We still very much need librarians to attend the event – all other details, including the time, remain the same. Please RSVP to Bernadette Murphy if you plan to attend.

Please circulate this notice to your lists.

Thank you.

ALA and ACLU are holding a PATRIOT Act event on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, September 27th to ask the Justice Department to "Let John Doe Speak!" and we need your help. After a press conference we will deliver thousands of petitions to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asking him to lift the gag order in ACLU v. Gonzales, allowing John Doe to participate in the PATRIOT Act debate.We very much need DC-area librarians to attend the event. We want to illustrate the ways the PATRIOT Act has silenced the library community and will hand out pieces of tape with which librarians may choose to cover their mouths to represent the gag imposed on John Doe.

Event Details:

• When: Wednesday, September 28th
• Where: Capitol Hill, specific location TBA. We will notify attendees of the location ASAP.

Speakers:
Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), ACLU Attorney Ann Beeson, representing John Doe in ACLU v. Gonzales, Leslie Burger, President-Elect of the American Library Association, and Alice Knapp, President of the Connecticut Library Association.

RSVP:
Please RSVP by sending an email to Bernadette Murphy if you plan to attend. Please distribute this notice widely - the more librarians, the better!

Background:
On September 9th, a federal judge in Connecticut ordered the FBI to lift a gag that is preventing the ACLU's client -- a member of the American Library Association with library records -- from discussing critical information of urgent and immediate relevance to the PATRIOT Act debate. As of this hour, ACLU's client "John Doe" stands in silence. John Doe has critical, first-hand knowledge about the FBI's use of National Security Letters to demand library records -- and is eager to share that information with the public and Congress. John Doe could speak right now if the Justice Department would lift the gag. With the future of the PATRIOT Act hanging in the balance, lifting the gag is the right thing to do.

I Can't Attend - How Else Can I Help?
You can do your part to let the Justice Department and Congress know how important this right to speak is. Go to: http://action.aclu.org/letjohndoespeak and sign the petition.

ACLU has a privacy policy on all of their action alerts, which you can read by clicking on the link. They also have two clickable boxes that you can click to OPT OUT of any future communications from ACLU, if you wish.

ALAWON, ISSN 1069-7799

ALAWON Editor:
Bernadette Murphy

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