It Came From South of The Border: Effects of the USA PATRIOT Act and More on Canadian Libraries

Abstract

This presentation examined the effects of the USA PATRIOT Act on Canadian libraries along with other similar American actions, such as the rulings of the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Controls (OFAC). In a time when libraries in Canada are spending increasingly large amounts of money on electronic products housed on servers located in the United States (or under the control of American subsidiaries), it is important to know how these databases and our use of them is impacted by American legislation and governmental activities. This session will look at what libraries and other organizations and jurisdictions in Canada are doing to deal with these problems.