Patriot Act faces challenge from librarians, writers

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, February 26, 2004

SEATTLE — Booksellers, librarians and writers want Congress to amend a section of the USA Patriot Act to protect people’s privacy when it comes to books they buy or check out of the library.

"To our knowledge, there is not a single association, organization or company in our entire industry that supports Section 215 as it exists today," said Phillip Bevis, founder of Arundel Books, which has stores in Seattle and Los Angeles and sells books online.

The Campaign for Reader Privacy is trying to collect a million signatures on petitions calling for amendment of the law. Bevis designed the Web site for the campaign, sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, the American Library Association and PEN — poets, playwrights, essayists, editors and novelists — American Center, a writer’s group.

The book industry isn’t afraid of Section 215. "Our customers are," Bevis said at a Thursday news conference at the Public Library Association 10th National Conference.

Section 215 does not specifically mention bookstores or libraries, but permits the FBI to obtain secret warrants for "books, records, papers, documents and other items" from businesses, hospitals or other organizations.

Yakima

National Catholic abuse study concludes 4 percent of priests accused: A national church-sanctioned study documenting sex abuse by U.S. Roman Catholic clergy found that about 4 percent of clerics have been accused of molesting minors since 1950, a diocese said Thursday. The Diocese of Yakima said in a news release that the survey compiled by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice found 4,392 of the 109,694 clergy who served over that five-decade period faced allegations of abuse. The survey was overseen by the National Review Board, a lay watchdog panel the bishops formed at the height of the abuse crisis. The review board had a Friday morning news conference scheduled in Washington to discuss the report and a companion study on how the abuse crisis developed.

Blacks in Government cancels convention following racial comment: A group representing black government employees has canceled a spring conference in Yakima, citing a racial comment made by state Sen. Alex Deccio, R-Yakima. Charlie Hampton, a city of Seattle employee and president of the Northwest chapter of Blacks in Government, said Wednesday the decision to cancel the mid-May conference was solely a reflection of the Yakima Republican’s comment in a private Olympia meeting. "It was a hard, hard decision. That is why we took so long," Hampton told the Yakima Herald-Republic. "We truly want to come over there because of the people. But we have another issue to deal with and that is our own self-dignity and what we stand for."