One Year Later: Examining the Patriot Act s Impact

摘要

Nearly a year after its passage, librarians continue to worry about the effect of the USA Patriot Act (AL, Dec. 2001, p. 12-13) on their libraries. Some 70 people--about one-third of them area librarians--turned up at the Albany (N.Y.) Public Library auditorium September 25 to hear an FBI attorney's views on the act. The library had invited Lee Pugh, chief counsel with the FBI's Albany Division, for a Banned Books Week program on how the agency's expanded powers affect public libraries. Pugh said that the FBI was pulled in different directions, by those who advocate civil rights and by those who criticize the FBI for not doing enough to prevent terrorism, the September 26 Schenectady Gazette reported. "In the past, someone was put in jail after a crime," Pugh said. "Now we have to get a person in jail to prevent him from committing a terrorist attack.