USA PATRIOT gag refitted
The lifting of the gag order earlier this month in connection with an ACLU lawsuit regarding the USA PATRIOT Act has been put on hold by a federal appeals court.
2nd Circuit ruling keeps gag on librariansHARTFORD, Conn. — A federal appeals court has put a hold on a Connecticut judge's ruling that had lifted a gag order on Connecticut librarians who received an FBI demand for records about library patrons under the Patriot Act.
The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled yesterday that a Connecticut federal court injunction ordering disclosure of the identities should be put on hold until it can hear the government's appeal.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall in New Haven ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued that the gag order prevented its client, apparently one of several librarians involved, from participating in a debate over whether Congress should reauthorize the Patriot Act.
The Hartford Courant had this quote in a follow-up article about the Appeals Court decision:
In an affidavit unsealed by the court, one of the librarians - his or her identity still masked - stated, "To the best of my knowledge, the existence of the NSL provision and its applicability to libraries is not generally known within the library community. Now that I know about the NSL power, the gag is preventing me from educating my own library ... and other libraries and library associations about the NSL power and the threat it poses to the privacy of library patrons."