Libraries and the USA PATRIOT Act: Values in Conflict

Abstract

ABSTRACT The USA PATRIOT Act (USAPA) celebrated its sixth anniversary in 2007 as an omnibus measure for granting expanded authority to federal officials for monitoring and intercepting communications in all formats. The great majority of USAPA is now permanent law, with only two of its original 16 sections operating under sunset clauses. One of those sections is the controversial 215, which grants greater access to “any tangible item” via Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) request procedures. Librarians interpreted that clause to include their records on patron activity and have therefore vigorously protested the federal government's challenge to their professional ethics and their patrons' privacy. It is a measure of their successful resistance that Section 215 remains open to review until 31 December 2009 and that the federal government felt obliged to specifically cite libraries as exempt from being issued National Security Letters (NSL). It is a measure of how far libraries have yet to go that the federal government still claims libraries are not “electronic communication service providers” and therefore not eligible to be served with NSLs, a position not held by any other concerned entity. As in so many other aspects of American culture since 11 September 2001, the struggle between individual liberties and national security continues.