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the FBI had actually attempted to use the Patriot Act to get information from li-
braries. The ACLU sought an emergency court order that would have allowed rep-
resentatives of the Library Connection to tell Congress that they had received a Na-
tional Security Letter. In September 2005, a district court judge in Connecticut ruled
that the National Security Letter's gag order violated the First Amendment to the
US Constitution, but the executive branch continued to enforce it. In April 2006,
six weeks after Congress had reauthorized the Patriot Act, the FBI dropped the gag
order and its demand for the information. The ACLU hailed the government's deci-
sion as a victory “not just for librarians but for all Americans who value their pri-
vacy” [45].
Critics of the Patriot Act warn that its provisions give too many powers to the federal
government. Despite language in the Patriot Act to the contrary, civil libertarians are
concerned that law enforcement agencies may use their new powers to reduce the rights
of law-abiding Americans, particularly those rights expressed in the First and Fourth
Amendments to the United States Constitution.
First Amendment rights center around the freedom of speech and the free exercise
of religion. We have seen that in the past, the FBI and the NSA used illegal wiretaps to
investigate people who had expressed unpopular political views. In November 2003, the
ACLU reported that public apprehension about the Patriot Act had led to a significant
drop in attendance and donations at mosques [46].
Critics maintain that other provisions of the Patriot Act undermine the right against
unreasonable searches and seizures guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment:
.
The Patriot Act allows police to install Internet pen registers without demonstrating
probable cause that the suspect is engaged in a criminal activity. By revealing the
URLs of Web sites visited by a suspect, a pen register is a much more powerful
surveillance tool on the Internet than it is on a telephone network.
.
The Patriot Act allows for court orders authorizing roving surveillance that do not
“particularly describe the place to be searched.”
.
It allows law enforcement agencies, under certain circumstances, to search homes
and seize evidence without first serving a search warrant.
.
It allows the FBI to obtain—without showing probable cause—a warrant authoriz-
ing the seizure of business, medical, educational, and library records of suspects.
The Council of the American Library Association passed a resolution on the Patriot
Act in January 2003. The resolution affirms every person's rights to inquiry and free
expression. It “urges librarians everywhere to defend and support user privacy and free
and open access to knowledge and information,” and it “urges libraries to adopt and
implement patron privacy and record retention policies” that minimize the collection
of records about the activities of individual patrons [47]. More than four hundred cities
and several states have also passed anti-Patriot Act resolutions [48].
