LISNews: Librarian News

The ACLU Says A federal appeals court ruled yesterday on two constitutional challenges filed by the ACLU to the Patriot Act's National Security Letter (NSL) provision, saying in one of the cases that a district court should consider the constitutionality of the provision in light of recent amendments made by Congress.

"Two separate lower courts found the Patriot Act"s National Security Letter provision to be undemocratic and unconstitutional," said Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU attorney who argued the New York case before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. "We believe that recent amendments to the law make the provision worse, not better, and we are confident the district court will agree."

kmccook writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

George Washington U. to Receive Jack Anderson's Papers -- but FBI Wants to See Them First.

During his life and career as a muckraking journalist in Washington, Jack Anderson cultivated secret sources throughout the halls of government -- sources who passed on information that allowed Anderson to investigate and write about Watergate, CIA assassination schemes, and countless scandals. His syndicated column, Washington Merry-Go-Round, earned him the enmity of the corrupt and powerful -- so much so that during the Watergate years, associates of Nixon had discussed assassinating the columnist. They never went through with the plot. Anderson died last December at the age of 83.

His archive, some 200 boxes now being held by George Washington University's library, could be a trove of information about state secrets, dirty dealings, political maneuverings, and old-fashioned investigative journalism, open for historians and up-and-coming reporters to see.

But the government wants to see the documents before anyone else.

The FBI's interest in the Anderson archive is "deeply disturbing and deeply in conflict with the academy's interests in freedom of inquiry, research, and scholarship," said Duane E. Webster, the executive director of the Association of Research Libraries.

Jack Siggins, the university librarian, says the FBI's interest in the archive is 'an example of the pressure that libraries are under to change their fundamental philosophy -- which is, to provide the information to the people in order to let the people understand what is going on in their government.'""

The AP Reports: Federal prosecutors said Wednesday they will no longer seek to enforce a gag order on Connecticut librarians who received an FBI demand for records about library patrons under the Patriot Act.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought a lawsuit on behalf of the librarians, said it will identify them once court proceedings are completed in the next few weeks.

U.S. District Judge Janet Hall ruled last year that the gag order should be lifted, because it unfairly prevented the librarians from participating in a debate over how the Patriot Act should be rewritten.

Cstout writes: "In my efforts to find instances of direct cooperation between the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Civil Liberties Association (ACLU) I discovered Libraryprivacy.org. A joint project of the California Library Association and the ACLU of Southern California, the website is an excellent resource for libraries nationwide to take action against the USA PATRIOT Act.

"The groups, 'believe that these new powers violate the basic tenets of intellectual freedom, that library users should have the right to read free of surveillance, and that a high wall of privacy should be re-established around an individual's private library records.'

"Included on the site are links to articles about the impact of the PATRIOT Act on library privacy, resolutions against the act and a 'Take Action' section that calls for support of amending the Act to protect library use privacy. This is an excellent resource for us in the librarian profession concerned about the privacy and protection of our patrons.

"No one has ever proven that terrorists used library materials or equipment in support of their activities. What has been proven though, is that the Bush administration has no problem secretly spying on American Citizens. The PATRIOT Act just makes it easier. Let's help the ACLU in their efforts to protect our freedom."