- The bookish calm of a public library might not seem like
the most obvious place to hunt for terrorists, but according to a report,
the FBI and other US law enforcement agencies involved in counter-terrorism
have made more than 200 requests for information about borrowers from libraries
since September 11.
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- A list of people who had borrowed a book about Osama
bin Laden was among the information to have been demanded since the introduction
of the patriot act, the legislation that has enhanced the government's
powers to investigate alleged terrorist activity after the attacks on the
World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
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- Article continues The power to subpoena library records
has been fiercely resisted by the American Library Association, which believes
it could put people off reading certain books or subjects.
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- It commissioned the study after the justice department
sought to play down the likely number of requests for library records.
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- "What this says to us is that agents are coming
to libraries and they are asking for information at a level that is significant,
and the findings are completely contrary to what the justice department
has been trying to convince the public [of]," Emily Sheketoff, the
executive director of the library association's Washington office, told
the New York Times.
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- The use of the patriot act to request information from
librarians came to public attention last year when a library in Washington
state received a demand for information after a user took out a book on
Bin Laden and found a handwritten note in the margin that said: "Hostility
toward America is a religious duty and we hope to be rewarded by God."
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- The borrower went to the FBI who in turn went to the
library seeking names and information on borrowers who had taken out the
biography since 2001.
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- The library turned down the request and fought a subsequent
subpoena.
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- Critics claim that the patriot act is an infringement
of civil liberties and that it has increasingly been the subject of debate
in Congress.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2005
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1510892,00.html
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