March 23, 2007 2:22PM # A Serious Matter By [Tim Lynch](https://www.cato.org/people/tim-lynch) --- SHARE The *Washington Post* deserves a lot of credit for publishing this [piece](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR2007032201882.html?nav=hcmodule) on its editorial page today. An anonymous businessman explains his predicament after having been served with an FBI “national security letter”: > Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand — a context that the FBI still won’t let me discuss publicly — I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled. > > > … > > > I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government and being made to mislead those who are close to me, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation. (For background on national security letters, go [here](https://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp98.pdf#page=3)). This businessman has given us a sneak preview of life in the surveillance state. I’ve tried to draw attention to the [conscription](https://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa443_a.pdf#page=12) aspect of anti-terrorism laws and policies, but conservatives don’t want to talk about it. The ACLU has gotten involved in the gag order/​free speech aspect, but the conscription gets tossed aside in a cacophony. President Bush insists that he is “defending freedom.” John Yoo and Eric Posner advance the view that the sphere of liberty has been [expanding over the years](http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.19661,filter./pub_detail.asp). Other conservatives see the impact on liberty but strangely taunt: “The government has *already been doing that!* If Bush wants to take it further, what’s the big deal? This is no time to rethink legal precedent.” Robert Higgs, among many others, has showed that [liberty has been losing ground](http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Leviathan-Critical-Government-Institute/dp/019505900X) to government over the years. Since 9/11, we have been in a [vicious political cycle](https://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-443es.html). The courts are defending constitutional liberties at the margins, but the overall trend is quite bad. A few months ago, some U.S. senators voted to enact a law that they believed to be [unconstitutional](https://www.cato.org/2006/09/29/defending-the-constitution/). That’s an indication of the political climate. Bad. ##### Related Tags [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).