The American Patriot Act allows the US government to require public libraries to hand over patrons’ book-borrowing and Internet-surfing records to investigate terrorist leads. “It also prohibits library staff from publicizing law enforcement requests for such materials.” A study of 906 libraries by the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign finds “that in the year following the Sept. 11 attacks, federal and local law enforcement agents visited at least 545 libraries to inquire after patrons’ records.” And were records turned over? About half the bibraries complied with the orders.