Congress Fails to Protect Reader Privacy

The American Booksellers Association and other members of the Campaign for Reader Privacy [1] (CRP) expressed disappointment at last Thursday’s decision by Congress to reauthorize the expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act for four years without restoring safeguards to protect the privacy of bookstore and library records that were eliminated when the Patriot Act was passed in 2001. As a result, the government will continue to have the power to search bookstore and library records of people who are not suspected of criminal acts, much less terrorism.

“We are deeply disappointed by the failure of Congress to protect the privacy of America’s readers,” said ABA CEO Oren Teicher.

Larry Siems, director of the Freedom to Write Program of PEN American Center, criticized Congress for ignoring a bipartisan bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee that restored reader privacy safeguards and required government agencies to perform audits to ensure that the Patriot Act is not being used to violate civil liberties. “With strong support from both sides of the aisles for meaningful Patriot Act reform, it is hard not to feel like good sense and the will of the people was thwarted,” Siems said.

The Senate approved the Patriot reauthorization bill, S. 990, by a vote of 72-23 [2]. The House vote was 250-153 [3]. Debate on amendments to the bills granting a blanket four-year extension to the expiring Patriot Act provisions was severely curtailed in both houses.

Reader privacy advocates took some comfort from Attorney General Eric Holder’s promise in December that the FBI will not use the full power of the Patriot Act to search bookstore and library records. The Patriot Act gives the government the right to secretly search the records of anyone who is “relevant” to a terrorism investigation. However, in a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Holder promised the government would voluntarily restrict its searches of bookstores and libraries to the records of people who are actually suspected of terrorism and people who are known to them. 

CRP was organized in 2004 by ABA, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, and PEN American Center to ensure that Americans can purchase and borrow books without fear that the government is reading over their shoulder.