The USA Patriot Act: How Does It Affect Libraries?

Ashcroft is trying to win back support from Congress by trying to put them back in the mindset they had after September 11th attacks. He also asserts that because of the powers given to him by the USA Patriot Act, that "no major terror attack has occurred on American soil since September 11th" (#11), but that these powers are not enough to effectively combat terrorism and that "the law has several weaknesses which terrorist could exploit, undermining our defenses" (#11). Changes that the Department of Justice would have liked to seen were exposed earlier in the year when a confidential draft legislation entitled the Demostic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 ( also refered to as "Patriot Act II) was leaked to the Center for Public Intergrity who relaid the message on to the American people. This draft legislation cause such an uproar that a coaliation of almost 70 national organizations sent a letter to Congress asking them not to support this act and instead "ask the Admistration to provide Congress and the public more information abut its use of the powers already granted in the USA Patriot Act" (#16) This seemed to spark an interest in Congress which lead to the recient testimonies from the DOJ to congress that I mentioned above.…