The House Judiciary Committee wrote to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft June 13 asking whether the FBI has used the USA Patriot Act of 2001 “to obtain records from a public library, bookstore, or newspaper.” Although Reps. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) gave Ashcroft until July 9 to respond to 50 questions about the act’s implementation, the answer arrived in a mid-June barrage of news coverage.
The Associated Press reported June 24 that, as of February, the FBI had asked 85 libraries in large urban areas for patron information related to the September 11 terrorist attacks, according to a study conducted by Leigh Estabrook and Ed Lakner of the University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign library school’s Library Research Center. The study did not identify specific institutions, however; Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act includes a gag order on library workers—a provision that San Francisco–based ACLU attorney Ann Brick characterized as “a stunning assault” on the First Amendment, the San Francisco Chronicle reported June 23. In a June 26 appearance on CNN’s Crossfire, ALA Washington Office Director Emily Sheketoff noted, “It is going to be very hard for this to be tested in the courts” because librarians “can’t tell anybody [and] the person whose records have been requested doesn’t know.”
However, Paterson (N.J.) Public Library Director Cindy Czesak revealed in the June 26 Bergen Record that FBI agents had visited there seeking patron information. When they discovered that PPL does not have a computer sign-in sheet, Czesak said they exclaimed, “We know who borrows the books, so why don’t we know who uses the computers?” Investigators have connected three of the alleged airline hijackers to the city of Paterson, according to the Record.
ALA has added guidelines for libraries contacted under the USA Patriot Act to its recommendations for cooperating with law enforcement without violating patron confidentiality.
Posted July 1, 2002.