Campaign for Reader Privacy Petition Drive to Continue Over Summer

Due to the enthusiasm and strong response from booksellers and librarians, ABA, the American Library Association, and PEN American Center -- the sponsors of the Campaign for Reader Privacy (www.readerprivacy.org) -- announced this week that Phase I of the petition drive will continue, and the presentation of signed petitions to Congress will be moved back to September 2004. The presentation had been scheduled for late June.

This deadline extension will allow petition drive participants to continue to take advantage of CRP's remarkable momentum and collect that many more signatures over the summer. Already, booksellers have collected well over 120,000 signatures in the petition drive.

"Based on anecdotal information we've received from participants, booksellers and librarians want to keep circulating petitions -- we have heard countless stories of customers actually thanking them for making the petition available," said Oren Teicher, ABA COO. "So we are urging booksellers who have been collecting signatures in this crucial effort, to continue to do so. And for those booksellers who have yet to join, this is the perfect opportunity to do so now."

Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) receives signatures from ABA COO Oren Teicher. Chris Finan, ABFFE president, is at right.

During BookExpo America, over 1,200 signatures collected at Illinois bookstores were presented to Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL). (To read about this event, click here.) Durbin is a co-sponsor of legislation that aims to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. In October 2003, Durbin, along with Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), and other co-sponsors, introduced the Security and Freedom Ensured Act (SAFE, S. 1709). The legislation would amend parts of the USA Patriot Act, including Section 215, a provision that gives law enforcement officials broad authority to obtain citizens' medical, business, and bookstore and library records without probable cause.

For answers to frequently asked questions about the bookstore drive to collect customer signatures, click here.

Booksellers can order additional petition pads by calling ABA's Information Department at (800) 637-0037, ext. 1292 or 1293, or for a downloadable PDF of the petition, click here.

To help participating booksellers garner press coverage for the petition drive, ABA has created a press release template that bookstores can use to bring the campaign to the attention of their local media. To access the sample release, click here.

To read about independent booksellers' efforts in the campaign, click here. --David Grogan