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The USA Patriot Act
The “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” Act, or USA PATRIOT Act, was introduced less than a week after September 11, 2001, and was signed into law on October 26, 2001.
What is the USA PATRIOT Act?
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The bill broadly expanded law enforcement’s surveillance and investigative powers and amended more than 15 different statutes, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Among other things, the USA PATRIOT Act’s intent was to update wiretap and surveillance laws for the Internet age, addressing real-time communications and stored communications (e-mail, voicemail), and to give law enforcement greater authority to conduct searches of property.
President Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization legislation, which differs somewhat from the original legislation into law on March 9, 2006. A sunset of December 31, 2009, was established for Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, commonly referred to as the “library provision.”
Why does it matter to libraries?
Libraries are key sources of information on all kinds of subjects and from all perspectives for their communities. Reading has always been one of our greatest freedoms. The written word is the natural medium for the new idea and the untried voice from which come the original contributions to social growth.
Libraries provide a place to exercise intellectual freedom: a free and open exchange of knowledge and information where individuals may exercise freedom of inquiry as well as a right to privacy in regards to information they seek. Privacy is essential to the exercise of free speech, free thought, and free association. In a library, the subject of users' interests should not be examined or scrutinized by others.
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