ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 13, Number 78 October 7, 2004 In This Issue: EMERGENCY ACTION ALERT ON HR 10 The House of Representatives is in floor debate about the rules governing how they will debate and address HR 10, The 9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act. Library supporters are asked to IMMEDIATELY call their Representatives and ask them to support the Menendez substitute bill (which contains the Collins-Lieberman bill plus some aspects of the McCain-Lieberman proposal which is the closest language to Collins-Lieberman, S 2845, available for members to vote on) and to vote AGAINST the rule for HR 10 being debated right now on the House floor. The Menendez substitute is a better bill than the one being put forth by the House leadership. The three major differences are: * Leadership's HR 10 would coerce states to share personal information about their drivers by conditioning federal grant money authorized by the legislation on the sharing of such personal information with other states. The Menendez substitute does not require this. * Leadership's HR 10 would violate principles of federalism by dictating what that states retain paper copies of source documents for at least 7 years, and electronic images of such documents for 10 years. The Menendez substitute has no such requirement. * Leadership's HR 10 would turn Departments of Motor Vehicles into internal checkpoints at which all U.S. citizens would have to prove their citizenship even though many U.S. citizens do not have passports, and at which all non-citizens would have to prove that they are lawfully present. The Menendez substitute does not require this. The leadership bill still contains standards for driver's licenses, but the language is not quite as horrible as HR 10. The House has just started debate on the Rule for HR 10. You can view the rules and all amendments at: http://www.house.gov/rules/108rulehr10.htm Any calls you can make to support the Menendez substitute (which is also supported by Reps Shays and Simmons) would be very helpful. You may call Congress toll-free at: 1-800-839-5276. Or send a letter via the Legislative Action Center at: . For those of you with questions, please call the ALA Office of Government Relations at 1-800-941-8478. The Senate and House have been working on these Intelligence Reform bills this week and there have been other calls to action and other ALAWONs on this issue. ****** Remember: You Can Call Any MEMBER OF CONGRESS Toll-Free: 1-800-839-5276 ****** 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, Don Essex, Joshua Farrelman, Erin Haggerty, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.