USA PATRIOT Act extension one step closer

The House voted to make 14 out of 16 USAPA provisions permanent yesterday. The bill — HR 3199 –that they approved also proposed 10 year extensions to our favorite section, Section 215, with an interesting change.

One amendment, passed by a 402-26 vote, requires the FBI director to personally approve any request for library or bookstore records.

Open CRS and USAPA

I read a mailing list called Secrecy News via RSS. One of the things they frequently link to are Congressional Research Service reports. These produce some of the best research out there on various important topics. They are public domain content and are free as in beer. However it’s often easier to find these documents via fee-based services than out on the open web despite web sites like Open CRS. There is a newish report that should be required reading for all librarians: Libraries and the USA PATRIOT Act, originally published in February 2003 now updated for July 2005.

color me unsuprised, law enforcement do ask about patron reading habits

Libraries Say Yes, Officials Do Quiz Them About Users, in the NY Times today, according to the results of a recent ALA survey. While this is not evidence of USA PATRIOT Act abuses per se, it points to increasing concern on the part of law enforcement of what people are reading [the article points to a cases of libraries being asked for a list of patrons who had checked out a book about Osama bin Laden] in ways that compromise state library privacy laws. As of this morning, ALA has missed a chance to capitalize on this good press by having anything at all mentioning this study on the front page of their web site, pity.

Ms. Sheketoff at the [American] library association acknowledged that critics of the study may accuse the group of having a stake in the outcome of the Patriot Act debate. “Sure, we have a dog in this fight, but the other side has been mocking us for four years over our ‘baseless hysteria,’ and saying we have no reason to be concerned,” she said. “Well, these findings say that we do have reason to be concerned.”

Thank you Bernie Sanders

I try to explain to people why I stay in a state with difficult technology access and a lot of teeny tiny libraries that don’t pay very well [and only a few that do]. One of the main reasons is that all three of my national-level representatives are not disagreeable to me. Today Bernie Sanders managed to pass legislation in the House which would amend section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and prohibit government agents from using FISA warrants to obtain records from libraries and bookstores. My two senators are trying to pass similar legislation in the Senate. Of course keep in mind that one of the reasons, according to Alberto Gonzales, that the Department of Justice hasn’t had to use the USAPA more is because they have been getting “voluntary co-operation from librarians” which is a different sort of problem. [liblaw]