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A federal judge struck down parts of the revised USA Patriot Act on Thursday, saying investigators must have a court’s approval before they can order Internet providers to turn over records without telling customers.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said the government orders must be subject to meaningful judicial review and that the recently rewritten Patriot Act “offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers.”

In 2004, ruling on the initial version of the Patriot Act, the judge said the letters violate the Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. He found that the nondisclosure requirement - under which an Internet service provider, for instance, would not be allowed to tell customers that it was turning over their records to the government - violated free speech.

This is good but it could be overturned in appeal. This was one of the more egregious unconstitutional parts of the PATRIOT Act. An FBI agent could issue an NSL, created out of thin air without anyones authority but his own, written on the back of a matchbook, and then decide if the recipient could even talk about what was going on. No OK from the Attorney General or a judge. Just instant search warrant and gag order. Now we need the rest of the Act struck down. Like the part that allows the government, with an order from a judge, to break into your home when you’re out, steal your things, place bugs in our bedroom and make it look like your house was broken into without telling you or the police. It also allows the government to withhold for up to six months that its agents where the ones that did it.

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