Sean Patrick Maloney: “today I will be supporting the Sanders Freedom to Read amendment which would curb the FBI's unlimited power to examine…”

“today I will be supporting the Sanders Freedom to Read amendment which would curb the FBI's unlimited power to examine library records without providing evidence that one is under reasonable suspicion of terrorism. The free library is a great American institution. But under the PATRIOT Act, your local library is no longer free. It can cost you your civil liberties, and in America that makes it very expensive. We should not have to think twice about how our intellectual curiosity might be analyzed by a Federal investigation. This is a chilling thought in the land of the free. We must protect our country against terrorism. Reinstating laws allowing the FBI to conduct searches on library and bookstore records with search warrants and criminal subpoenas would not jeopardize our national security; it would protect our constitutional right to privacy and make our Nation's libraries free again.”