ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 12, Number 96 2003 In This Issue: Call your Representative to make sure Otter and Sanders Amendments that fix the PATRIOT Act become law! In July of this year, under the leadership of Republican Representative C.L. "Butch" Otter, the U.S. House of Representatives listened to their constituents' voices criticizing the USA Patriot Act and voted 309-118 for an amendment that would turn back one of the Act's most over-reaching provisions--Section 213 or the "sneak and peak" provision. Section 213 of the USA Patriot Act allows the government to search a person's home or office without notifying them for weeks or even months after the search. These powers can be used in all criminal cases, not just terrorism related investigations. Such a broad power is a violation of our sacred protections from "unreasonable searches and seizures" that the Fourth Amendment provides. The House of Representatives also approved a similar amendment offered by Independent Representative Bernie Sanders which would prevent the government from using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to look at the books we are checking out from the library or buying from a bookstore. Again it was grass roots support that made this victory possible. Your help is needed now to make sure that these two amendments become law before Congress adjourns for the year. Representative Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Representative C.L. "Butch" Otter (R-ID), and Representative John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) are circulating a letter for Members of the House of Representatives to sign on to in support of keeping these provisions in the final law known as an "Omnibus." Please telephone your Member of Congress today and urge him or her to sign on to this letter. A copy of the letter can be found at http://bordc.org/dearcoll1103.pdf. The Capitol Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. This letter urges the House Appropriators to make sure any Omnibus bill retains language that would protect against the over reaches of Section 213 and 215 of the Patriot Act. To sign on to this letter, your Representative's staff member should call Representative Sanders' office at (202) 225-4115. The time for action is now because there isn't much time left until Congress adjourns for the year. Thanks to the Bill of Rights Defense Committee for information on this important issue. ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Camille Bowman, Mary Costabile, Don Essex, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.