[Peace-discuss] Fw: Freedom to Read Protection Act

[Lisa Chason]

An Assistant Attorney General has said that people lose their right to 
privacy when they buy books or borrow them from a public library. Librarians 
are trying to let Americans know about their loss of rights under the Patriot 
Act.  Congressional legislation called the Freedom to Read Protection Act, 
which would rollback the provisions of the Patriot Act pertaining to 
libraries, has been introduced.  
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/10/MN14634.DTL

San Francisco Chronicle

Libraries post Patriot Act warnings 
Santa Cruz branches tell patrons that FBI may spy on them 

Bob Egelko, Maria Alicia Gaura, Chronicle Staff Writers 

Monday, March 10, 2003  

Along with the usual reminders to hold the noise down and pay overdue fines, 
library patrons in Santa Cruz are seeing a new type of sign these days: a 
warning that records of the books they borrow may wind up in the hands of 
federal agents. 

The signs, posted in the 10 county branches last week and on the library's 
Web site, also inform the reader that the USA Patriot Act "prohibits library 
workers from informing you if federal agents have obtained records about 
you." 

"Questions about this policy," patrons are told, "should be directed to 
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. 
20530." 

Library goers were swift to denounce the act's provisions. 

"It's none of their business what anybody's reading," said Cathy Simmons of 
Boulder Creek. "It's counterproductive to what libraries are all about." 

"I'm not reading anything they'd be particularly interested in, but that's 
not the point," said Ari Avraham of Santa Cruz. "This makes me think of Big 
Brother." 

The Justice Department says libraries have become a logical target of 
surveillance in light of evidence that some Sept. 11 hijackers used library 
computers to communicate with each other. 

But the signs ordered by the Santa Cruz library board -- a more elaborate 
version of warnings posted in several libraries around the nation -- are 
adding to the heat now being generated by a once-obscure provision of the 
Patriot Act. 

Section 215 of the act allows FBI agents to obtain a warrant from a secret 
federal court for library or bookstore records of anyone connected to an 
investigation of international terrorism or spying. 

Unlike conventional search warrants, there is no need for agents to show that 
the target is suspected of a crime or possesses evidence of a crime. As the 
Santa Cruz signs indicate, the law prohibits libraries and bookstores from 
telling their patrons, or anyone else, that the FBI has sought the records. 

The provision was virtually unnoticed when the Patriot Act, a major expansion 
of government search and surveillance authority, was passed by Congress six 
weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But in the last year, Section 215 
has roused organizations of librarians and booksellers into a burst of 
political activity, and is being cited increasingly by critics as an example 
of the new law's intrusiveness. 


SANDERS' REPEAL BILL

Even as a leaked copy of a Bush administration proposal to expand the Patriot 
Act was circulating, Rep. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., introduced a bill last 
week to repeal the library and bookstore provisions -- the first bill in the 
House, and the second in Congress, seeking to roll back any part of the 
Patriot Act. 

Sanders, who voted against the Patriot Act, said he decided to target a 
"particularly onerous" provision that affects large numbers of people. His 
Freedom to Read Protection Act would allow library and bookstore searches 
only if federal agents first showed they were likely to find evidence of a 
crime. 

The bill's 23 co-sponsors include four Bay Area Democrats -- Reps. Barbara 
Lee of Oakland, Lynn Woolsey of Petaluma, Sam Farr of Carmel and Pete Stark 
of Fremont. 

The Bush administration has refused to say how it has used Section 215 -- 
prompting a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by library and bookseller 
organizations -- and has made few public comments on the issue. One statement 
by a high-ranking Justice Department official, however, may have 
inadvertently helped to fuel the rollback efforts. 

In a letter to an inquiring senator, Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bryant 
said Americans who borrow or buy books surrender their right of privacy. 

A patron who turns over information to the library or bookstore "assumes the 
risk that the entity may disclose it to another," Bryant, the Justice 
Department's chief of legislative affairs, said in a letter to Sen. Patrick 
Leahy, D-Vt. 


'INHERENTLY LIMITED' RIGHT

He said an individual's right of privacy in such records is "inherently 
limited" and is outweighed by the government's need for the information, if 
the FBI can show it is relevant to an "investigation to protect against 
international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." 

Bryant's letter, dated Dec. 23, was slow to surface publicly but is now being 
held up by library and bookstore associations as evidence of the menace of 
government surveillance. 

"Bookstore customers buy books with the expectation that their privacy will 
be protected," said the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, 
which represents independent bookstores. "If (Bryant) is in any doubt about 
this, he can ask Kenneth Starr, who outraged the nation by trying to subpoena 
Monica Lewinsky's book purchases." 

"I find it profoundly disturbing that an assistant attorney general asserts 
that we have lost the right to privacy in that kind of information," said 
Deborah Stone, deputy director of the American Library Association's Office 
for Intellectual Freedom. "The republic was founded on the premise that you 
don't have to share your thoughts." 

Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said Bryant was merely pointing out 
that patrons voluntarily turn over information to libraries and bookstores 
and shouldn't be surprised if others learn about it. Corallo also said the 
provisions pose no threat to ordinary Americans, only to would-be terrorists. 

Before demanding records from a library or bookstore under the Patriot Act, 
he said, "one has to convince a judge that the person for whom you're seeking 
a warrant is a spy or a member of a terrorist organization. The idea that any 
American citizen can have their records checked by the FBI, that's not true." 


U.S. DECIDES WHO IS TERRORIST

Once the government decides someone is a terrorist, Corallo said, "We would 
want to know what they're reading. They may be trying to get information on 
infrastructure. They may be looking in the public library for information 
that would allow them to plan operations." 

Responding to such positions, the leaders of the 64,000-member American 
Library Association passed a resolution in January calling the Patriot Act 
provisions "a present danger to the constitutional rights and privacy rights 
of library users" and urging Congress to change the law. 

And while the views of individual librarians are apparently more varied than 
those of their association, a recent nationwide survey found that most felt 
the Patriot Act went too far. 

Nearly 60 percent of the 906 librarians who replied to a University of 
Illinois questionnaire between October and January believed that the law's 
so- called gag order -- which prohibits libraries from disclosing that the 
FBI has requested their records -- was unconstitutional. 

Asked if they would defy an agent's nondisclosure order, 5.5 percent said 
they definitely would, and another 16.1 percent said they probably would -- 
even though the law makes such defiance a crime. 

In Santa Cruz, where library officials are trying to stir up patrons about 
the Patriot Act, chief librarian Anne Turner has found a more subtle way to 
sidestep the gag order, if she ever faces one. 

"At each board meeting I tell them we have not been served by any (search 
warrants)," she said. "In any months that I don't tell them that, they'll 
know. " 

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