june05c.indd


Ber nadette Murphy W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n e  

ALA President meets with Attorney 
General 
Last month ALA President Carol Brey­Casiano 
met with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gon­
zales to discuss library concerns over sec­
tion 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Gonzales 
reached out to the library community several 
weeks ago, inviting Brey­Casiano to Justice 
Department offices in an attempt to facilitate 
dialogue about the needs of law enforcement 
and the privacy concerns of librarians. 

Brey­Casiano took the opportunity pre­
sented by the meeting to reiterate the impor­
tance of preserving the fundamental rights of 
free speech and free inquiry by protecting the 
privacy rights of the library user. She assured 
the Attorney General that librarians’ opposi­
tion to the USA PATRIOT Act is not an attempt 
to strip law enforcement of the power to 
investigate crimes or terrorism; it is an effort 
to assure that the government does not have 
the power to monitor reading habits of the 
public. ALA believes that government pow­
ers should be focused and subject to clear 
standards and judicial review and oversight. 
Brey­Casiano said, “portions of the USA PA­
TRIOT Act abridge people’s First Amendment 
right to read and think freely. In this country, 
we are entitled to read and research a topic or 
opinion without the fear that the government 
is looking over our shoulder.” 

ALA offered concrete suggestions to the At­
torney General that would remedy the unnec­
essarily broad provisions of the USA PATRIOT 
Act that threaten civil liberties. ALA suggested, 
among other things, a return to pre­PATRIOT 
safeguards on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance 
Act (FISA) court orders to business records and 
“tangible things” that would require that the 
order name a person and specify a reason to 
believe that the named person is an agent of 
a foreign power. Other suggestions included 
requirements that the court order specify the 

Bernadette Murphy is communications specialist at ALA’s 
Washington Offi  ce, e-mail: bmurphy@alawash.org 

records sought on an individual and that the 
statute provide meaningful opportunity for a 
recipient to challenge a FISA court order. 

At the meeting, the Attorney General 
expressed his support for libraries and his 
interest in continuing the dialogue with ALA 
to reach an accommodation. 

ALA wins broadcast fl ag case 
On May 6, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia issued a decisive 
3­0 opinion in favor of libraries and consum­
ers when it ruled that the FCC overstepped 
its jurisdiction by mandating a “broadcast 
flag” copy protection in new technologies. 

The decision was hailed as a signifi cant 
step towards restoring the rights of consumers 
to make lawful copies of digital content. “This 
is a big victory for consumers and libraries,” 
said Emily Sheketoff, executive director of 
the ALA Washington Office, representing the 
petitioners in the case. 

“The broadcast flag seriously undermined 
the rights allowed nonprofit educational in­
stitutions under the TEACH Act to distribute 
digital content over the Internet for distance 
learning purposes. It even imposed restric­
tions on how consumers are able to use digi­
tal content in their own homes. We are happy 
the court has restored the rights of libraries 
and consumers by ruling that the FCC does 
not have the right to mandate technological 
copy protections,” Sheketoff added. 

The FCC order required that all digital 
electronic devices, such as television sets and 
personal computers, include code that ac­
companies digital television signals to prevent 
redistribution of the digital content over the 
Internet. The petitioners in the case believed 
that the FCC ruling constituted another step 
toward giving content providers too much 
control over what users can do with digital 
content. The broadcast flag prevented the 
use of an entire category of works—high 
definition television programs—from being 
used in distance education. 

June 2005  479 C&RL News 

mailto:bmurphy@alawash.org