Posted by Susan:
I just put the final draft of a new paper on SSRN. The paper re-assesses the Patriot Act provisions that affect libraries now that some parts of the Patriot Act have been legislatively revised, judicially interpreted, or audited for compliance. The paper is called The Chains of the Constitution and Legal Process in the Library: A Post-Patriot Reauthorization Act Assessment. If it gets published, I'm going to dedicate the paper to Lee Strickland, whose work was so helpful in drafting the paper, and who was a great friend of libraries.
The "chains of the Constitution" is a concept Thomas Jefferson came up with, as a metaphor for limiting the power of the governing class:
In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of
confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief
by the chains of the
Constitution.
Here's the abstract of the paper:
Since the Patriot Act was
passed in 2001, controversy has raged over nearly every provision. The
controversy has been particularly intense over provisions that affect
the patrons of libraries. This article follows those Patriot Act
provisions that affect libraries, and reviews how they have been
interpreted, how the Patriot Reauthorization Acts have changed them,
and what government audits and court affidavits reveal about the use
and misuse of the Patriot Act. The efforts of librarians and others
opposed to the Patriot Act have had an effect, both legislatively and
judicially, in changing and challenging the Patriot Act. Because
libraries are such a potent symbol of democratic openness, the effect
of the Patriot Act on libraries has acted in the public mind as a
microcosm of the broader problems with the implementation of the
Patriot Act. The public's discomfort with the civil liberties
implications of the Patriot Act has turned out to be justified, as
every agency that has reviewed the implementation of the Patriot Act
has concluded that the government has not been able to maintain an
appropriate balance between the need to protect civil liberties and the
need to prevent terrorist acts. The government's list of domestic
terrorist acts that have been prevented or punished is not inspiring:
the entire panoply of tools authorized by the Patriot Act has not done
much more than stop some home-grown right wing fringe groups and
ecoterrorists. In light of the evidence of abuse of civil liberties and
the questionable constitutionality of many of the Patriot Act's
provisions, this paper suggests that the time for vigorous advocacy has
not passed and that further legislative changes need to be made.
The paper is available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1105448. That link takes you to the abstract, and if you scroll down, you can find a link to download the paper.
