- John Ashcroft's war on terrorism includes the most
far-reaching
gag order in First Amendment history -- preventing the press from reporting
on the FBI's seizure of the lists of books bought or borrowed in bookstores
and libraries by noncitizens and citizens suspected of terrorist
activities.
Under the omnibus USA Patriot Act, the FBI has the authority to get an
order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- a secret body
composed of rotating federal judges -- to seek "any tangible things
(including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an
investigation
to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence
activities."
-
- The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
(ABFFE) and the American Library Association (ALA) have particularly
alerwhen
either of these organizations are contacted by their constituents, the
caller must not reveal the visitation by the FBI. All a bookseller or
librarian
can say is: "We need to contact your legal counsel."
-
- I asked lawyers for both the ABFFE and ALA whether --
once this law is challenged -- the court proceedings also will be secret
since it involves domestic and foreign intelligence. Already, Attorney
General Ashcroft has closed many immigration hearings to the public and
the press. I was told that it is likely that courts hearing these search
cases under the USA Patriot Act also will be closed.
-
- My information is that there have been, as of this
writing,
at least three FBI searches of the reading preferences of people under
suspicion. That is all the information I have, and I cannot reveal my
sources
lest they be subject to penalties for breaking the gag order.
-
- By what criteria will the FBI place certain readers under
sus federal agents."
-
- The USA Patriot Act does contain one slippery clause
for the attorney general to use against First Amendment advocates who claim
that the government is overreaching: "An investigation under this
section shall ... not be conducted of a United States person solely upon
the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the
Constitution
of the United States" (emphasis added).
-
- Lawyers for the booksellers and the librarians say that
this newspeak (as Orwell called such language) means that if "a United
States person" solely speaks on a street corner protesting Ashcroft's
assaults on the Bill of Rights in the USA Patriot Act, or writes a column
like this one, the First Amendment will still apply.
-
- But, if that "United States person" is
suspected
by the FBI of also somehow being involved in terrorist activities, the
First Amendment no longer protects the privacy of that person's reading
preferences
-
- Nat Hentoff is a writer for The Village Voice.
- His "Getting It Right" column appears monthly
in E&P.
-
- http://209.11.43.220
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