The Chains of the Constitution and Legal Process in the Library: A Post-USA Patriot Re-Authorization Act Assessment

[first paragraph] "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."The forms of legal process authorized by the USA PATRIOT Act, as they apply to library patron information, implicate both First Amendment and Fourth Amendment values. Seizing evidence of what a person is thinking about by looking at what he or she is reading or perusing on the Internet is inimical to both of these tenets of the Bill of Rights. Librarians have been among the strongest critics of the USA PATRIOT Act's incursions into this realm of intellectual freedom. And the government has heaped scorn on librarians for their opposition. But librarians do not oppose law enforcement's legitimate efforts to fight terrorism through the use of legal process in libraries; what librarians oppose is government fishing expeditions directed at the content of what people read or access in the library. There is a balance that can easily be maintained between law enforcement's access to library records and the protection of library patrons' civil liberties. The USA PATRIOT Act upsets that balance.