from: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0411libraries11.html

Librarians upset over USA Patriot Act
Rene Sanchez
Washington Post
Apr. 11, 2003 12:00 AM

MONTEREY PARK, Calif. - Every public computer inside this city's library has a new warning taped to its screen. Beware, the message says, anything you read is now subject to secret scrutiny by federal agents.

"We felt strongly that this had to be done," librarian Linda Wilson said. "The government has never had this kind of power before. It feels like Big Brother."

Wilson is not accustomed to protest. Her days are spent quietly tending to aisles of books in this immigrant community near Los Angeles. But now she is at the forefront of an unusual rebellion.

Across the country, in a movement that belies their image, librarians are rising up in anger and rallying against a law the Justice Department calls one of its most important new tools to help catch terrorists before they strike.

The USA Patriot Act, swiftly approved by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, gives federal investigators greater authority to examine all book and computer records at libraries. The law requires investigators to get a search warrant from a federal court before seizing library records, but those proceedings are secret and not subject to appeal. It also forbids libraries from informing patrons that their reading or computer habits are being monitored by the government.

Federal officials say the new law is essential because prior statutes on obtaining library records imposed too many limits on fast-moving investigations. They also point out that several of the hijackers who rammed planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon had used library computers to communicate. But many libraries are expressing fears that the law tramples constitutional rights to privacy and thwarts intellectual freedom.

Earlier this year, the American Library Association, which has 64,000 members, formally denounced the Patriot Act provision and passed a resolution urging Congress to repeal it. Since then, about two dozen state library groups have taken the same stand. And that is only the beginning of the backlash.