Mr. Paranoid Conspiracy

The Battle for Reader Privacy

The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable.
-U. S. Privacy Study Commission

Stop government snoops from searching your library records. Sign this new petition now.

Last year, more than 200,000 Americans signed petitions urging Congress to restore protections for reader privacy that were eliminated by Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. We were heard! The House of Representatives nearly prohibited bookstore and library searches under Section 215.

Section 215 is scheduled to expire on December 21, 2005, but many in Congress want to make it permanent. The book community opposes re-authorizing Section 215 unless it includes safeguards that protect the privacy of our reading records.


See also:

USA PATRIOT Act
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/usapatriotact.html

Confidentiality and Coping with Law Enforcement Inquiries: Guidelines for
the Library and its Staff
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/confidentiality.htm

The USA Patriot Act in the Library
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/usapatriotlibrary.html

Analysis of the USA Patriot Act related to Libraries
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/issuesrelatedlinks/usapatriotactanalysis
.htm

USA Patriot Act Analyses
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/usapatriotactanalyses.htm

Freedom to Read Protection Act
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/issuesrelatedlinks/freedomreadprotection
act.htm"

Why doesn't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone?
-Jimmy Durante

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.
-Justice William O. Douglas