Banned Books
Week Handbook
September 23 - 30, 2006
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Protecting Privacy, Challenging
Secrecy, and Standing Up for the First Amendment
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ABFFE is sponsoring “Protecting Privacy, Challenging
Secrecy, and Standing Up for the First Amendment,” an event honoring
the Connecticut librarians who protected their patrons’ right to
privacy by fighting an FBI subpoena of customer records. The event
will be held at the National
Press Club in Washington, DC on Thursday, September 28.
As the government issues more and more secret orders seeking
previously private information, and at the same time seeks new ways
to shield the expanding realm of government secrets from public
scrutiny, individual citizens are taking risky, at times harrowing,
stands on behalf of the First Amendment. |
| This program, sponsored all members of the
Campaign for Reader
Privacy, focuses on the personal costs, and rewards, of some
of these struggles. The Connecticut librarians will discuss their
successful struggle to defend patron privacy after receiving a
National Security Letter issued under the USA PATRIOT Act. Several
Washington Post reporters will talk about their efforts to
break major stories on antiterrorism programs being carried out
without Congressional or Judicial scrutiny, about learning their
phone records had been seized in a subsequent leak investigation,
and about threats to prosecute reporters under the Espionage Act.
And the son and the biographer of Jack Anderson recount their
standoff with the FBI over the FBI’s attempt quest for classified
materials leaked to the late newspaper columnist years ago. All will
explore the impact of their actions on their own lives and assess
the public’s understanding of the First Amendment issues their
experiences raise. |
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