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."
A library destroying data? (Score:2, Interesting)
I used to be into fireworks and... (Score:5, Interesting)
Then one day I saw the coolest book in the library! It was all about how to make black powder and colored sparks and pipe bombs and it just kept going! I was so excited! Now... I'm afraid to check it out. I start checking out books on explosives and the feds could show up at my door! Am I paranoid? Maybe... but I think things have gone a little too far here. So a kid wants to make a pipe bomb. So what. When my dad was a kid, he'd blow holes in the ground for the fun of it. On his dad's own 100 acre farm. I'm a terrorist! yay!
Stand up and be counted (Score:5, Interesting)
Even a few hours ago I was informed by a telemarketer that the conversation would be recorded for quality assurance puposes, and asking for my consent. I declined and she seemed shocked, as if she had never heard somebody say no to it. She even followed up with "why not?", to which I explained briefly the privacy implications if I had chosen to do so.
She said that she would note that I hadn't consented so the tape wouldn't be listened to. So, of course, the recording was made anyway because that was "standard practice". _______
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Re:Somebody please explain this to me... (Score:5, Interesting)
See the Library Bill o' Rights [ala.org] for a more concise explanation than I could ever give.
--kotj.mf, para-professional library drone
Re:I told you to watch out for those librarians!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The Patriot Act doesn't bypass the "probable cause" warrant requirement of the above. A search warrant is still required.
anonymous borrowing scheme (Score:2, Interesting)
I would do it by using some combination of details about the book, like ISBN, page numbers, etc to create a UID for the book when it is checked out, and then when it is returned perform the same calculation to make sure it is the same book.
The important thing would be to make sure there existed nowhere a database of books and their IDs.
Is this flawed in some way? It seems like it would be pretty easy to implement, and the library themselves wouldn't know what book the borrower had.
-C
Re:Um, its Sanata Cruz folks... (Score:5, Interesting)
What about bookstores? (Score:2, Interesting)
If I search for books about nuclear weapons, nuclear technology and guns, am I going to get flagged for it.
Re:That's bad news or is it? (Score:2, Interesting)
How about Sheila Copps big database o' Stuff which had nothing to do with her branch of Government? It ain't so pretty here either.
From the G-man's website:
The Permanent Resident Card (PR Card) is a new, wallet-sized, plastic card. People who have completed the Canadian immigration process and have obtained permanent resident status, but are not Canadian citizens can apply for the Card. The Card replaces the IMM 1000 as the status document needed by Canadian permanent residents re-entering Canada on a commercial carrier (airplane, boat, train and bus) starting December 31, 2003.
Security features of the new PR Card will simplify the screening process of permanent residents when boarding a commercial carrier going to Canada. The Card also increases Canada's border security and improves the integrity of Canada's immigration process.
On June 28, 2002, CIC began to mail PR Cards to new permanent residents of Canada as part of the immigration process. People who are already in Canada with permanent resident status can apply for the new PR Card beginning October 15, 2002.
We are continually updating information about the PR Card on this Web site, so please visit often. If you do not find the information you are looking for, contact our Call Centre.
On Balance... (Score:1, Interesting)
Or what about the creep who uses the library's Internet connection to download pr0n, then goes into the men's room to masturbate? What do you say to the 8-year-old who walks into the men's room and discovers him? What do you say to the kid's mother when little Johnny tells her about it?
More to the issue, when you ban the creep from using the library computers and he sues you, you'd better have those logs to support your case.On The Other Hand - what you read is nobody else's business. If Big Brother feels that a book or video on explosives is subversive, let Big Brother summon up the kahoonas to burn these subversive materials publicly and take the consequences. Don't hide behind the librarians and make them do your dirty work.
The difference here is that books/videos are read-only. Internet access is not. Since immediate harm can be done via the Internet, more restrictions should apply.worth a reread (Score:5, Interesting)
[The United States]Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Fear of prosecution for reading is the corollary [reference.com] to abridging the freedom of speech.
In reading the responses of some of the (probably younger) technophiles here at
Last I checked there were about 85,000 full text books on the web for free. That's less than roughly
Re:Now you KNOW it's evil... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh well, off I go to the library...
D'oh!!!
Story from fifteen years ago... (Score:2, Interesting)
I also attended gun shows with my dad. At gun shows they didn't just have guns - you could also buy lots of other stuff like black powder and fuses (not sure how true that is now, but people still do use black powder pistols...). They also had many cool books.
One of the books I liked to look at was called "The Poor Man's James Bond" which was a great book detailing how to make all sorts of fun things - including fireworks. I would sometimes take a look through and copy recipes out of the book, to build later at home... (side note - don't even bother to look at that piece of crap called "The Anarchists Cookbook", which I think was put out by the government as disinformation - almost nothing in there would work well)
Well, one day after I had copied something I was approached by a guy who said he was with the FBI (or CIA? Can't remember exactly.) Being a scared (and naive) little kid, I gave him my name and address when he asked for it after I told him what I had copied.
