Librarians Bravely Stand Up to National Security Letters

The President married a librarian. I don't care what your politics are, no self-respecting librarian would ever stand for their spouse doing this crap.

From Wired:

Life in an FBI muzzle is no fun. Two Connecticut librarians on Sunday described what it was like to be slapped with an FBI national security letter and accompanying gag order. It sounded like a spy movie or, gulp, something that happens under a repressive foreign government. Peter Chase and Barbara Bailey, librarians in Plainville, Connecticut, received an NSL to turn over computer records in their library on July 13, 2005. Unlike a suspected thousands of other people around the country, Chase, Bailey and two of their colleagues stood up to the Man and refused to comply, convinced that the feds had no right to intrude on anyone's privacy without a court order (NSLs don't require a judge's approval). That's when things turned ugly.

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Thankfully the FBI will be curbing the abuses associated with NSLs.

Next month the FBI will begin to release records detailing the abuse of NSLs.

Needless to say, Icee Awards for Chase, Baily and all the other librarians that stood up to this treatment.