The Patriot Act and Library Records
by TChris
The Bush administration assures us that it hasn't abused the powers conferred by the Patriot Act, including those that allow the government to review library records. At the same time, it's trying to prevent a nonprofit library organization from revealing its identity as the recipient of an FBI request for its patron information. Assisted by the ACLU, the organization won the first round of its battle to tell the public what the FBI is doing.
Judge Janet C. Hall ... found that the government fell short in meeting the heavy burden of proof needed to argue that national security interests warrant ignoring the organization's First Amendment right to free speech.
A footnote to the decision reveals that the FBI has demanded library records many times. The administration's position has always been, "don't worry, we really don't use that Patriot Act power." A Connecticut library organization hopes to tell the country that the FBI is, indeed, poking into the reading habits of its patrons. Judge Hall correctly concluded that the organization has an interest in publicly identifying itself as the recipient of the FBI's demand for records.
In siding with the organization, Judge Hall said she was convinced that it had unique firsthand experience about the Patriot Act that it ought to be able to share publicly and would have greater authority in the debate if it spoke for itself, rather than had others speak for it. She stated that its "speech would be made more powerful by its ability to put a 'face' " on the debate and by the public's awareness that the speaker was known to have received a request for library records under the antiterrorism law.
She wrote that "the statute has the practical effect of silencing those who have the most intimate knowledge of the statute's effect and a strong interest in advocating against the federal government's broad investigative powers." It creates a situation where "the very people who might have information regarding investigative abuses and overreaching are peremptorily prevented from sharing that information with the public."
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