House votes to curb reach of Patriot Act

Seizures of library, bookstore records would require warrant

Washington ? The House handed President Bush his first defeat in his efforts to preserve the broad powers of the USA Patriot Act, voting Wednesday to curtail the FBI’s ability to seize library and bookstore records for terrorism investigations.

Bush has threatened to veto any measure that weakens those powers. The surprise 238 to 187 rebuke to the White House was produced when a handful of conservative Republicans, worried about government intrusion, joined with liberal Democrats who are concerned about personal privacy.

One provision of the Patriot Act makes it possible for the FBI to obtain a wide variety of personal records about a suspected terrorist – including library transactions – with an order from a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where the government must meet a lower threshold of proof than in criminal courts.

Under the House change, officials would have to get search warrants from a judge or subpoenas from a grand jury to seize records about a suspect’s reading habits.

Some libraries have said they are disposing of patrons’ records more quickly because of the provision, which opponents view as a license for fishing expeditions.

Decision draws praise in Lawrence

Critics of the Patriot Act in Lawrence welcomed the action taken by the U.S. House in Washington to block terrorism investigators from looking at library records and bookstore sales slips.

Among those commending the House was attorney Phil Minkin, president of the Douglas County Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“There may well be parts (of the Patriot Act) that are justified but this was one part the ACLU was dead-set against renewing,” Minkin said. “I just can’t imagine how that does anything to combat terrorism.”

Lawrence Public Library Director Bruce Flanders was out of town and unavailable for comment, but assistant director Sherri Turner also welcomed the stance taken by the House.

“That’s definitely a positive thing,” she said. “We want our patrons to read what they want to read without somebody looking over their shoulder.”

House Administration Committee Chairman Robert Ney, R-Ohio, one of three House Republicans who opposed the Patriot Act when it was enacted in 2001, voted Wednesday to curtail agents’ power to seize the records.

“Everybody’s against terrorism, but there has to be reason in the way that we fight it,” Ney said. “The government doesn’t need to be sifting through library records. I talked to my libraries, and they felt very strongly about this.”

The Justice Department said in a letter to Congress this week that the provision has been used only 35 times and has never been used to obtain bookstore, library, medical or gun-sale records. It has been used to obtain records of hotel stays, driver’s licenses, apartment leases and credit cards, the letter said.

“Bookstores and libraries should not be carved out as safe havens for terrorists and spies, who have, in fact, used public libraries to do research and communicate with their co-conspirators,” Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella said in the letter.

The vote – on an amendment to limit spending in a huge bill covering appropriations for science as well as the departments of Justice, State and Commerce – came as Bush is traveling the country to build support for reauthorizing 15 provisions of the Patriot Act that are scheduled to expire at year’s end.

House Republican leadership aides said they plan to have the provision removed when a conference committee meets to work out differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. “The administration has threatened to veto the bill over this extraneous rider, and there are too many important initiatives in the bill for that to happen,” said Appropriations Committee spokesman John Scofield.