BLACKED OUT.(The Talk of the Town)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 27-SEP-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

A government censor rarely displays a highly refined sense of irony. Consider the reaction to a lawsuit filed earlier this year by the American Civil Liberties Union to have part of the U.S.A. Patriot Act declared unconstitutional. In Manhattan federal district court, the A.C.L.U. is challenging a provision that allows the F.B.I. to obtain a citizen's personal records--say, which Web sites he visits--without notice to him and without judicial oversight. "The existence of the lawsuit was gagged for nearly a month," Ann Beeson, an A.C.L.U. lawyer on the case, said the other day. "We had to get the Justice Department's approval even to disclose that we had filed...

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