ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 15, Number 18 Date: February 17, 2006 In This Issue: PATRIOT Renewal Update On Thursday, February 16th, the Senate voted for cloture (96 Yeas to 3 Neas with 1 not voting) on the PATRIOT Act renewal. The vote for cloture ended the debate on the Senate floor over disputed provisions of the PATRIOT Act in favor of the compromise legislation that adds limited civil liberties protections to the law. Sens. Feingold (D-WI), Byrd (D-WV), and Jeffords (I-VT) voted against cloture, and Sen Vitter (R-LA) did not vote. The compromise provisions include: * Recipients of court-approved subpoenas for information in terrorist investigations may challenge the gag requirement - but only after one year and only if the government does not certify disclosure "may endanger the national security of the U.S., interfere with a criminal, counterterrorism, or counterintelligence investigation, interfere with diplomatic relations, or endanger the life of physical safety of any person." * Recipients of National Security Letters are no longer required to divulge to the FBI the name of an attorney consulted. * Language asserting that libraries, when functioning in their traditional roles - including providing Internet access -- are not subject to NSLs. However, the language states that libraries are subject if the library "is providing the services defined under" Section 2510(15) of title 18, which says " "electronic communication service" means any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications." Sen. Feingold said of the compromise, " The modifications to the conference report agreed to by the White House do contain one other purported change to one of the NSL statutes. This modification states that the FBI cannot issue an NSL for transactional and subscriber information about telephone and Internet usage to a library unless the library is offering "electronic communication services" as defined in the statute. But that just restates the existing requirements of the NSL statute, which currently applies only to entities - libraries or otherwise - that provide "electronic communication services." So that provision has no real legal effect whatsoever. Perhaps that explains why the American Library Association issued a statement calling this provision a "fig leaf" and expressing disappointment that so many Senators have agreed to this deal." After the cloture vote, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) entered a colloquy with Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) designed to clarify the impact on the NSL requirement on libraries. During the discussion Sen. Sununu said of the requirement, " What we did in this legislation is add clarifying language that states that libraries operating in their traditional functions: lending books, providing access to digital books or periodicals in digital format, and providing basic access to the Internet would not be subject to a national security letter. There is no National Security Letter statute existing in current law that permits the FBI explicitly to obtain library records. But, as was indicated by the Senator from Illinois, librarians have been concerned that existing National Security Letter authority is vague enough so that it could be used to allow the Government to treat libraries as they do communication service providers such as a telephone company or a traditional Internet service provider from whom consumers would go out and get their access to the Internet and send and receive e-mail. Section 5 clarifies, as I indicated, that a library providing basic Internet access would not be subject to a national security letter, simply by virtue of making that access available to the public." Sen. Durbin, pressing for further clarification said, " So a library that has Internet access, where a person can find an Internet e-mail service, is not a communications service provider; therefore, it would not fall under the purview of the NSL provision in 18 U.S.C. 2709. It is a critically important distinction...Libraries are fundamental to America..." Sen. Durbin also thanked librarians for their, "heroic efforts to amend the PATRIOT Act in a responsible way..." (Congressional Record; February 16, 2006 (Senate) page S1379-S1403 . View the full colloquy here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/crecord/ ) Next Steps: The Senate is expected to vote on the renewal during the last week of February. Stay tuned to ALAWON for more updates on this issue. ALA thanks all library supporters who continuously urged Congress to require adequate protections for civil liberties during this process. Thank you for your unfaltering support of libraries! ****** 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. 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