Setback for CT Librarians Under Patriot Act

deborah writes “Justice Ginsburg, discussing need to “act with caution”, refuses to lift the gag order against the CT library group (identified as Library Connection) which has received a National Security Letter under the Patriot Act.”

October 9, 2005 by Librarians Libraries

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1 Response

  1. Daniel says:
    October 10, 2005 at 3:13 am

    Bush Adminstration lost an opportunity
    Given that the current motto of the government is “The innocent have nothing to hide”, you’d think they’d be willing to let the CT librarian speak, at least on limited terms.

    After all, if the gov’t ISN’T looking for the people who’ve read a certain book AND the investigation is REALLY about terrorism, you’d think the DOJ would be falling all over itself to say, “See, even when we use USAPA, it’s not to check up on reading habits and we’re only using it in terror cases.”

    Any hope they had of keeping the investigation secret from their targets evaporated as soon as CT was named as the state in the lawsuits. Unless criminals never read news, they’re not using the library. Assuming of course, that the targets are actually criminals and not people targeted for their background or by some book they were seen reading.

    If there ever was a legitimate investigative need, that need has passed. Now we have question why the gov’t won’t let this case be discussed. I think it’s fair to speculate that if the facts of the case were made public, it would not be helpful to renewing USAPA.

    Disclosure Now!

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