FBI Bugging Public Libraries 567
zamiel writes "Bill Olds writes in the Hartford Courant: 'I know my librarian, and I believe she would tell me if the government were tracking my computer use at the library. Don't you agree? No way. There's a gag order. When the FBI uses a court order or a subpoena to gain access to library computers or a list of the names of people who have borrowed certain books, librarians can't tell anyone - not even other librarians or you. They face a stiff federal penalty if they do. It's unfair that librarians should be placed in such a position.'" The American Library Association has a page with advice to librarians and links to previous news stories on the subject.
Universities Too (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks Patriot Act.
Er, you don't say... (Score:3, Informative)
Also (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's about time! (Score:5, Informative)
universities track logins (Score:5, Informative)
Which brings me to the point of, where's the right to privacy? Waived at the door, I guess, since apparently the presupposition is that by using your authentication to log in to these systems, you've agreed that you've read all these policies and have agreed to all these potential remedies against your violation of these policies. Any lawyers out there know if that holds water?
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"Limited government" will always exceed its bounds
See Also (Score:3, Informative)
See also the article [slashdot.org] posted in September on this topic
Re:Ashcroft is the reincarnation of McArthy? (Score:3, Informative)
er, no. It's quite expensive because of the sheer volume of data that needs to be tracked. And no, just stuffing it away for "future" perusal is not a viable option. Your assuming that either the information flow will decrease, or the methods used will increase productivity as a rate significantly higher than the data being captured. Until that happens, any saved (and my god this would be a massive amount) could only be used to go back and look for specific individuals, vs retro-processing.
Generally YES (Score:3, Informative)
The Patriot Act relies on a hysterical and ill-defined notion of a future terrorist threat to provide justification. This has been characteristic of many "emergency measures" in many countries over the years -- you know, we have to shut down the presses because it might cause trouble, etc. Now, it's been fairly quiet for over a year in the States -- when do you think they'll dilute the Act?
A recent example abroad -- the Russian gov't interfered with internet and print press in the wake of the theater hostage-taking crisis. Although antiterrorism was the justification, a good portion of this appears to have been to save face for the gov't. They politely call this censorship "media restrictions." [nytimes.com] (NYT 11/2) Good precedent?
Now, are we aiming to be more like the Russians, or more like us?
If we go to war in Iraq, we'll see even more severe censorship than in Gulf I (when they couldn't lay hands on Peter Arnett) and who knows what sort of internal investigations looking for seditious intent. How many people here will end up on the list? (Actually, with the increased use of sniffers looking for keywords in email and postings, you probably all are on the list.
I am a great supporter of our government, but stop snooping in our libraries, this is pathetic.
AMERICANS: VOTE TODAY!
Re:Now you tell me! (Score:2, Informative)
"The Catcher in the Rye" is the book of choice for assassins. Check out Conspiracy Theory [imdb.com] for references.
Feel free to read the numbers and weep (Score:3, Informative)
The spot itself [Re:The Irony Is...] (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.adcouncil.org/campaigns/campaign_for
Click on Library (links on the right).
If security experts believe that a determined criminal's last resort for information would be the public library... too bad for all of us.
Our society is built on the trust that most of its members lead lives based on "acceptable" line of behavior. There is no way to enforce high security against determined individuals without changing the environment, at a high cost, both monetary and human rights wise. Such environments are prisons, banks, airports, etc.
The choice of a government to create conflicts and conditions which encourage the appearance of such "determined individuals" is a conscious decision to turn its citizens into hostages.
Unfortunately, I don't see a quick solution.
Maybe treat others with respect and/or leave them alone? Even that might not be a solution as it might be exploited as a sign of fear. I am not a politician and do not understand the rules in the battle for power. What I see is that a structure which was invented to support the best interests of "all people" is changing its function to support other entities by _exploiting_ "all people".
Now what?
Fear ... uncertainty ... denial. (Score:3, Informative)
It's true that the USA-PATRIOT Act has a number of provisions that are of questionable Constitutionality and dubious value to the War Against Terror (TM, Pat. Pending). However, this article (gratuitous link [ctnow.com])is nothing more than gross conjecture without evidence. As we say down here in Texas, he's sellin' a whole lotta bull and not much steak.
It is illegal for a wiretap or datatap to be undertaken without judicial oversight and authorization (see United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), holding "Fourth Amendment freedoms cannot properly be guaranteed if domestic security surveillances may be conducted solely within the discretion of the Executive Branch."). The expanded tap provisions of USA-PATRIOT allow for a greater level of secrecy to surround specific wire- or datataps (specifically, those approved by the special FISA court for national security issues), but federal law enforcement does not have carte blanche to go around randomly listening in to our conversations. In order for a tap to pass Constitutional muster, it has to be narrowly drawn. Setting up a general-purpose dragnet to pull in data from all library patrons, the vast majority of whom cannot legally be targeted by a FISA tap order, would get drop-kicked out of the most deferential judge's chambers. (Orrin Hatch's statement on FISA taps under USA-PATRIOT is here [fas.org], and the ALA's interpretation of the Act is here [ala.org]).
The FBI does have expanded powers to grab library records, for purposes of domestic law enforcement as well as international espionage and terror investigations, but that's very different -- if no less disturbing -- than ongoing monitoring, and would be sufficient to trigger the librarians' circumspection. It certainly doesn't mean that the Feds slapped a Carnivore underneath the public terminal carousel.
