Challenges
As a safeguard, PAREA proposes to allow the third party from whom the records are sought -- say, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) -- to challenge the administrative subpoena in court. But there's no guarantee the ISP would bother to do so.
Going to court is costly, and if the third-parties don't bother, the customer will never know. (Indeed, the business is prohibited from notifying its customer of the existence of the subpoena.)
PAREA should be rejected, or substantially modified to allow review by a neutral judge (a federal judge, not an administrative judge).
The government has obtained a broad range of powers in intelligence investigations -- especially against foreigners, but also against U.S. citizens. Given the secrecy with which these investigations are conducted, their wide scope, and the lack of checks and balances, independent judicial review --requiring a factual premise and particularized suspicion for a subpoena to be authorized -- are the very minimum required to safeguard our liberty.
Anita Ramasastry is a FindLaw columnist and an associate professor of law at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle and a director of the Shidler Center for Law, Commerce and Technology.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/01/r...act2/index.html