Librarians Join the Fight Against The Patriot Act 438
An anonymous reader writes "This article at the New York Times (free reg.) shows how lots of libraries are moving to destroy privacy related data as quickly as possible and still others have gone as far as posting signs and handing out leaflets to scare / educate their patrons."
link to story (no reg req'd) (Score:5, Informative)
Use the partner link, Luke. (Score:2, Informative)
Text of Article (Score:1, Informative)
By DEAN E. MURPHY
ANTA CRUZ, Calif., April 4 -- The humming noise from a back room of the central library here today was the sound of Barbara Gail Snider, a librarian, at work. Her hands stuffed with wads of paper, Ms. Snider was feeding a small shredding machine mounted on a plastic wastebasket.
First to be sliced by the electronic teeth were several pink sheets with handwritten requests to the reference desk. One asked for the origin of the expression "to cost an arm and a leg." Another sought the address of a collection agency.
Next to go were the logs of people who had signed up to use the library's Internet computer stations. Bill L., Mike B., Rolando, Steve and Patrick were all shredded into white paper spaghetti.
"It used to be a librarian would be pictured with a book," said Ms. Snider, the branch manager, slightly exasperated as she hunched over the wastebasket. "Now it is a librarian with a shredder."
Actually, the shredder here is not new, but the rush to use it is. In the old days, staff members in the nine-branch Santa Cruz Public Library System would destroy discarded paperwork as time allowed, typically once a week.
But at a meeting of library officials last week, it was decided the materials should be shredded daily.
"The basic strategy now is to keep as little historical information as possible," said Anne M. Turner, director of the library system.
The move was part of a campaign by the Santa Cruz libraries to demonstrate their opposition to the Patriot Act, the law passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that broadened the federal authorities' powers in fighting terrorism.
Among provisions that have angered librarians nationwide is one that allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation to review certain business records of people under suspicion, which has been interpreted to include the borrowing or purchase of books and the use of the Internet at libraries, bookstores and cafes.
In a survey sent to 1,500 libraries last fall by the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois, the staffs at 219 libraries said they had cooperated with law enforcement requests for information about patrons; staffs at 225 libraries said they had not.
Ms. Turner said the authorities had made no inquiries about patrons in Santa Cruz. But the librarians here and the library board, which sets policies for the 10 branches, felt strongly about the matter nonetheless. Last month, Santa Cruz became one of the first library systems in the country to post warning signs about the Patriot Act at all of its checkout counters.
Today, the libraries went further and began distributing a handout to visitors that outlines objections to the enhanced F.B.I. powers and explains that the libraries were reviewing all records "to make sure that we really need every piece of data" about borrowers and Internet users.
Maurice J. Freedman, president of the American Library Association and director of the library system in Westchester, N.Y., said only a handful of libraries had posted signs or handed out literature about the Patriot Act. Warning signs are posted in the computer room at a library in Killington, Vt., and the library board in Skokie, Ill., recently voted to post signs, Mr. Freedman said.
Many other libraries, he said, including those in Westchester, decided that warnings might unnecessarily alarm patrons.
"There are people, especially older people who lived through the McCarthy era, who might be intimidated by this," he said. "As of right now, the odds are very great that there will be no search made of a person's records at public libraries, so I don't want to scare people away."
At the same time, though, thousands of libraries have joined the rush to destroy records.
A spokesman for the Justice Department said libraries were not breaking the law by destroying records, even at a faster pace. The spokesman, Mark Corallo, said it
Re:NYT (Score:4, Informative)
Simply replace the www with archive. eg:
http://archive.nytimes.com/2003/04/07/national/
Presto! At least until they fix the hole...
And now that you can RTFM, you'll notice that the librarians aren't burning books, they're cleaning out their old paperwork so the gov' can't collect the info under the patriot act.
=Smidge=
More Links! (Score:5, Informative)
Support the Freedom to Read Protection Act [bookweb.org] today!
Re:Somebody please explain this to me... (Score:5, Informative)
Courts have ruled in several instances that if something is to be considered available, it must be available anonymously. Freedom of speech implies freedom of anonymous speech, because otherwise people will self-censor out of fear of retribution; access to abortions implies anonymous access to abortions, because otherwise the social stigma could stop people seeking abortions; access to public libraries implies anonymous access to public libraries, because otherwise people will avoid reading "subversive" material.
You're right, it is unlikely that the ability to access these records would be abused; but it has been abused in the past, so many people are very wary of giving law enforcement that ability again.
Um, it's not just Santa Cruz (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Somebody please explain this to me... (Score:5, Informative)
If that is it...then good grief, what are we talking about here? What is there about borrowing a book that should make it a sacrosanct activity like confessional, or attorney-client privelege?...
We are not talking about borrowing a book, we are talking about unfettered access, by the government, to records that we should reasonably expect to remain private. They want access to all personal data, in the name of national security, but there is no control over how that data is actually used. This can put a chilling effect on what we may or may not do just by association and the fear of being targeted for said associations.
How long until you are stopped driving and asked for your 'papers', where are you going, why? Sounds far fetched, it probably is, but where it the line that once the governemnt crosses it is no longer OK for them to have unfettered access to our personal lives?
If the government wants to know that I have read "such and such author", they should be required to tell me that they want to know, and further they should show a good reason for neededing the information.
Don't forget! (Score:2, Informative)
If you're checking books on crypto from the library, you're obviously a terrorist and a danger to the status quo [wired.com]!
p.s. on "joining" the fight (Score:5, Informative)
The privacy of user records has been a concern to librarians since the the FBI's Library Awareness Program [greenwood.com] and beyond. And as this this post [berkeley.edu] shows, erasing computer records was thought of by a systems librarian in 2000.
Time to read Libraries Are 31337 [slashdot.org] again....
Re:I told you to watch out for those librarians!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, but the Ninth Amendment [usconstitution.net] explicitly states: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Re:Librarians - keepers of the faith (Score:3, Informative)
One Al-Jazeera reporter died in a U.S. airstrike on a building housing Arab media.
Of course they won't protest. This could happen to them!!
Get Involved! (Score:2, Informative)
Five Technically Legal Signs for Your Library (Score:5, Informative)
NPR Interview (Score:3, Informative)
You can find the real audio stream of his interview at http://www.wamu.org/ram/2003/r2030313.ram
I never appreciated librarians like I should before hearing this interview.
Re:The obsolecense of libraries .... (Score:2, Informative)
No.
First, it would only serve the people who already had computers. Or would you have the libraries lend out computers for people to take home and read books? Or are people who can't afford computers to be required to do all their reading during library hours, at the library, on a computer furnished by the library?
Second, bandwidth isn't cheap and is a recurrent cost. Keep in mind libraries not only have books, they have music and video as well. (note: if you want to check out a music CD, its usually faster and more reliable to go to the local public library and actually check it out than to try to do the same via peer-to-peer networking).
Third, how are you going to handle royalties and payments? Libraries can loan out the books/CDs/videos based on the fact that they have purchased them. Your method puts all libraries at the mercy of the publisher's licensing terms.
In short, your view is pie-in-the-sky. Maybe some day, but not any time soon.
PATRIOT II is even WORSE (Score:5, Informative)
Allow the Attourney General to:
o deport permanent residents
o revoke citizenship
Allow the government to:
o Create DNA databases
o grant immunity to police and businesses
http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=15541 [alternet.org]
it's PATRIOT, not Patriot (Score:1, Informative)
Appropriate
Tools
Required to
Intercept and
Obstruct
Terrorism
Just wanted to clear that up