House Re-authorizes Section 215 of USA PATRIOT Act

The Campaign for Reader Privacy, representing booksellers, librarians, publishers and writers, expressed dismay that the House of Representatives failed to adopt essential reader privacy safeguards when it voted yesterday to re-authorize the USA PATRIOT Act (257-171) and extend Section 215 for another decade. Section 215 authorizes the FBI to search bookstore and library records of anyone, whether or not the person is suspected of involvement in terrorism, whenever it asserts that they are "relevant."

The Campaign also protested the decision by the House leadership not to permit a vote on an amendment offered by Representative Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that barred bookstore and library searches under the PATRIOT Act. A similar measure was approved by the House on June 15 by a 238-187 vote.

"The House has ignored the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have signed petitions in bookstores and libraries demanding the restoration of the safeguards for their reading records that were eliminated by the PATRIOT Act," Oren Teicher, the chief operating officer of the American Booksellers Association, said.

Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Reader Privacy Safeguards

However, not all of the news out of Washington was bad. The Campaign for Reader Privacy welcomed the improved reader privacy protections added to a Senate bill reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. Although S. 1389 (USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act) does not address all of the book community's concerns with Section 215, it provides a more stringent standard to which the FBI must adhere when seeking an order under Section 215. The bill was approved unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The Senate Judiciary Committee has taken a significant step toward satisfying our concerns about the PATRIOT Act," Teicher said.

In addition to the more stringent standard for seeking Section 215 orders, S. 1389 gives the recipient of a Section 215 order the right to consult an attorney and to challenge the order in the secret court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The bill would also require prior written approval of the Director or Deputy Director of the FBI for any application for an order to compel production of library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, and book customer lists containing personally identifiable information. Under the bill's provisions Justice Department must publicly reveal each year the number of Section 215 orders issued to bookstores and libraries. It also provides that Section 215 will expire at the end of 2009.

The Senate re-authorization bill will now move to the floor for a final vote. It is unclear if the Senate will act before the August recess. Once the bill is approved, the House and Senate will appoint a committee to reconcile the differences between their bills.