American Library Association responds to Attorney General remarks on librarians and USA PATRIOT Act: A statement by ALA President Carla Hayden (Chicago) The American Library Association (ALA) has worked diligently for the past two years to increase awareness of a very complicated law – the USA PATRIOT Act – that was pushed through the legislative process at breakneck speed in the wake of a national tragedy. Because the Department of Justice has refused our requests for information about how many libraries have been visited by law enforcement officials using these new powers, we have focused on what the law allows. The PATRIOT Act gives law enforcement unprecedented powers of surveillance – including easy access to library records with minimal judicial oversight.
Among the many changes in U.S. law and practice enabled by the act is the federal government’s ability to override the historical protections of library reading records that exist in every state. States created these confidentiality laws to protect the privacy and freedoms Americans hold dear. These laws provide a clear framework for responding to national security concerns while safeguarding against random searches, fishing expeditions or invasions of privacy.
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Over the past two years, Americans have been told that only individuals directly involved in terrorism need be concerned. This is not what the law says. The act lowers the legal standard to “simple relevance” rather than the higher standard of “probable cause” required by the Fourth Amendment.
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And now Attorney General John Ashcroft says the FBI has no interest in Americans’ reading records. While this may be true, librarians have a history with law enforcement dating back to the McCarthy era that gives us pause. For decades, and as late as the 1980s, the FBI’s Library Awareness Program sought information on the reading habits of people from “hostile foreign countries,” as well as U.S. citizens who held unpopular political views.
We are deeply concerned that the Attorney General should be so openly contemptuous of those who seek to defend our Constitution. Rather than ask the nations’ librarians and Americans nationwide to “just trust him,” Ashcroft could allay concerns by releasing aggregate information about the number of libraries visited using the expanded powers created by the USA PATRIOT Act.
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http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=News&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=43991For more information, please visit www.ala.org/oif/ifissues/usapatriotact.
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