ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 14, Number 69 July 21, 2005 In This Issue: URGENT ALERT - CALL ALL MEMBERS OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IMMEDIATELY One final message from library advocates is needed to all members of the House of Representatives as soon as possible today: 1) Apply sunsets running on the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that expanded law enforcement powers without maintaining civil liberties. Do not make these provisions permanent but keep reasonable, short term sunsets in place. Congress must be able to continue to monitor and provide oversight of these critical provisions, including Section 215 on business records. 2) Work to reform Section 215 to return legitimate judicial review for law enforcement to access library records and other business records. Do not allow fishing expeditions and whole sale access by the FBI to records of library users who are not under suspicion. The U.S. House of Representatives is debating HR 3199, the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act TODAY, July 21st. A vote could happen late today or early on Friday. The US Capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121 or go to the Congressional web site for individual numbers at: http://www.house.gov Additional background information on the USA PATRIOT Act and its specific provisions as well as positions of ALA on these issues is available at: http://www.ala.org/washoff ****** 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; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; 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.