may05c.indd


Ber nadette Murphy W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n e  

The USA PATRIOT Act and libraries 
In the past few months, a large amount of 
attention has been paid, in the media and 
on Capitol Hill, to sections of the USA PA­
TRIOT Act, which are scheduled to sunset 
at the end of this year. ALA’s Washington 
Office has been actively involved in making 
the case that Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act 
should be allowed to sunset in December, 
or be modifi ed so that it does not intrude on 
reader privacy rights. 

But Justice Department offi cials continue 
to state that the USA PATRIOT Act does not 
mention libraries, implying that Section 215 
does not impact libraries. While it is true that 
libraries are not specifically mentioned, nei­
ther are any other specific institutions or enti­
ties. The USA PATRIOT Act broadly amended 
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 
order to permit the FBI to access “any tangible 
thing” from any entity. That plainly includes 
libraries and all library records, including 
those that detail the reading and viewing 
habits of library patrons. Previously, under 
Section 501 of FISA, the FBI had to name a 
person and give the FISA Court “reason to 
believe” that person was a suspected spy or 
terrorist. Now, they no longer have to meet 
that requirement, nor are they limited to 
specific entities or records in any way. The 
FBI needs only to inform the FISA Court that 
records are “sought” for an authorized intel­
ligence investigation. Together these changes 
in the law have created an unprecedented 
ability for the government to obtain highly 
personal information about Americans who 
are exercising their First Amendment right to 
read and access information. 

We take issue with the suggestion in the 
Justice Department report that ALA has called 
for the repeal of Section 215 of the USA PA­

Bernadette Murphy is communications specialist at ALA’s 
Washington Offi  ce, e-mail: bmurphy@alawash.org 

TRIOT Act. We have asked and will continue 
to ask for narrow changes that will better bal­
ance cherished First Amendment rights with 
the critical need to investigate terror. 

Justice Department officials have also 
continued to assert that libraries will become 
“safe havens for terrorists and spies,” if Sec­
tion 215 is modified. Libraries are not safe 
havens nor will they become so if the mod­
est safeguards to Section 215 included in the 
Security and Freedom Ensured Act (SAFE) (S. 
737) or the Security and Freedom Enhanced 
(H.R. 1526) are enacted. It doesn’t make 
sense for the Justice Department to claim 
on the one hand that Section 215 has not be 
used against libraries, and then on the other 
to claim that modest changes to the law will 
turn libraries into terrorist safe havens. The 
FBI has been using authority granted by other 
laws to access records in libraries and they 
will continue to have that authority if Section 
215 is modifi ed. 

The 1.2 billion users who visit America’s 
libraries every year need to be assured that 
they have the freedom to read and research 
without fear that their reading habits will be 
gathered up in an overly broad search. The 
ALA Washington Office continues to work to 
ensure that the government does not trample 
the rights of readers and library users. 

At ALA Annual Conference in June, the 
Washington Office will be releasing the results 
of a study that assesses the impact of the 
USA PATRIOT Act on America’s libraries and 
library patrons. Working with several teams 
of academic researchers, ALA has worked 
to quantify and examine contacts by fed­
eral law enforcement agencies in public and 
academic libraries. The survey results will 
provide much­needed information to inform 
the debate about law enforcement’s role in 
libraries and the effect that the law enforce­
ment activity is having on library users. We 
hope you’ll be on the lookout for survey data 
in Chicago this June. 

398C&RL News May 2005

mailto:bmurphy@alawash.org