Earlier this week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Network Neutrality policies that would preserve the open Internet on all wired and wireless networks. While the battle is far from over, this was a positive step forward for grassroots groups who partnered with the Media and Democracy Coalition to collect signatures in support of network neutrality from 40 grassroots groups representing communities of color, low-income communities, and other historically marginalized communities from across the U.S.

Read the coalition’s letter.

Excerpt:

…It is well documented that people of color and low-income individuals are among the least-connected segments of the U.S. population. In 2009, 46% of African Americans had broadband at home, and only 35% of households with incomes $20,000 and under had access, compared to the national average of 63% of adult Americans. That means millions of African Americans and low income individuals fail to get jobs that their connected neighbors get; their children struggle more to complete their homework; and their voices are not heard as loudly in important civic debates.  The very real divides between race and class in U.S. society continue to be perpetuated on the Internet.

[snip]…We are also steadfast in our support for efforts at the FCC that would prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from discriminating content on the Internet.  These network neutrality rules are needed for people of color and low income individuals to be creators of Internet content that is relevant to their communities, not just consumers of content that is profitable for big cable and phone companies.

A coalition of 20 civil liberties organizations, including the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), released a letter today endorsing the USA Patriot Amendments Act (H.R. 3845) and pointing out the failures of the Senate’s PATRIOT Act Sunset Extension Act (S. 1692). As their names suggest, the Amendments Act proposes reforms to the expiring sections of the USAPA, while the Extension Act pretty much extends the USAPA provisions with very few promising changes. The next review will be in 2013.

CDT compiled this very helpful chart that compares the two bills to the current law. Check out the difference on gag orders (p. 2 and 4) and on Section 215 orders that would capture personal info from a library or bookseller (p. 3). Also note that H.R. 3845 places limits on roving wiretaps, and proposes the “lone wolf” provision be allowed to expire.

Today, the American Library Association (ALA) endorsed the ACLU’s call to action and expressed its support for the House reform bills as well. The ALA alert includes background info and talking points.

H.R. 3845 and 3846 will be “marked up” next Wednesday, Nov. 4. That means now’s the time to contact your reps. Yes, especially if you want to push this debate even further around issues of immigrant rights and profiling. Remember it was during the Senate mark-up period earlier this month that Sens. Feinstein and Leahy abandoned their commitment to curb dragnets against individuals, communities and human rights orgs. Some California Reps., like Dem. Jane Harman, are already supporting this legislation. Can’t hurt to remind her.

What else can you do? Write letters to the editor. Get FISA Right posted some templates to get you started.

View full Center for Democracy & Technology post.

The House Judiciary Committee is expected for a classified hearing on Patriot Act issues and proposed surveillance reforms on Thursday October 29 at 2:30pm EST. There are several ways to stay up-to-date and participate in the public discussion. But, most importantly, contact your state reps right now and consider writing an editorial in your local papers.

1. Contact your representatives now using the new action forum posted by the ACLU. The action text, thankfully, draws attention to some of the oversights in the current reform legislation, calling on representatives to continue pushing for stronger public protections and repeal of expanded FBI powers. In particular we need to continue demanding changes to Section 505 as well as the slippery definition of “material support” which leaves social justice and human rights organizations vulnerable to targeting and criminal prosecution. Add your own two cents now.

2.Write an op-ed or letter to the editor. I haven’t done a Nexis search to confirm this, but Get FISA Right posted on Tuesday that media coverage of the surveillance reform bills H.R. 3845 and H.R. 3846 has been slim to nonexistent. Here they provide Letter to the Editor templates you can use to raise these issues in your local papers.

3. Participate in today’s live discussion at the Patriot Act Action Hub.

Read more:

From today’s Huffington Post: Sen. Wyden warns Congress to abandon hasty fear-based policymaking.

From Irregular Times: A round up of information on the reform legislation being considered, H.R. 3845 and 3846.

