The American Civil Liberties Union, The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the American Library Association's Freedom to Read Foundation have sued the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act in an effort to extract more information about the government's application of the Patriot Act.

I covered the original suit back in August and wrote of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act:

The FBI can walk into any bookstore or library with a search warrant, demand sales or lending records for anyone suspected of "international terrorism" or "clandestine activities." The employee has no recourse but to turn the records over, then cannot discuss this activity with anyone other than his/her attorney. The House Judiciary Committee and representatives of booksellers want to know how many times this has happened. I'm not sure that the booksellers have any right other than courtesy to the information, but surely the House Judiciary Committee, with legal responsibility for overseeing the Patriot Act, does.

Again we see a near-paranoid aversion to divulging any information to anyone from John Ashcroft's Justice Department - a condition that only leads others to a similar state of paranoia in others, with or without cause. Why give so-inclined people the opportunity to let their imaginations run wild? When people perceive a pattern of unwarranted secrecy, they suspect the worst. Ashcroft's Justice has handled this general problem very poorly in both word and deed.

According to a statement today from the ACLU:

"The Justice Department conceded in early September that the information is of exceeding importance to the American public, but it nonetheless continues to stonewall," said Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program.

The records requested concern the government's implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act, legislation that was passed in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. By amending laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), USA PATRIOT vastly expands the government's authority to obtain personal information about those living in the United States, including United States citizens.

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