Although it scared me a bit, what I decided was that rather than have someone stop me again like that, it was just easier to save up the money to buy the book - which I did.
I guess the point to the story is that even years ago they were watching stuff like this, so if you're really concerned you might want to buy the book somewhere. Nothing ever came of having my name and address taken, at least not that I know of - I'm sure it's in "My File". So the other point would be that even if they are watching - who cares? Of course, I've never tried to get a security clearance yet... but I also dropped the interest in exploding things when I picked up computers so "My File" probably looks pretty clean.
Posted AC so "The File" remains relatively clean.
Re:"Conspiracy Theory" reference, or more? (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't find a good non-kook reference on the web, though.
It appears that Hinkley may have been mimicking Chapman's MO (how'd he know it?) and that may explain this "coincidence".
I don't have any authoritave references for other lone nut gunman being connected with "A Catcher in the Rye".
It must be one of those, coincidences, you know?
Re:Checked out the koran lately? (Score:4, Interesting)
Now IANAL, and I have heard some talk of erosion of the need to get a subpoena for this stuff, and I disagree with that. We need to have a judge playing ref on this stuff.
But failing that, I guess I just don't see a special privelege for checking out books. Consider that on one hand, it would be admissable in court that I purchased the supplies for a bomb but not that I checked out a book on how to make one. Really it comes down to the question of: why should library records be inadmissable? What special privelege exists? And before you answer, make sure that you believe that at least something should be admissable in terrorist investigations, otherwise you're wasting everyone's time here.
Re:Somebody please explain this to me... (Score:2, Interesting)
That is not entirely true IIRC. It only holds when you already have an expectation of privacy. For example, you don't expect people to know all of the books you have ever checked out, but you dont have a right to anonymous public protest. The very fact that you are doing something obvious to the public means you have no expectation of privacy. Just like the court held that you have no right of privacy OUTSIDE and abortion and family planning clinic. Inside, what you actually do, is protected, especially since it is private property and you are also protected by the confidentiality agreement of the clinic. There is no "right" to be free of "social stigma", only resonable expectation of privacy. The government needs judicial permisson to watch "nonpublic" behavior. In otherwords, you are free to say or do what you want, but that doesn't mean that people have to agree with what you do, or like you for doing it.
I have no problem with the government being able to go to the library and asking to see what I've borrowed, as long as they have a warrant and probable cause, which is differnt than unlimited access to patron records.
Re:That's bad news or is it? (Score:3, Interesting)
In your example, there is ZERO proof that the guy you refer to would be the one using the card, and frankly I think it would be a much easier thing to do to establish an alibi by using library records than to find a terrorist. What if all the evidence against Timothy McVeigh where highly circumstantial at best, but his library card had been used that very same morning hundreds of miles away?
If you need library records to build a case, then you need to learn how to do legwork again.
Any real threat out there already knows that cash at the Barnes and Noble is untrackable unless they're being tailed to begin with.
Re:On Balance... (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, that sort of thing is happening even with logs not being deleted. Not helping much.
Seems a library is being sued by the librarians for sexual harrassment because they have to see perverts looking at porn and even masturbating right there at the computers. It's not even a matter of it happening in the washrooms. I'd post the link, but I don't remember where I saw it. Either slashdot, fark, or wired last week.
Seems to me that a better method of preventing this sort of thing is to ARREST the guys for public indecency rather than banning them and using week-old log files for proof.
The death threats to the whitehouse is different. But chances are that the fbi is going to trace it that day. They probably won't wait a week. Deleting old logs isn't going to impact that much.
I'm not sure what you mean by "immediate harm can be done via the internet". Death threats by email aren't really immediate harm. There really isn't much difference between emailed death threats and snail-mail death threats. Emailed threats are just faster.
You say what people read is no one's business. Is that not true for what you read on the 'net too?
Re:Checked out the koran lately? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ad Council Campaign for Freedom (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Somebody please explain this to me... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, today, I'll tell you the story about Jim. Jim was a fine young man, he just graduated with a degree in criminology. He was an honest and caring individual, who was selfless and brave. He would have been an outstanding police officer some day.
Well, would have been, except that Jim's freshman year, his roommate Steve was arrested. He didn't know the guy too well, Steve always hung out with the "tough crowd" and usually didn't use the room at all, preferring to stay out all night or crash at his girlfriend's place. Anyway, Jim went home for summer break to see his old friends, and when he came back, he had a different roommate. He hadn't heard much about it, and nobody was too keen on talking about it, so he figured he'd just let it slide.
So, after graduating, Jim applied to join the police force. He passed the civil service exams, and waited to hear the good news. And waited. And waited.
