Gag me. Under the USA Patriot Act, booksellers and librarians must allow the FBI to investigate the reading choices of citizens and noncitizens suspected of terrorist activities–and they’re not allowed to disclose that any such investigation has taken place. So reports Nat Hentoff in Editor & Publisher (April 1); he adds that at least three such secret investigations have already taken place. “The ABFFE [American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression] and ALA [American Library Association] have told their members that they are entitled to lawyers once raids on their records have happened. But, when either of these organizations are contacted by their constituents, the caller must not reveal the visitation by the FBI. All a bookseller or librarian can say is: ‘We need to contact your legal counsel.’”
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Prosperity at work. According to a press release about a Woodstock Institute analysis of home mortgage data collected by federal regulators (March 26), 30.5 percent of home buyers in the Chicago region had low or moderate incomes in 1993. In 2000, 36.2 percent did.
Open space is where you find it. According to the Community Media Workshop’s “Newstips” (March 29), Openlands Project is working on a pilot project called the Corporatelands Program, which attempts to persuade large corporate campuses–often reviled as the epitome of suburban sprawl–to replace pesticide-heavy lawns with natural landscaping. “Underwriters Laboratory in Northbrook is planning to convert 15 acres of lawn to natural landscape this spring, and Corporatelands is reaching out to large and small corporations throughout the region.”
