CRP Calls for Booksellers to Help in Final Push to Amend Patriot Act

The U.S. House and Senate conferees are scheduled to meet in the fall to reconcile their two very different bills regarding Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. With the Senate version of the Patriot Act legislation offering greater safeguards to reader privacy, ABA is strongly urging booksellers to intensify their efforts to collect signatures on the Campaign for Reader Privacy petitions over the coming weeks and to send in the signed petitions they already have.

"We're in the final, critical weeks in our effort to make sure that the Patriot Act reauthorization bill signed by President Bush this fall includes protections for reader privacy," said ABA COO Oren Teicher. "[ABA and its partners in the Campaign for Reader Privacy (CRP)] plan to do everything we can to ensure that the Senate version of the bill will be adopted when the conference committee meets this fall."

Teicher noted, "We are strongly urging booksellers to redouble their efforts to collect signatures on Campaign for Reader Privacy petitions over the coming weeks. We are also asking booksellers to send ABA the signed petitions they already have. In the next few weeks, we will be setting up meetings with as many committee conferees as we can, and the petitions are a very concrete demonstration that the readers of America demand the right to read freely."

Last week, ABA and its co-sponsors in CRP -- the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, and PEN American Center -- warned that final action on the reauthorization of the Patriot Act could come only days after Congress returns from its August recess, as there have been reports that President Bush hopes to sign the reauthorization act on the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

CRP is also urging supporters to ask their House representatives to consider adding their names to a letter that Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is circulating. The letter calls on the conferees who will reconcile the House and Senate versions of the reauthorization bill to adopt the provisions of S. 1389. The Sanders letter, which is co-authored by Representatives C.L. "Butch" Otter (R-ID), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ron Paul (R-TX), and Tom Udall (D-NM), says, in part, "We believe that the changes in S. 1389 provide greater safeguards to Americans' library and bookstore records and reflect the desire of a majority of House members, who voted 238-187 on June 15th to provide greater privacy protections for readers." (For a related article in this week's BTW, go to news.bookweb.org/read/3729.)

For more information about the Campaign for Reader Privacy and Section 215 of the Patriot Act, go to www.bookweb.org/read/7679.

The Campaign is also urging its supporters to contact the members of the Senate who have been chosen as conferees on the re-authorization bill. They are Arlen Specter (R-PA), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Michael DeWine (R-OH), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and Carl Levin (D-MI). The House has not chosen conferees yet.

Contact information for House members can be found at www.house.gov/writerep/ and for members of the Senate at www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

For more information about the Campaign for Reader Privacy, go to www.bookweb.org/read/7679.