See also, my prior posts on the California Library Association’s Patriot Act resolution (make your own!) and the need for deeper coalition building on these issues (includes more recommended resources).

Today I’m blogging from a conference on student (and generally young adult) library users hosted by LAUC-B. I’m about to go into a breakout session with e-learning specialist Char Booth on community-centered research. Here’s a great new book:

Booth, Char. (2009). Informing Innovation: Tracking Student Interest in Emerging Library Technologies at Ohio University (A Research Report).

In it Booth presents practical tools for getting to know what tools and technologies local communities actually need and want. Yes, “research is where it’s at.” No more technology for technology’s sake. While Booth’s writing about academic libraries, the concepts and tools in this document offer valuable insights for public libraries and for nonprofit information centers. Speaking personally, this has been an area of my work for a long time — first, trying to select appropriate new technologies for then-Web 2.0 novice staff and community members (at a grassroots nonprofit), and later, researching and sequencing reference tools for public library users in Contra Costa County, CA. In all instances we need more models for thoughtful community research.

“This book by Char Booth examines one institution’s efforts to move away from technolust and towards a ‘culture of assessment.’” Read it.

Add ons:

Informing Innovation: Survey Instrument (PDF 268 KB): Download a template library/technology survey instrument, which can be adapted to customize a local environmental scan similar to the Ohio University Libraries project

Dynamic Webcast (Flash Video – Streaming): View a dynamic webcast of Char Booth and Chris Guder’s 2009 ACRL National Conference presentation, “If You Build It, Will They Care?”, which summarizes findings and practical applications of the Ohio University Libraries student environmental scanning project.

Tuesday, the House Representatives proposed new legislation to keep the focus on needed changes/repeals to the USA PATRIOT Act by the end of 2009. Track the Patriot Amendments Act of 2009 (H.R. 3845) and the FISA Amendments Act of 2009 (H.R. 3846) on GovTrack, also includes the full text of the bills and list of cosponsors.

These bills were introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA).

Additional analysis of the Senate Judiciary PATRIOT Act extension bill were covered in a prior post, and numerous background sources on the law (treatises, advocacy orgs, articles) are covered in my USAPA 2009 Resource Guide.

Some creative souls spent the weekend making a public statement with mud! Activists in Wisconsin created mud stencils to send a message to Dept. of Corrections Security Chief Dan Westfield who, a year ago, banned used book delivery to prisoners. The book service had been run by the Rainbow Bookstore for years.

"Why Deny Used Books to WI Prisoners?" (Madison, WI)

On Twitter, @mediajustice just shared this: CNN rejected a television ad from immigrant reform advocates. The ad, critical of CNN’s own Lou Dobbs for his anti-immigrant and patently inaccurate tirades, was produced and sponsored by Media Matters and America’s Voice.

Dobbs’ hour-long show airs daily and has also been the target of the grassroots Basta Dobbs campaign in recent weeks. Ironically, that campaign is asking the show’s advertisers not to lend credibility to sensationalist, and racially hateful, journalism. While media outlets always reserve the right to reject ads, CNN seems to be sending the message that Dobbs deserves his pulpit while his critics do not. Yes, not even if they buy it.

From a public debate standpoint there are many nuances to this campaign and the Dobbs criticism. I plan to address those in future posts. But, for now, I will say: We need to understand media accountability as distinct from censorship, and journalistic speech as a powerful form of speech that can and should be held to a high standard by the public. If a journalist, even in an editorial form, is being irresponsible with their influence it’s the public’s right to challenge that influence, especially when lies are let to stand by a media outlet. Some would say this is a slippery slope to free speech infringement. I disagree. It’s a matter of understanding media accountability models developed within a human and civil rights framework — frameworks that inherently value freedom of speech and information (more on this in later posts). Further, just like book challenges provide a pulse-check on ideological debates (information we need!), media accountability campaigns bring necessary perspectives to the surface. It’s only then that we can engage the questions, “Are all ideas created equal?” and “Whose agenda is reflected in the criticism?” In the Dobbs case, does a major media megaphone for this particular man’s ideas create more danger and inequity than social good? And finally, if media outlets must operate in the public interest, is Dobbs’ particular brand of punditry in the public interest? Do we define that interest, or does the corporate outlet?

