A federal judge has struck down parts of the new U.S.A. Patriot Act that authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to acquire corporate records using informal secret demands called national security letters.

The law allowed the F.B.I. to force communications companies, including telephone and Internet providers, to turn over their customers’ records without court authorization and permanently to forbid the companies from discussing what they had done. Under the law, enacted last year, the ability of the courts to review challenges to the ban on disclosures was quite limited.

The judge, Victor Marrero of the Federal District Court in Manhattan, ruled that the law violated the First Amendment and the separation of powers guaranteed by the Constitution.

The Dems rolled over and played dead for the rote White House terror propaganda. Fortunately, the judge wasn’t auditioning for a role as political wimp.

Judge Marrero wrote that he feared the law could be the first step in a series of intrusions into the role of the judiciary that would be “the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.”

Judge Marrero used harsher language and evocative historical analogies in criticizing the aspect of the new law that imposed restrictions on the courts’ ability to review the F.B.I.’s determinations.

“When the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of privacy,” Judge Marrero wrote, pointing to discredited Supreme Court cases endorsing the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War and racially segregated railroad cars in the 19th century.

“The only thing left of the judiciary’s function for those Americans in that experience,” he wrote, “was a symbolic act: to sing a requiem and lower the flag on the Bill of Rights.”

Neocons would love that. DINO’s haven’t the courage to oppose it. Primary time is coming and not just for presidential candidates.