Brave Local Citizens 1, Police State 0

Let's hope that this is the beginning of more reports of local people organizing to fight the Patriot Act's most odious provisions—and winning. It's a small victory, I know. Library Connection simply won the right to declare that the FBI had come snooping. Apparently, they still have to submit to the snooping.

After fighting ferociously for months, federal prosecutors relented yesterday and agreed to allow a Connecticut library group to identify itself as the recipient of a secret F.B.I. demand for records in a counterterrorism investigation.

The decision ended a dispute over whether the broad provisions for secrecy in the USA Patriot Act, the antiterror law, trumped the free speech rights of library officials. The librarians had gone to federal court to gain permission to identify themselves as the recipients of the secret subpoena, known as a national security letter, ordering them to turn over patron records and e-mail messages.

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