By:  Hannah Guillaume
Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

WASHINGTON - Librarians and reporters who refused to reveal their sources to federal agencies shared their stories during Banned Book Week at the National Press Club Thursday.

Their battles were a result of the federal government seeking information under the USA Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act became law in 2001. Its purpose is to give law enforcement agencies more tools to fight terrorism.

The Patriot Act drew criticism from the librarians and reporters because, even after revisions, it still allows searches of book stores, reporter’s research and library records.

“This is the most concerted assault on the media since the days of Richard Nixon,” said Mark Feldstein, director of the journalism program at George Washington University. “When journalists are attacked by the government, it’s a sign the democracy is in trouble.”

In April, FBI agents went to Feldstein’s home and tried to convince him to hand over his biographical research on Jack Anderson, a former investigative reporter who died at age 83 in 2005. Feldstein once worked for Anderson and is writing a book about him.

Part of what the agents were looking for included names of pro-Israel reporters who had worked for Anderson in the 1950s and ‘60s, Feldstein said. The FBI’s case was built on alleged violations of the Espionage Act.

“I thought it was ironic that the FBI was coming to me for information” Feldstein said, because he had filed a Freedom of Information Act request six years ago seeking files the government had about Anderson.

He refused to name names or give the agents hints. Anderson’s family owns the files and also refused to give the information to the FBI.

The two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who face jail for refusing to testify about their grand jury sources in the steroid scandal involving athletes is a sign things are getting out of hand, Feldstein and other reporters said.

James Risen, a 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning reporter from the New York Times, said courts seem to be leaning away from public and reporters’ First Amendment rights by jailing reporters who refuse to testify.

Without a reporter’s shield law there “will become more tabloidization of the American press,” Risen said because reporters will fear jail if they do serious investigative reporting.

Formerly against having a reporter’s shield law, Risen said now he is willing to draw battle lines between the media and the government to protect journalism.

Patricia Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said it’s not just reporters facing jail time anymore. Librarians are “dangerous” too.

Four librarians from around the country who were ordered to hand over Internet users’ information to the FBI and refused ended up in court and were ordered not to talk about it, a gag order that lasted nearly a year.

Peter Chase, one of the librarians, said he refused because he felt it was unconstitutional for the government to seek the information without a warrant.

“We’re librarians. We believe deeply in intellectual freedom,” said Chase, director of the Plainville Public Library in Connecticut for 25 years.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of the librarians, and the gag order was eventually dropped.

“We’re vulnerable. If they come again, we would go through the same brouhaha,” Chase said.

All four librarians added that they had hints that the case might involve investigations of the anthrax deaths in 2001. Still, they said, there was no way to know what the FBI wanted.