And the winner is ... Anonymous!

aka, John Doe. The librarian known merely as plaintiff "John Doe" in the case John Doe v. Gonzales, along with Doe's unidentified employer, is this year's winner of the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award, given by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The case challenges the constitutionality of Section 505 of the USA Patriot Act, which allows the FBI to issue an administrative subpoena known as a national security letter without judicial oversight. The act also gags those receiving one of these nasty letters from revealing that fact to anyone. "Since Doe and his employer cannot directly accept the award, a third party will stand in on their behalf January 21, during a reception at the 2006 ALA Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio." Think I might attend to see if anyone lurking in the shadows looks John Doe-ish.