ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 674 / C&RL News ■ N ovem ber 2003 W a s h i n g t o n H o t l i n e Lynne E. Bradley SAFE A ct in trod u ced Senators Larry Craig (R-ID) and Richard Durbin (D-IL), along with Senators Michael Crapo (R-ID), Russell Feingold (D-WI), John Sununu (R-NH), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Je ff Bingaman (D-NM), have introduced S. 1709, the Security and Freedom Ensured Act of 2003 (the SAFE Act). This bill would curb the overly broad powers allowed to law enforcement by the USA PATRIOT Act. The legislation has bi partisan support, including the support of some conservative Republicans as well as Democrats and moderates. This important piece of legislation would amend the USA PATRIOT Act in the following ways: • restore privacy protections for library and bookseller records, allowing law enforce ment to obtain the records of individuals only when “there are specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that the per son to whom the records pertain is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power”; • exempt libraries from “national secu rity letters,” which are nonjudicial subpoe nas issued internally in the FBI that allow the FBI to get e-mail and Internet “transac tional records”; • add oversight provisions to the Justice Department’s request for records from librar ies and bookstores; • extend the sunset provision of the USA PATRIOT Act; and • provide other civil liberties protections. Y o u r actio n is n eeded The SAFE Act is the latest in several bills that addresses library concerns. To see the oth ers, go to www.ala.org/patriotfix. Please con tact your senators, by calling the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, to garner as much support as possible for the SAFE Act and the other bills. It is especially important that we continue to gather the support of Republican Senators. Lynne E. Bradley is Office o f Government Relations director o f ALA's W ashington Office, e-mail: leb@alawash.org M G M Studios, Inc. v. Crokster, L td .— L ibraries jo in amicus b rie f ALA and the other four major U.S. libraiy asso ciations joined in filing an αm ici cu riae (friends of the court) brief on September 26 in the case of MGM Studios, In c. υ. Grokster, Ltd., which is on appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The ACLU took the lead in writing the brief in support of the defendants, the com panies Grokster and Morpheus, which offer peer- to-peer file-trading software. The record companies and movie studios sued the companies for contributory infringe ment and vicarious liability. A U.S. district court in California applied the Ninth Circuit’s holdings in its decision in the Napster case to the facts h e re , and co n clu d e d that Grokster and Morpheus could not be held secondarily liable for the infringements of users of their software. The district court also relied on the ruling o f the U.S. Supreme Court in the Sony/ Betamax case in 1984, when it held that the makers of the VCR should not be held liable for copyright infringement simply because the device could be used for infringing pur poses. The district court found that it was u n d isp u ted th at th e re are su b sta n tia l noninfringing uses for the file-sharing soft ware, such as to share public domain mate rials and government documents. The brief pointed out that the a m ic i do not support the wrongful sharing of copy righted materials. Instead, they believe the Supreme Court ruled correctly in the Sony/ Betamax case. The court in that case cre ated fair and practical rules which, if over turned would, as a practical matter, give the entertainment industry a veto power over the development o f innovative products and services. ALA and the other library associa tions argue that free speech and the public interest are best served by rules that allow new and innovative mediums of communi cation to develop and flourish. The lower court decision and all the briefs that have been filed to date can be found at the Electronic Frontier Foundation Web site: www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/. ■ http://www.ala.org/patriotfix mailto:leb@alawash.org http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/ 6 7 6 / CSRL News ■ November 2003