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Groups Question Justice Department
Several public interest organizations filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act in August in an attempt to find out how the U.S. Justice Department is using its newly expanded authority to monitor library and bookstore records. The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center made the request after the Justice Department refused to give the House Judiciary Committee a thorough accounting of how it is implementing numerous provisions of the USA Patriot Act. Among the provisions of the sweeping antiterrorist law, passed by Congress in October 2001, is one allowing federal agents to search and subpoena circulation records, sales records, Internet-use logs, and computer hard drives, and another prohibiting libraries and booksellers from revealing that records were searched.
Agents must get permission to conduct such searches from a special court, but are required to show only that they believe the records may be relevant to ongoing investigations related to terrorism or intelligence activities, even if the patron whose records are being searched is not a suspect. The act overrides state laws protecting library records, many of which require law enforcement agents to meet the higher legal standard of showing "probable cause" that a crime has been committed.
"This strikes at the heart of librarianship, and we're going to do everything we can to protect our patrons' privacy," says Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association's intellectual freedom office. "In this country, you're permitted to read just to fulfill your curiosity—if your interest in a topic translates into an illegal action, there are mechanisms to deal with that, but what you read is your own business," she adds.
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