More on this story from the Huffington Post.

Watch the Media Matters ad.

October 13, 2009 • SACRAMENTO, CA — The California Library Association (CLA) has just announced a resolution calling on Congress to dramatically revise the up-for-renewal USA PATRIOT Act, passed hurriedly in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks.

Librarians have been front-line opponents of certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act since its passage. The Act has made it possible, under Section 215, for the FBI to request and obtain library records for large numbers of individuals without reason to believe they are involved in illegal activity. This jeopardizes the basic ethics of the library profession, expressed in the Library Bill of Rights of the American Library Association.

Expanding on the American Library Association’s PATRIOT Act resolution last July, the CLA resolution goes further to address imminent First and Fourth Amendment concerns with Section 505. This provision grants the FBI broad authority to sidestep constitutional safeguards though use of National Security Letters to obtain information.

CLA Intellectual Freedom Committee chair, Mary Minow, a leading expert on library law, said, “It’s past time for the blatantly unconstitutional aspects of this legislation to be removed from the books, and now is the opportunity for Congress to act.”

Two sections of the PATRIOT Act are currently up for reauthorization, with sunsets at the end of December 2009, and librarians across the country see this as an opportunity to correct those provisions that attack basic civil liberties. CLA’s resolution calls for Congress to allow Section 215 to sunset, to amend Section 505 to “include a clear exemption for library records,” and in general to intensify Congressional oversight of the use of the Act.
* CLA Resolution on 2009 Reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act (PDF, 481k)

For more information, please contact:

Mary Minow, Chair,
CLA Intellectual Freedom Committee
408-366-0123

Amy Sonnie, Member,
CLA Intellectual Freedom Committee,
415-823-0497

or cla_ifc  [a t]  earthlink [dot]  net

In light of not so nice news in the world of libraries and social justice, here’s two nice things about today:

1) Someone told me I ‘looked’ like a librarian (without knowing I am one) as I sat researching away on my computer, which they followed with the exclamation, “God, I love libraries!”

2) I visited one of my favorite art blogs for some web/graphic design inspiration, and I saw this:

by Mary Tremonte, www.justseeds.org

God, I love artists who love libraries.

Unfortunate news. Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary voted to extend expiring PATRIOT Act sections for another four years. The vote was 11-8 with California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein, as expected, among the majority in favor of prolonging the FBI’s expanded powers. I have it on good authority that Feinstein does not want to be “hounded by librarians.” This is second-hand, but let’s consider that a compliment!

The issue is now on to the Senate floor, making public and organizational pressure even more important. Let’s increase the hounding!

Judiciary Panel Approves Patriot Act Sections

New York Times, The Caucus, by Charlie Savage

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved legislation to reauthorize three sections of the so-called Patriot Act that are set to expire at the end of the year, after largely rejecting a series of proposed changes to surveillance laws sought by civil liberties and privacy advocates.

By a vote of 11 to 8, the committee sent the legislation on to the Senate floor. The bill would extend provisions that expanded the power of the F.B.I. to seize records and to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails in the course of counterterrorism investigations. [continue reading]

Obama Sides with Republicans; PATRIOT Act Renewal Bill Passes Senate Judiciary Committee Minus Critical Civil Liberties Reforms

Electronic Frontier Foundation, Deeplinks

…the Committee this morning voted to accept seven Republican amendments to the USA PATRIOT Act Sunset Extension Act to remove the few civil liberties protections left in the bill after it was already watered down at last Thursday’s Committee meeting. Surprisingly and disappointingly, most of those amendments were recommended to their Republican sponsors by the Obama Administration. [read full article]