Then one day, there was a knock on the door. He got up, to answer it, and suddenly there was a loud bang and the door splintered, then collapsed inwards. 5 armed FBI agents rushed him and threw him to the ground then pinned him down. That was the last anyone heard from Jim. His neighbors thought it was sad that he'd be hauled away, since he seemed like such a nice quiet boy.
The End.
So, what happened?
Well, Jim's life started on the quick road to Hell when the university's random housing lottery placed him with Steve. Except Steve wasn't named Steve. He was just using that name while he was illegally in the US to study piloting airplanes. Then, Jim started checking out books on famous murders, criminology, DNA testing, and the like. His final mistake was applying for a position on the police force, thats when they ran the background check on him.
They punched his name into the database, and out popped the following:
Warning lived with "steve" for one year. Possible terrorist connection.
Well, this was enough for the FBI to get involved, so they went and looked up the list of books Jim had checked out and read. The list certainly was eye-opening. They fed this data into their database (which incidentially had Jim's major incorrectly listed as "English". But that was OK, since it wasn't important for the information to be correct)
The database churned for a few minutes and spat out the following:
Warning subject lived with "steve" for one year. Possible terrorist connection.
Warning subject has extensive interest in criminal behavior and violent crimes.
Conclusion: HE'S A TERRIST! GET HIM!
So now, Jim's sitting in a cell (if you can call those chain link things in Cuba "cells"). Been there for a few years. They still haven't told him why though. Every now and then they beat him or make him kneel with his head back and his arms straight out for hours on end, but they let up a little after a couple of other guys died. On the up side though, he's gotten to be good friends with this Ali guy in the next cell over, who seems like someone he knew his freshman year.
Moral (if you're still reading):
If you think this kind of thing is bullshit, you seriously underestimate the ability of the US justice system to be perverted. Take a look at the current mess the Houston Police Department is in, using shoddy lab work and practically lying through their teeth to get the conviction. Its not about justice here, no, its about having the big conviction numbers, whether or not the criminals are still roaming the streets. And now the FBI wants to maintain a database on everyone (oops, did I say "maintain"? That kind of suggests some effort in upkeep and keeping it correct) and is using terrorist arrests and secret trials which always end in conviction to convince everyone that they need even more power to catch every last terrorist out there.
Re:Librarians - keepers of the faith (Score:3, Interesting)
[tinfoil hat]
For that matter, do we really KNOW that computerized library systems haven't already been compromised by gov't trojans??
[/tinfoil hat]
Re:Librarians - keepers of the faith (Score:4, Interesting)
> you, a democracy only works well when you have an
> educated public.
That explains what Karl Rove (you know, Bush's brain) was thinking when he said [uiuc.edu], "As people do better, they start voting like Republicans--unless they have too much education and vote Democratic."
You can easily steer the country on the road to fascism all the while calling it "democracy," if your citizens don't know any better. Republicans have made no secret of their anti-academic views (e.g. they want to teach Biblical Creation in science class, and the current president probably hasn't even read a book since The The Very Hungry Caterpillar [ariannaonline.com]). Utimately, they want to replace our democracy with a plutocratic theocracy under their brand of Christianity. Sounds a little extreme, right? Well, Bush already believes that he was elected by God [usatoday.com] to lead this country.
Wow, this post is probably one sentence away from violating Godwin's law. I should have read my sig before posting.
Re:Somebody please explain this to me... (Score:2, Interesting)
Ever be stopped by a police officer, either in your car or while you're out walking at night?
They ask you who you are and where you're going--and, AFAIK, it's a misdemanor to not tell them who you are.
Oddly enough, this has done exactly nothing to my freedoms, except give me a reason to carry by wallet with me--which is a good idea anyway, considering it's hard to identify myself if I'm struck unconcious and my wife needs to be notified.
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.
If the government got a warrant to see the library records, there isn't (AFAIK, IANAL-RU?) a rule saying that I need to be told.
OTOH, if they BRING CHARGES against me, I get to know everything that they know about me. This is a constitutionally protected right, and the PATRIOT act can't touch it.
Re:I told you to watch out for those librarians!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I know I'm not the only one wondering at this turn of events... "Perhaps the Constitution was correct, and the War on Drugs is wrong?"
I remember a quote from somewhere, "If your laws are turning your country into a police state, creating more criminals than law-abiding people, then the law needs to be changed."
Santa Cruz (Score:2, Interesting)
* Their librarians don't like the Patriot Act
* "The City Council also passed a resolution condemning the Patriot Act"
* "Santa Cruz is a community well known for its leftward leanings and progressive politics"
And as if that wasn't enough:
* "City officials allowed marijuana for medicinal purposes to be distributed from the steps of City Hall"
Sounds like a utopia.
