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Patriot Act causes libraries to review records
By Dana Hull
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

Attached to each staff phone in the Berkeley Public Library is a dark pink laminated card advising employees on how to handle subpoenas.

"If a person comes to you to serve a subpoena on the library, say that you are not in a position to act on it," the card reads. "Do not attempt to give them the information they are looking for."

Librarians in Berkeley and across the country are increasingly concerned that federal agents will use the USA Patriot Act -- an anti-terrorism bill signed nearly a year ago -- to demand patron circulation records and Internet logs. On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee released the Justice Department's answers to a series of questions about the Patriot Act, including how many times federal investigators have obtained records from public libraries and bookstores. But the Justice Department declined to provide many details, saying the information is classified. FBI agents seized two computers from a Delray Beach, Fla., library because some of the Sept. 11 hijackers are believed to have used public computers to communicate. "I believe in privacy, but if we know that someone has committed a crime, we're not going to sit by and not say anything," said Kathleen Hensman, a reference librarian who remembers talking to the hijackers in the summer of 2001. "I would do it again, Patriot Act or not."

posted by An Old Curmudgeon 4:14 AM