FBI Testifies It Spied on
Alleged Spy’s Library Use
The FBI is treating the 2001 library Internet session of a retired U.S. master sergeant as key evidence against Brian Patrick Regan, who is on trial for treason in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Agent Jason Williams testified February 3 that he followed Regan into the Crofton branch of the Anne Arundel (Md.) Public Library in June and witnessed him using a search engine to find and print out the addresses of the Iraqi and Libyan embassies in France, Germany, and Switzerland. Agents Ronald Good and William Wickman said they reconstructed Regan’s library Internet session on a separate occasion by clicking the back button of the computer Regan had been using as soon as he vacated the workstation. The agents’ actions took place four months before the enactment of the USA Patriot Act, which relaxes the requirements for obtaining a court order to examine library records.
When Regan was arrested August 23, 2001, at Dulles International Airport, he had with him the coordinates of two foreign missile facilities and a missile launch-preparation site, as well as the Swiss and Austrian addresses of the Chinese and Iraqi embassies.
If convicted, Regan, 40, could become the first U.S. citizen to be executed for espionage since Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were put to death in 1953 for attempting to pass classified U.S. atomic information to the Soviet Union.
Note: An earlier version of this story erroneously indicated that the USA Patriot Act allowed agents to request library records without a court order. For a summary of legal processes involved in requesting library records, see the ALA Washington Office Web site.
Posted February 10, 2003.
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