Electronic surveillance

Long Before Snowden, Librarians Were Anti-Surveillance Heroes

Specifically, the section of the Patriot Act that expired is Section 215, which is commonly nicknamed the “library records provision,” because it called on librarians to hand over patron reading and computer records when requested by law enforcement under a Section 215 request. The law further paired government requests for information with a gag order, so if librarians were asked to hand over patron data, they legally weren’t allowed to alert anyone.