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Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 14:15:25 -0400
From: "ALAWASH E-MAIL" <[log in to unmask]>
To: ALA Washington Office Newsline <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [ALA-WO:151] Contact Senators - urge support of S1389
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ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 14, Number 71
July 25, 2005

In This Issue: Contact your Senators and Urge them to support
additional changes to S 1389 (USA PATRIOT Improvement and
Reauthorization Act) that would protect patron privacy.

Background: 
On July 21, 2005 the Senate Judiciary Committtee approved S. 1389. 
The bill was passed unanimously by the Committee that morning. 
There is some possibility that the bill may be considered by
Congress this week before the August recess. We will alert you if
we learn it is going to the Floor this week.

Action Needed:
Call your Senators and urge them to support additional changes to
S. 1389 that will further ensure the privacy of library patrons'

If the bill does not go to the Floor this week, during the
August recess visit your district office and approach your
Senators at any public event to urge them to support privacy
for library patron records.

Write a letter or opinion piece to your local newspaper
describing the changes that need to be made to S. 1389 to
strengthen the protection of  library patron privacy.
        
        
        Talking Points:

Sunset provisions ensure that the area covered by those
provisions are forced onto the congressional agenda and
ensure the frequent review required to safeguard civil
liberties. Therefore we urge Congress to oppose any effort to
lengthen the 4 -year sunset provision currently in the
legislation.

We support section 7 which raises the standard for Section
215 orders beyond that currently in the USA PATRIOT Act.
Section 7 requires:

                        
1. A factual basis for a request to the FISA Court
that shows the records sought pertain to a foreign power
or agent of a foreign power (spy or terrorist); are
relevant to the activities of a suspected agent of a
foreign power who is the subject of an authorized
investigation; or pertain to an individual in contact
with, or known to, a suspected agent of a foreign power.
The records must be described "with sufficient
particularity to permit them to be fairly defined."  The
bill requires the Director or Deputy Director of the FBI
to give prior written approval to a FISA Court request
for library circulation records and library patron
lists.
        
2. Grants recipients of the FISA order the right to
consult an attorney and to disclose the order to "any
person necessary to produce the tangible things"
                        
3. Grants recipients of Section 215 orders the
right to challenge them and their gag orders in the FISA
Court by filing a petition. This provision is not
everything we would want: the only grounds for setting
aside or modifying the order would be its "lawfulness."
        
                        
4. Provides for unclassified reporting on the use
of Section 215 orders including the number of requests
for orders, the number of orders granted, and when the
application or order involved the production of tangible
things from a library.
        
We support strengthening the basis for setting aside the Section
215 orders (e.g. scope) and their gag orders. We support
strengthening the grounds for issuance of a Section 215 order to
say that the FBI is required to show reason to believe that the
person whose record are sought is a foreign power or agent of a
foreign power.
        

Finally, we are very concerned about the use of National
Security Letters.  Section 8 of this bill would give
recipients the right to challenge the gag order in an
appropriate U.S. District Court. However, there is still no
"reason to believe" standard for the issuance of these orders
- the FBI can issue them internally and does not even need to
demonstrate that the person who is the subject of the Letter
is "a foreign power or agent of a foreign power." We support
strengthening the standard for issuance.
        
******
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ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403,
Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478
toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; Web site:
http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff.
Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Don
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Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick
Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell.
ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.