From Reuters via ABC:
Part of the Patriot Act, a central plank of the Bush Administration’s war on terror, was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marreo ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the power the FBI has to demand confidential financial records from companies as part of terrorism investigations.
Next stop: Appellate, then Supreme Court…
This section is not a part of the PATRIOT Act, despite the ignorant news reports to the contrary. See the post by Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy:
“As I noted in my post below, a recent decision of the Southern District of New York struck down part of a 1986 law known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. How does the press report the decision? No mention of the 1986 law, of course. Instead, the press is reporting that the court struck down a major part of the Patriot Act, in a blow to the Bush Administration’s overzealous response to terrorism. As I trace the history of the statute, this is quite inaccurate: the basic law was implemented in 1986, almost 20 years ago. To be fair, the Patriot Act did amend some language in this section; just not in a relevant way. As best I can tell, the court’s decision does not rely on or even address anything in the Patriot Act.”
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_09_28.shtml#1096522582