North Carolina Library Association
Intellectual Freedom Committee Report
July 19, 2002

On May 31, the federal court ruled on CIPA. They ruled that mandating filtering was unconstitutional. The three-judge panel sitting in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that "we are constrained to conclude that the library plaintiffs must prevail in their contention that CIPA requires them to violate the First Amendment rights of their patrons, and accordingly is facially invalid"; the three-judge panel ruled Sections 1712(a)(2) and 1721(b) of the Children's Internet Protection Act to be facially invalid under the First Amendment and permanently enjoined the government from enforcing those provisions. However, the Internet policy was not affected by the ruling and libraries MUST adhere to this provision of the law to qualify for the e-rate. It is recommended that if you have any questions regarding the Internet policy that you should contact Grant Pair at the state library. As expected, the losing side stated on June 20 that it is appealing the decision to the Supreme Court. There is no guarantee that they will hear the case. You can keep current on this issue at the ALA website: http://www.ala.org/cipa .

USA Patriot Act: By far the most controversial legislation passed last year, Congress is having some serious questions about this law. The Sensenbrenner/Conyers letter, asks Ashcroft questions about how the Justice Department is implementing 50 provisions of the PATRIOT Act, www.house.gov/judiciary/ashcroft061302.htm . With respect to the business records section of the act, it asks how many court orders have been issued to bookstores, libraries and newspapers. (Reporters' notes can also be subpoenaed under the PATRIOT Act even if they are protected by state "shield laws" designed to protect their confidentiality.) The letter also asks whether the Justice Department has put in place any safeguards like requiring supervisory approval before the records are sought or "requiring a determination that the information is essential to an investigation and could not be obtain through any other means."

For the first time since the Cold War, the FBI is visiting public libraries to keep tabs on the reading habits of people the government considers dangerous. The searches of some records kept by libraries and bookstores were authorized in an obscure provision of the USA Patriot Act, quietly approved by Congress six weeks after Sept. 11. The act, passed virtually without hearings or debate, allowed a variety of new federal surveillance measures, including clandestine searches of homes and expanded monitoring of telephones and the Internet. There are four different web sites that you can go to for more information about the FBI visitation to libraries:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/06/23/MN75593.DTL
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/3539040.htm
http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=16468
http://www.jsonline.com/news/ozwash/jul02/57673.asp

Challenges: To date, we know of one challenge that made the news and that occurred at the Henderson County Public Library. It was a video entitled the Blair Witch Project. It has been since rescinded and placed back on the shelf. The committee is currently working on a new form to be placed on the NCLA web site by the end of July. If you know of any challenges, please let us know.

Other website(s) to visit:

ALA IFC Report to Council, ALA 2002 Annual Conference, Atlanta, Georgia
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/ifc2002ac.html
Finally, there is another issue that is continuing to be monitored and that is the FBI Carnivore. While there has been one additional information dissimulated since the last report, we continue to watch this issue very closely since it does deal with the First Amendment. The latest information on this subject can be found at http://www.ciol.com/content/news/trends/102070401.asp .

Michael Sawyer
Chair