American Civil Liberties Union v. Ashcroft

American Civil Liberties Union v. Ashcroft (filed April 9, 2004 in the United States) is a lawsuit filed on behalf of a formerly unknown Internet Service Provider (ISP) company under the pseudonym John Doe, Inc. by the American Civil Liberties Union against the U.S. federal government, by the Department of Justice under former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

[1] Merrill was subject to National Security Letters (NSLs) from the Federal Bureau of Investigation requiring the release of private information and under a gag order forbidding any public discussion of the issues.

[3][needs update] Because of the secrecy rules involved, the government would not let the ACLU disclose they had even filed a case for nearly a month, after which they were permitted to release a heavily redacted version of the complaint (shown right).

According to government secrecy rules (the National Security Letter provision, [Section 2709] of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, [ECPA]) the ACLU still could not disclose which ISP was served with the request to produce documents.

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and enacted in 1986, the bill permitted the FBI to obtain customer records from telephone and Internet companies in terrorism investigations.