A recent survey of public and academic libraries in Illinois indicates that none have been visited by FBI agents looking for records under the auspices of the USA Patriot Act since September 2001. The results also show that few of the nearly 600 libraries responding to the online survey, conducted in September and November by the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, have adopted formal guidelines for dealing with a search warrant or subpoena from law enforcement.
The findings tend to corroborate U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s statement in September that “the number of times Section 215 [of the Patriot Act] has been used to date is zero.”
LRC Director Leigh Estabrook said in the December 18 Chicago Tribune that most librarians are waiting to see what will happen with the Patriot Act, passed six weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks, in the light of legal challenges and proposed legislation to modify the act. But with only 29.3% of Illinois public libraries and 16% of Illinois academic libraries reporting the adoption of guidelines for FBI visits, she added, “Maybe we need to communicate to librarians that employees need to be trained in how to respond to such requests should the need arise.”
Estabrook told American Libraries that the response rate to this survey was nearly 90%—compared to the 60% obtained in the LRC’s national survey in October 2002, which found that 178 libraries reported visits from the FBI in the previous year. She cautioned that although the LRC surveys were anonymous, librarians might be reluctant to admit law-enforcement contacts because of the Patriot Act’s prohibition on reporting them.
A survey of California libraries conducted in the summer revealed that 16 libraries in the state had been contacted informally by the FBI.
Posted December 19, 2003.