For Immediate Release

February 13, 2006

Contact: Judith Platt
Ph: 202-220-4551
Email: jplatt@publishers.org

Publishers See Patriot Act Compromise as Seriously Flawed

The U.S. publishing industry is deeply disappointed in the compromise reached late last week that will allow the Senate to vote this week and undoubtedly pass legislation to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, according to a statement issued today by the Association of American Publishers (AAP).  The compromise legislation is expected to win House passage as well.

Former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, AAP President and CEO,  expressed the industry’s grave concern that the “compromise” fails to provide the single most important safeguard sought by publishers: a requirement that in order for the FBI to seize sensitive records, including those of libraries and bookstores,  under Section 215, the government would have to show a connection with a suspected terrorist or spy. “Under the compromise reached last week, we’re back to a vague assertion by the government that the records are in some way ‘relevant’ to an investigation.  That’s just not good enough!”, Mrs. Schroeder said.  She also expressed publishers’ dissatisfaction with what she termed a “cosmetic” fix regarding the right to challenge the Section 215 gag order. “Recipients of 215 orders are still gagged for at least a year before they can challenge this serious abridgment of their First Amendment rights, and even then will not be able to raise the challenge if the government claims national security interests. Congress could have, and should have, done better.” 

Mrs. Schroeder expressed the hope that “if the reauthorization legislation passes as expected, House and Senate members on both sides of the aisle who have fought for civil liberties safeguards will continue that fight, demanding increased, stringent Congressional oversight.”

The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry.  AAP’s members include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses, and scholarly societies.  The Association represents an industry whose very existence depends upon the free exercise of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

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