If The Patriot Act is Renewed in the Forest, Does Anyone Notice?

A hat-tip to Mary Minow for alerting readers via her Library Law Blog post last week that Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan introduced HR 67 on January 5, 2011 to extend the PATRIOT Act yet another year to February, 2012. Given the short amount of time available to renew the Act and that the renewal period is only a year, most feel the extension is likely to happen without much notice or pushback. Congress passed the original PATRIOT Act in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Much has been written about its provisions which, among other things, allow expanded use of National Security Letters, permitting the FBI to search telephone, email and other electronic records without first securing a court order. In particular, within the library community, alarm has been raised by provisions which grant law enforcement access to library patron records.

Patriot Act Resources

• H.R.3162 – USA PATRIOT Act, Original 2001 Bill, 107th Congress
• H.R.4659 – Act to amend the USA PATRIOT ACT to extend the sunset of certain provisions of such Act (2006, 109th Congress)
• H.R. 62 – Act to extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 until February 29, 2012.
• A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Use of Exigent Letters and Other Informal Requests for Telephone Records, January, 2010. (Note, the Report is 300+ pages long.)
• Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Reports to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA Patriot Act
• C-Span Video Resources – Patriot Act Reauthorization (2006)
• C-Span Video Resources – Patriot Act Reauthorization (2009)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) – The USA Patriot Act
• ACLU Patriot Act Resources
• Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) – USA PATRIOT Act Resources