ACLU Drops Patriot Act Challenge

[cal04]

The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday dropped a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act.

The ACLU said it was withdrawing the lawsuit filed more than three years ago because of "improvements to the law." The Justice Department argued last month that amendments approved by Congress in March 2006 had corrected any constitutional flaws in the Patriot Act.

"While the reauthorized Patriot Act is far from perfect, we succeeded in stemming the damage from some of the Bush administration's most reckless policies," Ann Beeson, associate legal director of the ACLU in New York, said in a written statement.

The lawsuit, filed in July 2003 on behalf of the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor and five other nonprofit groups, was the first legal challenge to Section 215, the part of the Patriot Act that lets federal agents obtain such things as library records and medical information.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061028/ap_on_re_us/patriot_act_lawsuit_1

[ThomCat]

1. Translation: We can't win this right now, so we're conserving

resources until we can.

Damn. x(

[corporatemedia]

2. Yes, but we are forced to choose our battles carefully; we have so many to fight. n/t

[drb]

4. More like: "We've been informed that a nice cheery....

....cage has been reserved for us in Guantanamo if we continue to press this."

[OneBlueSky]

3. I find this distressing . . . however, if they replaced this challenge . . .

with one against the Military Commissions Act of 2006 -- which is most definitely unconstitutional -- I'd forgive them . . .

[NVMojo]

5. it is distressing

[SeaBob]

6. Patriot Act

I just sent the national ACLU HQ an email stating if the withdrew their challenge to the Patriot Act I quit their organization. (I have been a member for about 5 years) If they did not with draw their challenge I salute them. Which is it?