone about the existence of the investigation.
Hopefully, you can see where the potential for abuse is here.
Enter the ACLU, suing the government for a reversal (or at least massive rewrite) of section 505. However, the ACLU's complaint is heavily redacted by government order, making it very difficult for the ACLU to show what they're doing about Section 505.
This is where the new letter comes into play. Back in May, the ACLU complained about the fact that the government was blacking out large parts of their complaint. As we can expect from a government, the letter has been censored as well.
Perhaps the worst part of this was shown on the Memory Hole link above, where the government blocked out a quotation from a Supreme Court decision. It's hard to claim that the Supreme Court is a threat to national security, so it's already questionable. But when you look at the quote, it gets worse:
"The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.' Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent."
Apparently, this quote is a threat to national security.
I honestly don't know if I should laugh, cry, or scream in terror.
