8/9/07 National Security Letters Act Introduced
The National Security Letters Reform Act of 2007 (H.R. 3189) has been introduced in Congress by a bipartisan group of legislators. The bill was introduced in response to the Justice Department's handling of controversial national security letters in libraries, most notably in the case of the “Connecticut John Does.” The proposed legislation would give an NSL recipient the right to challenge the letter and its nondisclosure requirement, place a time limit on NSL gag orders, give notice to an NSL recipient if the records obtained are to be used in a subsequent proceeding, and grant an NSL recipient the right to legal counsel and to challenge the use of obtained records. The Ohio Library Council Board of Directors endorsed a resolution condemning the use of NSLs to obtain library records that was adopted by the ALA Council at the ALA Annual Conference in June. Letters have been sent to all of Ohio 's members of Congress announcing the OLC's endorsement of the resolution and encouraging their support of the bill.
