Is Someone Reading Over Your Shoulder?
One of the (unintended?) consequences of the rush to pass the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001 received a smattering of attention last year when the librarians, independent booksellers, and various other groups rallied support for the Freedom to Read Protection Act.
You may recall that in July, a majority of the members of the House of Representatives voted to cut off funds for bookstore and library searches under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Unfortunately, that result was wiped out when extraordinary political pressure was used to force enough members of Congress to change their votes.
Destinations Booksellers is proud to join the effort to restore the privacy safeguards stripped from our civil liberties by the hasty inclusion of this provision in the act and the failure to exempt library and bookstore records from its effects. The Freedom to Read Protection Act restores the requirement that federal law enforcement agencies demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe the individual whose (library and bookstore) records being sought (under Section 215) is involved in espionage or terrorism-related activities.
Section 215 significantly expanded the government's power to seize business records, even the records of individuals not suspected of terrorism or any other crime, by using orders from a secret foreign intelligence court; a bookstore or library receiving such an order has no legal avenue to challenge the seizures and is barred by a gag order from informing anyone that the records have been searched.
We invite you to join our patrons in signing a petition that seeks changes in the law to prohibit bookstore and library searches under Section 215. If you like, you may sign the petition online at
http://www.readerprivacy.org/.
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DID YOU KNOW: Although it's a clever, evocative shorthand designation that most people think of as a patriotic "Patriot" Act, the entire law is actually the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, and it is scheduled to expire under the terms of its emergency passage in 2001. Although we're not offering you a petition to join us, we lean toward letting the act expire and replacing it with a law that gives adequate protection to our civil liberties.
Oh yeah, here's what the acronym really stands for:
Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.
Cute, huh?
You may recall that in July, a majority of the members of the House of Representatives voted to cut off funds for bookstore and library searches under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Unfortunately, that result was wiped out when extraordinary political pressure was used to force enough members of Congress to change their votes.
Destinations Booksellers is proud to join the effort to restore the privacy safeguards stripped from our civil liberties by the hasty inclusion of this provision in the act and the failure to exempt library and bookstore records from its effects. The Freedom to Read Protection Act restores the requirement that federal law enforcement agencies demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe the individual whose (library and bookstore) records being sought (under Section 215) is involved in espionage or terrorism-related activities.
Section 215 significantly expanded the government's power to seize business records, even the records of individuals not suspected of terrorism or any other crime, by using orders from a secret foreign intelligence court; a bookstore or library receiving such an order has no legal avenue to challenge the seizures and is barred by a gag order from informing anyone that the records have been searched.
We invite you to join our patrons in signing a petition that seeks changes in the law to prohibit bookstore and library searches under Section 215. If you like, you may sign the petition online at
http://www.readerprivacy.org/.
---------------------------------------------------
DID YOU KNOW: Although it's a clever, evocative shorthand designation that most people think of as a patriotic "Patriot" Act, the entire law is actually the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, and it is scheduled to expire under the terms of its emergency passage in 2001. Although we're not offering you a petition to join us, we lean toward letting the act expire and replacing it with a law that gives adequate protection to our civil liberties.
Oh yeah, here's what the acronym really stands for:
Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.
Cute, huh?
posted by All4Word at 11:51 AM
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