Librarian's Rant

The American Civil Liberties Union and New York Civil Liberties Union today disclosed documents in an extraordinary sealed case in federal court involving the Patriot Act’s expanded “National Security Letter� power. The ACLU lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of a provision that allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation to demand sensitive customer records from businesses without judicial oversight.

The ACLU said it was forced to file the lawsuit about the National Security Letter power under seal to avoid penalties for violating a strict gag provision, which it is also challenging on First Amendment grounds. ...It took nearly three weeks to reach an agreement with the government that allowed the ACLU to disclose anything about the case without fear of penalty. Certain details about the lawsuit remain under seal.

Last year we created Google Grants—a growing program in which hundreds of non-profits addressing issues, including the environment, poverty and human rights, receive free advertising. And now, we are in the process of establishing the Google Foundation. We intend to contribute significant resources to the foundation, including employee time and approximately 1% of Google’s equity and profits in some form. We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.

J.K. Rowling:
While you're there, can you look for my missing muse? It's been lost since chapter 34 of "Goblet of Fire"...

Sinclair Broadcast Group has ordered its affliates to preempt tommorow's Nightline, during which Ted Koppel will read a list of military personnel who have died in Iraq. In a press release, the company stated, "Despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show, the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq." Incidently, Sinclair supported President Bush for president in 2000.

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has announced the 2004 Muzzle award recipients for the worst violators of free speech and expression. Amongst the winners: CBS, for bowing to pressure by conservative groups to pull the miniseries The Reagans; the Secret Service, for interrogating Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Michael Ramirez over a cartoon they had deemed threatening to the president; and Baseball Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey for cancelling a ceremony honoring Bull Durham's anniversary after the movies' stars Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon criticized the war in Iraq.

As a Web master for several Islamic organizations, Hussayen helped to maintain Internet sites with links to groups that praised suicide bombings in Chechnya and Israel. But he himself does not hold those views, his lawyers said.

His role was like that of a technical editor, they said, arguing he cannot be held criminally liable for what others wrote.

Civil libertarians say the case poses a landmark test of what people can do or whom they can associate with in the age of terror alerts.

Attention all users of Librarians' Index to the Internet: LII would like its users to take a short, ten-question annual user survey. To take the survey, go to: http://tinyurl.com/3c886

If you run into technical problems with the survey, e-mail survey@lii.org

Responses are due by midnight (Pacific Time), Friday, May 14.