The ACLU calls for transparency in the government's defense of the PATRIOT Act: The government is using gag orders and secret evidence to keep the public in the dark about its use of the Patriot Act to investigate Americans, the American Civil Liberties Union said today. In two legal challenges to controversial provisions of the Patriot Act brought by the ACLU and other groups, the government has filed secret evidence that it is refusing to disclose to the public and even to the attorneys in the case. "Our system of justice does not and should not tolerate the use of secret evidence in deciding important constitutional questions, which is why this tactic has been repeatedly rejected by the courts," said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson. Today, in its challenge to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the ACLU filed a motion to exclude classified portions of a government affidavit that were provided only to the court. The government has asked the court to consider this secret evidence in deciding whether to dismiss the ACLU’s constitutional challenge to the law. The lawsuit, filed in Detroit in July 2003, challenges the FBI’s unprecedented power under Section 215 to access medical, library and other private records without a subpoena or a warrant based on probable cause. The judge has not yet ruled on the government’s pending motion to dismiss the case. In the second case, filed in New York in April of this year, the ACLU is challenging the FBI’s authority to use National Security Letters to demand sensitive customer records from Internet Service Providers and other businesses without judicial oversight. Here, the government has submitted a secret affidavit without providing any justification for the secrecy or any indication of the nature or scope of the evidence.