Senate Bill Defends Reader Privacy by Regulating Surveillance

A bill introduced in the Senate September 17 would reform three provisions of the USA Patriot Act set to expire at the end of the year, as well as the FISA Amendments Act and other surveillance authorities, to safeguard the constitutional rights of Americans while also ensuring that the federal government has the necessary tools to fight terrorism.

“We welcome this legislation, which addresses provisions of the Patriot Act that we believe erode the public’s civil liberties,” American Library Association President Camila Alire said of the JUSTICE Act (Judiciously Using Surveillance Tools in Counterterrorism Efforts). “This bill would restore the balance between the needs of law enforcement and our privacy rights.”

“Three key sections of the Patriot Act are set to expire at the end of the year, and we are pleased to see Sens. Feingold and Durbin as well as Sens. Tester, Udall, Bingaman, Sanders, Akaka, and Wyden take this opportunity to conduct a comprehensive review of these surveillance tools,” Alire added. “We appreciate the sponsors of this bill for their efforts to correct what has been a long-standing issue for America’s libraries and our mission to protect patron privacy and other civil liberties.”

Introduced on Constitution Day, S.B. 1648 (PDF file) would reauthorize Section 215 of the Patriot Act, often referred to as the “library provision,” but with additional checks and balances. The bill would permit the government to obtain an order for records if investigators have reason to believe a specific individual has some connection to terrorism while also allowing the target of the investigation to challenge the use of the records. The bill would also provide judicial review of Section 215 orders.

Additionally, the Justice Act would address problems with National Security Letters and increase judicial review and public reporting on this surveillance tool—reforms urged by library groups and other civil-liberties advocates since Congress was considering the original Patriot Act in the days following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The Catch-22 nature of those provisions gained particular notoriety in 2005 and 2006 when four library professionals at Connecticut’s statewide Library Connection consortium challenged the constitutionality of a National Security Letter demanding all patrons’ computer records for a specified time, and placed a gag order on the recipients of the letter.

While the Obama administration has backed the reauthorization of all three sections of the Patriot Act, the Justice Department signaled in a September 14 letter (PDF file) to Sen. Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that the administration is open to discussing privacy-protection modifications. The committee will hold a hearing September 23 titled, “Reauthorizing the Patriot Act: Ensuring Liberty and Security.”

—Jenni Terry, ALA Washington Office;
and Beverly Goldberg, American Libraries;
Posted on September 18, 2009; corrected September 25, 2009.

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