The American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression filed an expedited Freedom of Information Act request August 21 demanding that the Department of Justice provide details of how it is using the antiterrorism powers granted by the USA Patriot Act.
Among the 14 categories of agency records sought in the request is the number of times the government has directed a library, bookstore, or newspaper to produce “tangible things,” such as the titles of books purchased or borrowed by an individual or the identity of individuals who have purchased or borrowed certain books.
Under the law, the government is required to respond to an expedited FOIA request within 10 calendar days. The groups have threatened a lawsuit if the department fails to make a timely response.
After the Justice Department refused to fulfill a similar request for information made by the House Judiciary Committee, the committee’s chair, Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), threatened to issue a subpoena to Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The committee sent a June 13 letter to Ashcroft asking, among other things, whether the FBI has used the act “to obtain records from a public library, bookstore, or newspaper.” Attorney General Daniel J. Bryant wrote the committee that some classified information would be provided to the House Intelligence Committee instead, the Washington Post reported August 21.
“It’s just been one thing after the other, stonewalling all the way,” a Senate staffer told the Post. “We’re not asking to post this stuff on the Internet or anything. . . . It just seems like they’re doing their best not to cooperate.”
Posted August 26, 2002.