Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 4, 2011

Enactment of the so-called Patriot Act ten years ago led to the routine use of what former federal judge Andrew Napolitano calls ?self-written search warrants? ? especially national security letters, or NSLs.

The NSLs are submitted by the FBI to third parties ? such as bank managers, librarians, and internet providers -- who are forbidden to inform the subject of an investigation that the Feds are scrutinizing his affairs. More than 30,000 national security letters are now issued annually.

Nicholas Merrill, who operates a small internet service provider, defied a federal order to describe how, in 2004, ?an FBI agent came to my office and handed me a letter. It demanded that I turn over information about one of my clients and forbade me from telling `any person? that the government had approached me.?

Merrill has been ?allowed to reveal my name to the public in connection with my case.? However, he still faces the prospect of imprisonment if he discloses any of the particulars of the order, including the identity of the targeted individual.

Subjects of the Communist East German regime were legally required to inform on each other, and imprisoned for failing to do so. That differs little from the system inflicted on us through the so-called Patriot Act.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.