House Members Urge Support for Senate Version of Section 215

With House and Senate conferees scheduled to meet in the fall to reconcile their two very different bills regarding Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, on Monday, August 8, Reps. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), C.L. "Butch" Otter (R-ID), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ron Paul (R-TX), and Tom Udall (D-CO) urged House colleagues to encourage House conferees to resist attempts to weaken the safeguards for reader privacy in S. 1389. In an e-mail, they suggested that House members communicate with House conferees to advocate the inclusion of the Senate language regarding Section 215 in the final version of the Patriot Act reauthorization bill.

Citing their belief that "the changes in S. 1389 provide greater safeguards to Americans' library and bookstore records and reflect the desire of a majority of House members, who voted 238 - 187 on June 15 to provide greater privacy protections for readers," the five representatives asked House members to endorse a letter that they will send to the House conferees, which said, in part:

"We are particularly pleased with the greater relevance standard for Section 215 orders included in S. 1389. Under this language, the FBI would be required to provide facts showing reason to believe that the records sought are relevant to a terrorism investigation, and that these records are somehow connected to an agent of a foreign power, in order to obtain a Section 215 order. The House bill, however, does not require any facts establishing a link between the person whose records are being sought and a terrorism investigation or a crime."

The Senate conferees are Arlen Specter (R-PA), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Michael DeWine (R-OH), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and Carl Levin (D-MI). The House conferees have not been chosen.

To help ensure that Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act is amended to protect reader privacy, ABA is strongly urging booksellers to redouble their efforts to collect signatures on Campaign for Reader Privacy petitions over the coming weeks and to send in the signed petitions they already have.

"We're in the final, critical weeks in our effort to make sure that the Patriot Act reauthorization bill signed by President Bush this fall includes protections for reader privacy," said ABA COO Oren Teicher. "[ABA and its partners in the Campaign for Reader Privacy] plan to do everything we can to ensure that the Senate version of the bill will be adopted when the conference committee meets this fall.

"We are strongly urging booksellers to redouble their efforts to collect signatures on Campaign for Reader Privacy petitions over the coming weeks. We are also asking booksellers to send ABA the signed petitions they already have. In the next few weeks, we will be setting up meetings with as many committee conferees as we can, and the petitions are a very concrete demonstration that the readers of America demand the right to read freely."

For more information about the Campaign for Reader Privacy and Section 215 of the Patriot Act, go to www.bookweb.org/read/7679.