USA PATRIOT ACT

The USA PATRIOT ACThas been threatening the library world since it was past in haste a mere fourty-five days after the Sept. 11 attacks. What is so frightening about this legislation is that it eliminates the checks and balances needed to protect many of our rights. Effecting libraries most is Title II, Section 215 which allows the director of the FBI, and basically anyone else he assigns, to apply for a court order requiring a library or any such facility (even a bookstore) to produce whatever tangible documents they request without a warrant or probably cause. In a book titled Lost Liberties: Ashcroft and the Assault on Personal Freedom by Cynthia Brown a study is mentioned, done by the University of Illionois’s Library Research Center revealing that “in the year since the September 11 attacks, federal and local law enforcement agancies visited at least 543 libraries to requestinformation on patrons. Approximately 10 percent of the requests that were reported referenced Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT ACT.” (45) What is even more disturbing are reports that our government have been less
than honest regarding this law. Check it out.
-C