The American Booksellers Association's PATRIOT Act petition campaign is off to a fast start. Bookstores and libraries all over the country have begun to collect signatures on petitions demanding the restoration of the protections for customer privacy that were stripped away by the PATRIOT Act. The goal is to present Congress with one million signatures.

Bookstores are reporting a tremendous response from their customers. "It's been phenomenally successful," Nancy Beattie of Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid, New York, told "Bookselling This Week." "We just put [the petition] on the counter and people just sign it. They don't even ask." Sara Pishko, co-owner of Prince Books & Coffeehouse in Norfolk, Virginia, reports the same enthusiasm among her customers. "People were even thanking me for doing it."

Booksellers who want to join the campaign can either download the petition here, or call ABA's Information Department at (800) 637-0037, ext. 1292 or 1293. ABA recommends that booksellers periodically mail their signed petitions to: ABA, Restore Reader Privacy, Attn.: Oren Teicher, 828 South Broadway, Tarrytown, NY 10591. More information is available here.

Colorado booksellers are making a determined fight against a bill in the state legislature that could force them to display material that is "harmful to minors" in a section of their stores that are open to "adults only." Despite testimony by Joyce Meskis of the Tattered Cover Book Store and Lisa Knudsen of Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association (MPBA), the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the bill on Jan. 23. Similar laws in Michigan and Arkansas are being challenged in court by booksellers, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), the Association of American Publishers, the Freedom to Read Foundation and others.

MPBA has hired a lobbyist to direct the fight against the bill in the Senate, which is expected to vote on the measure this month. ABFFE and its legislative watchdog, Media Coalition, are working closely with MPBA to defeat the bill.

A federal judge in Brattleboro, Vermont, has permanently enjoined a Vermont Internet law that barred commercial Web sites from displaying non-obscene material that is "harmful to minors." ABFFE and the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center joined a lawsuit challenging the law because its prohibition of "harmful" material was so broad it could have prevented a bookstore from posting the covers of some books.

This is the third case in which ABFFE and booksellers, along with other members of the Media Coalition, have successfully challenged a state law that potentially could have stopped adults from viewing materials on the Web that they already have a constitutional right to view in bookstores and libraries. The two other challenges occurred in New Mexico and New York. There are similar lawsuits pending in Virginia, Arizona, and Ohio.

ABFFE, Powell's Books and a Different Light Bookstore are plaintiffs in a case challenging a federal law, the Child Online Protection Act, that bans the display of "harmful" material on the World Wide Web. It has been declared unconstitutional by an appeals court on two occasions. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case on March 2.

Banned Books Week, the only annual celebration of the freedom to read, will be held this year from September 25 through October 2. Banned Books Week is sponsored by ABFFE, the American Library Association, the American Society for Journalists and Authors, and the National Association of College Stores.