Legislation

On June 25, 2013, ARL joined 37 other privacy and civil liberties organizations and companies in a letter urging the US Senate to adhere to a basic set of principles to protect Americans’ privacy when drafting its cybersecurity legislation.

 ltr-cybersecurity-privacy-25jun13.pdf

image © Wally GobetzThis week ARL joined 109 other organizations as part of the Coalition for National Science Funding in a letter (PDF) to the US House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, as well as the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, expressing concern about recent Congressional actions that call into question the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) merit review process for awarding research grants.

image © Bjørn MolstadThe Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) applauds the introduction in the US House of Representatives on May 9, 2013, of H.R. 1892, the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013, by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and Jared Polis (D-CO). The bill guarantees that legitimate uses of digital works and technologies will not run afoul of copyright law, even if they require breaking digital locks. Prompted by the recent uproar over cell phone unlocking, the bill recognizes that issue as a symptom of a much larger problem and would fix that problem permanently.

Senator Patrick Leahy
image © World BankOn Thursday, April 25, the US Senate Judiciary Committee took another crucial step toward fixing outdated privacy laws by endorsing a bill proposed by Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) that includes vital reforms to give appropriate privacy protection to e-mail and cloud storage. The committee passed a similar bill in November 2012, but the legislative session ended before the measure could reach the full Senate. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) applauds Chairman Leahy and all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for their strong, bipartisan support for reasonable privacy protections online.

We the undersigned organizations urge you to vote "no" on H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA). We are gravely concerned that this bill will allow companies that hold very sensitive and personal information to liberally share it with the government, which could then use the information without meaningful oversight for purposes unrelated to cybersecurity.

aclu-coalition-cispa-16apr2012.pdf

Letter from library associations thanking Paul Broun for conducting a hearing on Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests.

frpaa-broun-29mar2012.pdf

Library association letter expressing opposition to H.R. 3699, The Research Works Act.

lt-researchworksact-24jan12.pdf