[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14584]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        FREE AMERICAN LIBRARIES

  (Mrs. MALONEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, today I will be supporting the Sanders 
Freedom to Read amendment which would curb the FBI's unlimited power to 
examine library records without providing evidence that one is under 
reasonable suspicion of terrorism.
  The free library is a great American institution. But under the 
PATRIOT Act, your local library is no longer free. It can cost you your 
civil liberties, and in America that makes it very expensive.
  We should not have to think twice about how our intellectual 
curiosity might be analyzed by a Federal investigation. This is a 
chilling thought in the land of the free. We must protect our country 
against terrorism. Reinstating laws allowing the FBI to conduct 
searches on library and bookstore records with search warrants and 
criminal subpoenas would not jeopardize our national security; it would 
protect our constitutional right to privacy and make our Nation's 
libraries free again.

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