ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 14, Number 83
August 22, 2005

In This Issue: Message for PATRIOT Conferees
Please ask your Senators to sign the Dear Conferees letter being 
circulated in the Senate by Sen. Craig and Sen. Durbin. To sign on 
- or if they have questions - they can contact Brooke Roberts in 
Senator Craig's office at 224-1013 or Joseph Zogby in Senator 
Durbin's office at 224-2152. 

Ask your Representatives to sign the Dear Conferees letter being 
circulated by Rep. Sanders and Rep. Otter. To sign on - or if they 
have questions - they can contact Rebecca Raiser in Rep. Sanders' 
office at 225-4115. 

Your Message:  

*We urge you to support the bill that the Senate passed and to 
sign onto the Dear Conferee letter being circulated by 
(Craig/Durbin; Sanders/Otter) to tell the conferees you want the 
Senate bill to emerge from conference.

*At a minimum, any bill to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act must 
include some factual link between the records sought and a foreign 
terrorist investigation under Section 215.  The Senate version 
takes important steps in this direction; the House version does 
not and basically substitutes synonyms for the current law, which 
is severely flawed.  

*Any effort to add administrative subpoena power (to give the FBI 
the power to write its own search orders for any tangible thing, 
without court approval) must be rejected.

*The sunset in the Senate version (four years) is preferable to 
the House version (ten years, skipping the next president) for 
Sections 215 (records searches), even though expiration dates for 
more provisions would be preferable.

*If the Senate bill's reforms emerge from the conference, the 
PATRIOT Act will be improved, even though more reforms are needed 
(like the SAFE Act) to bring it in line with the Constitution.  If 
the severely flawed House bill emerges from conference, our 
privacy and civil liberties will remain at great risk and that 
bill will be strongly opposed on the right and the left.


Thank you!

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