Speaking of the USA PATRIOT Act, many of the nation’s top criminal justice experts don’t like it either according to a recently released report from Thomson Publishing. update: you can read the whole report here. [pdf]
Category: usapa
USAPA might have prevented 9/11 says Clarke
Richard Clarke has seemed like a sane man recently, so I was surprised to read his talk where he emphatically stated that the USA PATRIOT Act is not just good law, it’s an essential law enforcement tool. [thanks karen]
“…the Patriot Act has been a cure-all for the intelligence failures that were exposed by the 9/11 attacks.”
President Bush using National Library Week to stump for the PATRIOT Act, calling it “essential law“. [thanks bill]
NLW – president still gung ho on USAPA
Just in time for NLW… President Bush says that he intends to pressure Congress into renewing the parts of the USA PATRIOT Act that would have otherwise expired in 2005. [lisnews]
reading assignment for today
Isn’t it great that as librarians we have such good stuff to read online? For today’s assignment, please read “Lawfully Surfing the Net: Disabling Public Library Internet Filters to Avoid More Lawsuits in the United States” Even though I date a law student, I’m all in favor of fewer lawsuits.
If you’ve never heard a librarian sputter, just get one talking about CIPA and staff computers. Many librarians correctly determine that, since all staff are adults (with the exception of any under 17 who should be treated differently), they have the right to disable the filters….Why install them in the first place, many argue, causing untold hassles in maintenance and sometimes significantly increased fees? This is a reasonable position. Yet the text of the law says “any of its computers with Internet access” [thanks raizel]