Citing privacy issue, House bars access to library files - Americas - International Herald Tribune

Citing privacy issue, House bars access to library files - Americas - International Herald Tribune: "The House of Representatives has voted to block a provision of the USA Patriot Act that made it easier for federal investigators to review the records of libraries and bookstores on national security grounds.

Critics of the federal power approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said it was an excessive grant of authority to the FBI and the Justice Department that threatened privacy and constitutional rights.

Those who challenged the provision, a coalition of liberals and conservatives, said the House vote on Wednesday, 238 to 187, should send a message to the administration that lawmakers were leery of maintaining all the elements of the law as President George W. Bush sought to renew the act.

'Congress has begun to hear that civil liberties and privacy issues are important to Americans,' said Representative Bernard Sanders, an independent from Vermont who led the effort to block the provision through a $57.5 billion spending measure. It covers the justice, state and commerce departments as well as federal science programs.

The White House has threatened to veto the measure if it impeded the Patriot Act, and Bush as recently as Tuesday urged lawmakers to renew the law.

'The Patriot Act is an important piece of legislation,' Bush told Republican lawmakers at a fund-raising dinner. 'It gives those folks who are on the front line of fighting terror the same tools - many of the same tools that are used to track down drug kingpins or tax cheats.'"