Librarians Rock
Jun 26th, 2006 at 12:15 pm by Susie
“Information is the currency of democracy,” as one of my friends used to say:
The Federal Bureau of Investigations has conceded another legal victory to a group of Connecticut libraries, thereby ending the case entirely, RAW STORY has learned.
The Librarians, members of Library Connection, a not-for profit cooperative organization for resource sharing across 26 Connecticut library branches sharing a centralized computer, were served with a National Security Letter (NSL) in August of last year as part of the FBI’s attempt to obtain access to patron’s records.
The letter, acquired by RAW STORY, can be read here.
The NSL is a little known statute in the Patriot Act that permits law enforcement to obtain records of people not necessarily suspected of any wrongdoing, without a court order. As part of the NSL, those served with the document are gagged and prohibited from disclosing that they have even been served.
“When I and my colleagues received FBI National Security Letters demanding access to our patron’s records, I knew that this power had had already been declared unconstitutional by a district court in New York,” said Library Connection Vice President Peter Chase. “The government was telling Congress that it didn’t use the Patriot Act against libraries and that no one’s rights had been violated.”
