Posted on 12/21/2002 7:03:29 AM PST by JimVT
Sanders seeks to repeal part of Patriot Act
By Adam Silverman
Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Friday that he will introduce legislation shortly after Congress reconvenes in January to repeal part of an anti-terrorism law that gives the FBI broad powers to monitor what books a person borrows from a library or buys from a store.
The USA Patriot Act lets government agents ask librarians and booksellers to turn over information about the reading habits of people with possible ties to terrorism. Agents can also ask about library patrons' computer usage.
The rules are a small portion of a lengthy law that President George W. Bush signed in October 2001.
Sanders, who spoke at a morning news conference at Fletcher Free Library in Burlington alongside two librarians and a bookstore owner, said the section of the Patriot Act that affects libraries and booksellers is an affront to people's rights to free speech and privacy.
"This is a crashing, crushing attack on basic rights in this country, and it's got to be opposed," said Sanders, an independent from Vermont. "I will do everything in my power in the Congress, working in a nonpartisan way with other concerned members, to strip this very dangerous language from the bill."
Sanders said he and his staff are drafting the legislation he plans to introduce. Although Sanders has not approached other representatives with his plans, the congressman said he expects to garner broad support.
"I think you're going to find not only progressives like myself but more conservative people," Sanders said. "The essence of what being a conservative is about, from my point of view, is get government out of the picture, don't get government involved in our lives. I cannot imagine an area where government is more involved in your life if you could be under surveillance if you walk into a bookstore or into a library."
White House spokesman Ken Lisaius defended the act as a widely supported, effective piece of legislation. The law passed the House 357-66 -- with Sanders among the no voters -- and the Senate 98-1.
"The USA Patriot Act passed the Congress with a broad bipartisan majority," Lisaius said. "It was intended to help move law enforcement forward to address new technologies."
Sanders and the librarians said they support the fight against terrorism but that laws in place before the Patriot Act allowed law enforcement to gather information from libraries in a less-invasive way.
"If you have to worry about what your reading list might look like to an FBI agent, you might decide to censor yourself and not read what you really want to read," said Trina Magi, a reference librarian at the University of Vermont and a former president of the Vermont Library Association. "And the moment you have to think about those kinds of decisions, then you are no longer truly free."
The section of the Patriot Act includes a "gag-order" provision that prohibits anyone the government asks for information from telling anyone about the inquiry. Magi said she would consider civil disobedience in that situation.
"It's a rotten position to be in," she said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., submitted in July a list of 43 questions to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft seeking information about the Patriot Act and how the government has used the law. Several questions focus on libraries, such as how limited libraries are in disclosing inquiries and how many times the FBI has sought information. The questions have gone unanswered, Leahy spokesman David Carle said.
Linda Ramsdell, who owns The Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick and is president of the New England Booksellers Association, said her group supports Sanders' plan.
"We believe it is our right to sell any book to our customers, who have the right to read any book," Ramsdell said, "and we will zealously guard the privacy of this transaction." Contact Adam Silverman at 660-1854 or asilverm@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
Typical of this Gannett rag, one has to read into the tenth paragraph to learn that the bill passed the House 357-66 and the Senate 98-1 (I forgot who the Senate idiot was).
Notice he brought along two librarians who spout the liberal line but no local FBI agent or anyone else who might want to speak to the matter of preventing another terrorist attack.
I'm ready to give law enforcement some more tools to help.
But then of course, I'm not going to the library to learn how to cook up a botulism brew.
But I'd sure like to know if someone else does.
Leave borders open, yet violate civil rights to a degree not seen since the rise of East Germany.
The CIA, FBI, amnd police HAD all the tools they need(ed) , but were PREVENTED from using those tools by officials like the clintons who insisted all crime stems from the vast right-wing conspiracy. The Two black Islamic snipers proved that since the police were so focused on looking for a white gun nut.
Wow, Bernie Sanders "gets" this for this particular moment...why don't conservatives?
You don't understand. Clinton's gone and the Democrats are finished. A Police State is fine as long as it's administered by Republicans; Even desireable.
In your dreams.
Sean Penn just returned from Iraq, having given aid and comfort to Saddam Hussein. Please account for his non-arrest, non-beating-up, and non-dragging off to the gulag.
And there will be no one left to speak up.
I do.
As the old saying goes, "even a stopped clock is right twice a day". Radical Socialists like Sanders are no real danger to our republic if they are kept out of the loop on security topics. But they're not always automatically wrong on everything!
Anyone who uses one of those vile library computers without wearing surgical gloves is a fool. The primary contaminant on public access computer keyboards is urine. Even the bacterium which causes plague has been discovered on some samples which were analyzed.
Man....that is a stretchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Elitism. You try it, see where you end up! Blackbird.
All sorts of bozos, famous and otherwise, have given aid and comfort to Saddam. I don't see any of them dragged off to the camps.
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