"They" are not omnipotent, you know... (Score:2, Informative)
* The FBI has recently begun an initiative to hire 600 new agents, as they are grossly understaffed.
* This initiative calls for massive amount of technical/computer agents, as the Bureau cannot keep them in employment due to corporations offering them triple their salary for less work, better hours, and a less stressful environment.
* Regional HQ offices group internet crime investigations in squads with embezzlement, insurance fraud, identity fraud, and other white-collar crimes.
* FBI field offices have, at best, two or three computer specialists who can deal with problems within the jurisdiction of the field office.
* White-collar squads have a four-month backlog of cases they need to investigate before moving on to cases that would come in today.
* For every computer-related investigation that comes in, a case comes in for insurance fraud, one comes in for public embezzlement, and one comes in for public bribery.
* Rating the above four case types by public profile and positive media exposure, computer investigations come as lowest priority. (While everyone loves seeing their city council members get arrested for accepting bribes, very few care if Joe Hacker is arrested for harassing a webiste the majority of America has never even heard of.)
Something tells me that, while this Act might indeed infringe on privacy rights, the FBI has better things to do than put taps on every computer in library in America. Further, they lack the manpower to monitor those taps or snoop public computers, given all the cases computer specialists are called on to handle. More likely, they will take advantage of this new "privelage" when they know the lead to be a solid one, and have reason to believe it will lead to an arrest.
Anyway, just my $0.02 USD.
Precedent: Griswold v. Conneticut (Score:2, Informative)
From the Supreme Court's opinion on Griswold v. Conneticut:
(emphasis mine)
Re:Amendments 9 and 10 really don't exist... (Score:4, Informative)
The ruling even states, "Every law enacted by Congress must be based on one or more of its powers enumerated in the Constitution", and specifically cites Marbury v. Madison in rejecting arbitrary extensions of federal power.
Incidentally, it was the four liberal justices who dissented in order to promote federal power over every little bit of American society (and likewise in striking down the Gun Free School Zone law, where again Congress tried to buy votes by grossly exceeding its limits).
(And for the but-the-Conservatives-screwd-States-Rights-to-hel
EFF Pioneer award in 2000: "Librarians Everywhere" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just delete the info? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What is the issue? (Score:3, Informative)
Of course we're not against law enforcement monitoring communications between individuals who are under investigation so long as they show just cause to a judge and receive the appropriate warrents. The main problem I have with this is that what you read is very close to what you think. I don't believe that our government has the right to tell us which books are ok, nor do I believe they have the right to judge what we read or think. It's absolutely impossible that reading something can lead to imminent danger for yourself or others. You might use knowledge gained from a book to do harm to yourself or others, but that's a decision not affected by what you've read. If you believe it's ok for the government to look into what you read, what do you think about the government surveilling your thoughts as well? Think that's silly? NASA doesn't seem to think so [washtimes.com].
"If such power is misused then it is cause of great convern, but the article provides no evidence that this is the case."
Quite alright, I'll provide the much-anticipated evidence. The FBI began its campaign of illegal monitoring and other abuses back in the 1960's during the civil rights movements. Organizations such as SNCC were routinely infiltrated by FBI agents while many of the leaders were being bugged and had their phones tapped; most of it without even so much as a warrant. The abuses continued until the 1970's when major restrictions were put in place on the FBI's domestic spying capabilities. The culmination of these efforts was the 1974 Privacy Act. (back then, the names of laws weren't usually misleading like they are now). What's been going on lately? Well, just recently, the FISA court (secretive court created to deal with foreign intelligence gathering on US soil), in an unprecidented move, blasted the FBI [go.com] publicly for abuse of the FISA act, lying to the FISA court about evidence and such, and a whole host of other things. They even barred one agent from ever again appearing before the court due to his consistantly inaccurate depositions and testimony before the court.
What's my point? The FBI has, for the last 40 some-odd years shown a constant disregard for laws and civil liberties, as well as the Constitutionally-protected rights of citizens; especially with regard to matters of free speech. The evidence against the FBI is very damning, and the FISA court's anger with the FBI clearly shows they have no intention of staying within the limits of the law, even now. Now, we're giving the FBI more powers of surveillance? The USA PATRIOT act basically removed all the restrictions placed upon the FBI in the 1970's, and gave them a whole host of new powers. Did you know they can now look through your financial and banking information without so much as a visit to a courthouse? The book-bugging escapade appears as though it'll require judges to get rubber stamps made up just for the occasion. The fact that the entire process is secretive is even more frightening. As was said in a recent court ruling, "democracies die behind closed doors." But like I said, I don't think they should be able to monitor what you or I read anyway, so this is all moot.
"Well, it is pretty obvious that if you are going to bug something you can't tell the world what you are doing."
While this is correct, we also assume that when law enforcement takes an action, especially one which has the potential for massive abuse, there's going to be some kind of oversight. The USA PATRIOT act removes virtually all oversight, granting the FBI unprecidented free reign to spy on Americans.
I don't know about you, but I really don't want my government spying on me.
If anyone's interested in a little honesty-in-politics, we should rename the "war on terrorism" to "The War on Freedom and the Average Citizen", and then we should rename the USA PATRIOT act to the "Dividing and Frightening America by Providing Inappropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Freedom Act". Hmm, DFAPITRIOFA - perhaps not the best acronym, but certainly more accurate. USA PATRIOT act... What's patriotic about shredding the US Constitution?