A controversial Patriot Act clause allowing the US government to demand information about library patrons' borrowing habits is being challenged in federal court for the first time by a library. The lawsuit was filed against US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller in the US District Court for the District of Connecticut by an unnamed library and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The suit - filed on August 9 and made public by the ACLU on Thursday - calls the FBI's order to produce library records "unconstitutional on its face" and said a gag order preventing public discussion of the lawsuit is an unlawful restraint on speech.
Critical details of the lawsuit were blacked out on the ACLU's Web site in compliance with the gag order. The library is thought to be based in Connecticut since the lawsuit was filed there with the participation of the Connecticut branch of the ACLU.
The ACLU said in its lawsuit that legal changes made under the Patriot Act "remove any requirement of individualised suspicion, (and) the FBI may now ... demand sensitive information about innocent people." Enacted after the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Patriot Act lets US authorities seek approval from a special court to search personal records of terror suspects from bookstores, businesses, hospitals and libraries, in a provision known as the library clause.
The FBI letter requesting the information, called a National Security Letter, is effectively a gag order because it tells the recipient that the request must be kept secret.