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Libraries, Booksellers, and Writers Launch Drive to Challenge Patriot ActThe American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, and the PEN American Center launched a nationwide campaign February 17 to obtain 1 million signatures in support of legislation to scale back Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. The controversial provision allows the FBI to search library and bookstore records in terrorist investigations without publicly disclosing that it has done so. The Campaign for Reader Privacy will gather signatures in bookstores and libraries, and on its new website. The groups also released a statement of support for the legislation, signed by 40 organizations and 81 individual publishers. Alluding to a speech by Attorney General John Ashcroft last September accusing ALA and other administration critics of fueling “baseless hysteria,” ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom Director Judith F. Krug said, “Our concerns about privacy are far from hysterical. The federal government has attempted to monitor library records before and it seems inevitable that they will use Section 215 to try again.” Posted February 20, 2004. |
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