ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 13, Number 40 June 21, 2004 In This Issue: FURTHER ACTION REQUESTED ON HR 3179 and the Intelligence Authorization Act The Intelligence Authorization Act for 2005 was voted on in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last week. Thanks to your efforts, HR 3179 was not attached to the Intel Authorization that was sent out of committee. Thank you. We just heard that the House Intelligence Authorization bill is going to the Rules Committee tomorrow and could be on the House floor as early as Wednesday. It's important that Chairman Dreier and others on the Rules Committee hear from as many of you as possible today asking them to ensure that HR 3179 is not allowed to be added on the floor as an amendment to the Intelligence bill. Anyone with contacts in the House offices below, please call and ask them to ensure that the Intelligence Authorization is not amended on the Floor to include any portion of HR 3179. TALKING POINTS ALA is specifically opposed to sections 2 and 3 of HR 3179. 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. Sec 2 would impose a penalty of up to one year in prison for violating the gag order, and up to five years, if the violation is committed with the intent to obstruct an investigation or judicial proceeding. Section 3 would allow the AG to invoke the aid of any court of the United States within the jurisdiction of the investigation to compel compliance with the request. The court would be authorized to issue an order requiring the person to comply with the request. Any failure to obey the order of the court could be punished by the court as contempt. 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. REPUBLICANS Dreier (26th CA) Goss (14th FL) Linder (7th GA) Pryce (15th OH) Diaz-Balart (21st FL) Hastings (4th WA) Myrick (9th NC) Sessions (32nd TX) Reynolds (26th NY) DEMOCRATS Frost (24th TX) Hastings (23rd FL) McGovern (3rd MA) Slaughter (28th NY) ****** 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.