Bookseller Due Thanks for Resisting Patriot Act Excesses

Since the official launch of the Campaign for Reader Privacy (www.readerprivacy.com) on Tuesday, February 17, a number of local and national news organizations have reported on the grassroots effort to gather more than one million signatures on a petition calling for the restoration of safeguards for the privacy of bookstore and library records that were eliminated by Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. The following is an editorial that appeared in New Hampshire's Portsmouth Herald on February 24, 2004.

In our zeal for security after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, we have allowed our leaders to endanger some of our most sacred civil liberties.

We'd like to thank Tom Holbrook and the RiverRun Bookstore for bringing Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act to this region's attention. And we urge our readers to voice support for proposed amendments to Section 215 that aim to restore our jeopardized rights of free speech, privacy, and due process.

By sponsoring a petition drive at his bookstore, Holbrook is joining the American Booksellers Association, the American Library Association, the PEN American Center, and the American Civil Liberties Union in their efforts to amend Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

According to the library association, "Section 215 of the Patriot Act amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to give the FBI vastly expanded authority to search business records, including the records of bookstores and libraries: the FBI may request the records secretly; it is not required to prove that there is 'probable cause' to believe the person whose records are being sought has committed a crime; and the bookseller or librarian who receives an order is prohibited from revealing it to anyone except those whose help is needed to produce the records."

The ACLU has analyzed this section and believes investigators could also obtain your medical records, financial records, and other sensitive information without court approval. And you would never be notified.

It is no surprise that our civil liberties are under attack during this moment in our history when fear seems to be the dominant emotion. Many of the safeguards that the Patriot Act attacks were created after the Joseph McCarthy era, when a fear of communism gripped the country, and many innocent men and women had their lives ruined by a reckless senator from Wisconsin. Many of the other protections were put in place following the Watergate scandal in which Richard Nixon's abuses showed the danger of unchecked executive power.

Fortunately some in Congress are keeping their heads while those around them are using the terror attacks as an excuse to exercise unrestrained power.

We join with the book and library community, and with publishing houses across the nation in our support of the Freedom to Read Protection Act (H.R. 1157), the Library and Bookseller Protection Act (S. 1158), and the Library, Bookseller, and Personal Data Privacy Act (S. 1507).

Yes, we must physically protect our nation and its people. But we must never surrender the freedoms that define this nation. We must have the boldness to fight terror while upholding all our cherished freedoms.