The Patriot Act: I Know What It's Like

On Wednesday in a courtroom in Manhattan, the American Civil Liberties Union will argue a case before a judge on behalf of a man I have never met. I have never seen his face, or heard his voice and I do not know his name. To me, and the rest of the nation, he is a John Doe. And yet, I consider him to be a great friend.

Before he was my friend, John Doe was an inspiration. I am a board member for Library Connections, a consortium of 26 Connecticut libraries. In May of 2005 our organization received a National Security Letter (NSL). An NSL allows the FBI to demand records, in this case our library patrons' internet usage, without prior court approval. We were forbidden to tell anyone about the NSL, gagged from telling our colleagues, or our spouses. When my fellow board members and I were deciding what to do about the NSL, we were told about John Doe. Doe is the operator of an Internet Service Provider in New York. He too had received an NSL and when he did, he went to the ACLU and asked them to help him fight it. After I heard his story, my doubts vanished, and what I had to do became clear.

Since then, like good friends, John Doe and I have been through a lot together. Two years ago when our hearings were combined, I sat in a courtroom in Manhattan under threat that if I said or did anything to indicate I was involved in the case, terrible things would happen to me. I was advised not to look at my attorneys and so I passed the time looking at the other faces in the crowd trying to figure out if any of them belonged to my friend. I hoped that he was there, doing the very same thing, looking for me.

Like friends, we have a lot in common. In an op-ed he wrote last year, I learned that just like me, John Doe brought his legal papers home and hid them so his family wouldn't find them. And just like I did, when he gets certain telephone calls, he has to leave the room to speak. Just like me, he has to read about other people accepting his awards at ceremonies where they are afraid to say his name. And just like I had to do, John Doe may be sitting in a courtroom in New York Wednesday morning, trying to avert his eyes and hoping against hope that a judge will lift the unconstitutional NSL gag so that he can speak out.

In my case, after the Patriot Act was reauthorized in the spring of 2006, the FBI changed their minds and declared that my identity was no longer a threat to the national security; my fellow librarians and I could speak about receiving a NSL after all. It was clear to me then that the FBI is not protecting national security by having John Doe and I gagged, they are protecting themselves.

I am not able to call my friend to wish him good luck today in court. I can't track him down outside the courthouse and give him a pat on the back. I can only send him this message, from a former John Doe: Your day will come. And when it does, when you step out onto the stage to tell your story for the first time, I am going to be in the front row of the audience, standing up, cheering the loudest. Because I know what it's like and you deserve some applause.