ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 13, Number 34
May 24, 2004

In This Issue: Action Needed: Please contact your Senators

We are requesting that you contact your Senators, especially those on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to oppose a proposed move to attach HR 3179 to the FY 2005 Intelligence Authorization bill (S 2386). 

According to a report published on May 21, House and Senate GOP aides say that Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., (R-WI) and Intelligence Chairman Porter J. Goss (R-FL), are eyeing the fiscal 2005 intelligence authorization bill (S 2386) as a vehicle for a proposal - HR 3179 - that would make it a crime to disclose requests for information in national security letters, which government officials can use to solicit customer records and other information from libraries, Internet service providers and other businesses. It would also allow the FBI to get a judge to enforce an NSL, even though no judge is involved in the issuance of the letter.

The Sensenbrenner-Goss bill would make any knowing disclosure a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison. Anyone who revealed a national security letter's request with the intention of obstructing an investigation could face five years in prison.

Recipients of national security letters generally are barred from revealing that they received them, though administration officials have said recipients can confer with lawyers. Under current law, there is no penalty for violating the anti-disclosure rule, nor does the government have means to enforce its requests. At a hearing on the bill last week Thomas J. Harrington, deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division of the FBI, revealed that, in at least one instance, the government has been unable to force an e-mail provider to comply with a request in a national security letter.

ALA does not believe that the government needs to further strengthen the already extraordinary authority it has been given under PATRIOT and its progeny to acquire confidential records.  An ordinary search warrant or grand jury subpoena can be used in the investigation of any crime, including alleged terrorism. Adding judicial enforcement and criminal sanctions to an administrative process  - which itself is not subject to judicial approval in the first instance or to legal challenge by the recipient - is inconsistent with our longstanding values of justice and basic fairness. The chilling effect of criminal sanctions applied to speech cannot be overstated.

Please go to ALA's Legislative Action Center at  for further information and to send letters to your Senators.

The members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence are:

Republicans:
Roberts, Pat (KS) , Chairman 
Hatch, Orrin (UT) 
DeWine, Mike (OH) 
Bond, Christopher (MO) 
Lott, Trent (MS) 
Snowe, Olympia (ME) 
Hagel, Chuck (NE) 
Chambliss, Saxby (GA) 
Warner, John (VA) 

Democrats:
Rockefeller, John (WV), Vice Chairman 
Levin, Carl (MI)
Feinstein, Dianne (CA)
Wyden, Ron (OR)
Durbin, Richard (IL)
Bayh, Evan (IN)
Edwards, John (NC)
Mikulski, Barbara (MD)


******
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; Carol Ashworth, Camille Bowman, Don Essex, Joshua Farrelman, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.