ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 14, Number 91 
Date September 16, 2005

In This Issue: 

Let "John Doe" Speak about the PATRIOT Act - Sign the Petition Today!
 
 
On September 9th, a federal judge in Connecticut ordered the FBI to lift a gag that is preventing the ACLU's client -- a member of the American Library Association with library records -- from discussing critical information of urgent and immediate relevance to the PATRIOT Act debate. 

As of this hour, ACLU's client "John Doe" stands in silence. John Doe has critical, first-hand knowledge about the FBI's use of National Security Letters to demand library records -- and is eager to share that information with the public and Congress. John Doe could speak right now if the Justice Department would lift the gag. 

With the future of the PATRIOT Act hanging in the balance, lifting the gag is the right thing to do. You can do your part to let the Justice Department and Congress know how important this right to speak is. Go to:
<http://action.aclu.org/letjohndoespeak> and sign the petition.  
 
ACLU has a privacy policy on all of their action alerts, which you can read by clicking on the link. They also have two clickable boxes that you can click to OPT OUT of any future communications from ACLU, if you wish.
 
 ACLU, ALA and others will bring the petitions to the Department of Justice early next week, so please  act now.



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