ALA: government asks about patrons.

Last June, a library user in Whatcom County, Washington, checked out Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America and noticed a handwritten note in the margin: "Hostility toward America is a religious duty and we hope to be rewarded by God." The user reported it to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which, in turn, asked the library system for information identifying anyone who had checked out the book since 2001.

The library's lawyers turned down the request, and agents came back with a subpoena. Joan Airoldi, who heads the library, said a simple Google search revealed that the handwritten line was an often-cited quote from bin Laden that was included in the report issued by the 9/11 Commission.

The library fought the subpoena, and the FBI withdrew its demand.

According to a study commissioned by the American Library Association (ALA) that surveyed 1,500 public libraries and 4,000 academic libraries, law enforcement officials have made at least 200 formal and informal inquiries to U.S. libraries for information on reading material and other internal matters since October 2001. Under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the U.S. government can search financial, library, medical, church, and other records without a warrant or the party's knowledge. As a result, several libraries have admitted to disposing of patrons' records so they will not be available if requested under the law.

Because the Patriot Act bans those who receive certain types of demands for records from challenging the order or even telling anyone they have received it, the study did not directly ask how or whether the Patriot Act has been used to search libraries. Instead, the study sought to determine the frequency of law enforcement inquiries at all levels without asking for details about their nature. Even so, organizers said the data suggests that investigators were seeking information from libraries far more frequently than Bush administration officials have acknowledged. The Bush administration says that while it is critical for law enforcement officials to get information from libraries if needed in terrorism investigations, officials have yet to actually use their power under the Patriot Act to demand records from libraries or bookstores.

However, in some cases, the study revealed, agents used subpoenas or other formal demands to obtain information such as lists of users checking out a book about bin Laden. Other requests were informal and were sometimes turned down by librarians who chafed at the notion of turning over such material, said the ALA.

The ALA, which has pushed to scale back the government's powers to gain information from libraries, said its study was the first to examine a question that was central to a House vote in July on the Patriot Act: how frequently federal, state, and local agents are demanding records from libraries.

A large majority of those who responded to the study, which used anonymous responses to address legal concerns related to the Patriot Act's ban on revealing that they have received specific requests, said they had not been contacted by any law enforcement agencies since October 2001, when the Patriot Act was passed.

But there were 137 formal requests or demands for information in that time, 49 from federal officials and the remainder from state or local investigators. Federal officials have sometimes used local investigators on joint terrorism task forces to conduct library inquiries.

In addition, the survey found that 66 libraries had received informal law enforcement requests without an official legal order, including 24 federal requests. ALA officials said the survey results, if extrapolated from the libraries that responded, would amount to a total of around 600 formal inquiries since 2001.

The survey also found what library association officials described as a "chilling effect" caused by public concerns about the government's powers. Nearly 40 percent of the libraries responding reported that users had asked about changes in practices related to the Patriot Act, and about 5 percent said they had altered their activities as a result for instance, by reviewing the types of books they bought.