Not just your records they want to get rid of... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not everyone agrees with Nicholson Baker [powells.com] though, not even the Society of American Archivists [archivists.org], but it sure is fascinating. Even more so than the current trendy paranoia about privacy.
Ironically, Baker's Vox [amazon.com] is probably one of those books most of you are afraid of getting caught with. It's so naughty, Monica gave it to Bill [centralbooking.com], and we all found out, thanks to the pre-existing police state (but of course we had a benevolent dictator for 8 years).
If you're a perv, be a perv. If you're into homemade bombs, be into homemade bombs. If you still read Beverly Cleary even though you're a 45 year old single man... okay, I want you locked up!!
decreasing signal-to-noise ratio (Score:3, Interesting)
I was witness to a moment of beauty, which (though slightly OT) demonstrates this method:
One fine morning at a large telco I used to work for, I noticed that a couple of the senior network operations crew were dressed in crisp business finery. Ths usual uniform for this crew was a t-shirt, and jeans or shorts. Over the course of the next few hours (flextime), every single member of the group showed up in either a suit & tie or a business-formal dress.
No one said a word. About fifteen of them were in by 10am, each shrugging off the few inquiries about dressing up.
Finally, just before lunch, one of the project managers from a nearby group approached one of the senior ops team members.
Project Manager: "OK, I give. What's the deal?"
Staff Member: "One of us has a job interview today."
Project Manager: "Oh. OooOOoh."
Ouch. But what a great example of teamwork! Just as the management in this case had its own principles turned against it, it is entirely possible to use the methods of monitoring and analysis allowed by the Patriot Act/TIA against themselves. Inasmuch as it protects and preserves our constitutional rights, it's probably a moral duty to do so. Isn't fighting bad laws the sign of a good citizen? (But I digress...)
-Jon
Re:Somebody please explain this to me... (Score:4, Interesting)
Thats right. Humans do the work. The government has no "ulterior motives" or "conspiracies", instead, some human has a power trip. Or a nervous breakdown. Or types in Jim's "Academic Study Code" as 80 (English Major) instead of 08 (Criminology Major). There could be many number of reasons why an FBI agent didn't interrogate Jim right away. Maybe the file fell behind someone's desk. Maybe some agent put Jim under survelliance to see if anything concrete enough to haul him in would come up. After a year or so, he got bored and started wiretapping corporate headquarters for stock tips. "Steve" was present illegally, so he was breaking the law even if studying to be a pilot was legal (when did it become illegal to learn to fly a plane? Maybe "Steve" just wanted to do cropdusting back in his home country. Or is that illegal too now?).
Jim's captivity results directly from the Patriot Act in this case. Years ago, just associating with "Steve" wasn't enough for an outright arrest warrant. Now, in the more-permissive "we gotta get the terrorists at all costs" environment, the attempt of an apparent English major who used to live with a terrorist to "infiltrate" LEA, was enough to obtain a warrant for the library records, and the library records, on top of all of that was sufficient circumstantial evidence for the arrest warrant.
So lets say that the FBI decides to do the token "Constitutional" thing, and gives Jim his trial after all. The FBI agents show up, and after initial arguments, an agent takes the stand and reads his prepared speech: "We have direct evidence which proves that Jim is engaging in terrorist activities." On cross examination, the agent is unable to actually produce any evidence in court due to the "sensitive nature" of the evidence and its "importance to national security". How does Jim defend against this?
As for Gitmo, lets call it a proof of concept. It proved that the American public was willing to allow the governement agents representing them to indefinitely hold and torture (oh wait, im sorry, according to the PR bits released by the government to the news which you so blindly follow, there was no beatings going on. In fact, the two detainees who died, died of "not-tortured" causes.) non-citizens. And now we have a fellow citizen from Intel, who apparently gave money to a fake charity, and is now being detained. Before you say "well, maybe he did more than just being misled by a false charity", ask yourself why the "justice" department hasn't given him the fair and speedy trial he is entitled to as a citizen of the US. Why haven't they proven he was more than a victim of circumstance?
Oh the Irony of a "Be Ready".gov ad (Score:1, Interesting)
Screen shot lives here [neurosis.org]
Why is everyone worried about Orwell? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Somebody please explain this to me... (Score:3, Interesting)
His investigation started before I was ever in the military.
year later I was denied a promotion because of it, and found out I had been under investigation and constanly monitored during that whole time.
Now, its the military, so one should expect that type of behaviour. however, when that type of government methodology becomes the norm for the civilian populous, you can kiss your freedoms goodbye. And that is the logical conclusion to the government gathering information on its people without any checks and balances.
This sort of behaviour happened in several industries during McCarthy, and it can happen again. The big disadvantage to the McCarthy era is the means they had to get information. If someone wanted information from you, mostl likely you would find out after the fact. Mostly to do the fact that there was visible comunication between your information, and the people getting it. Now it's all done unseen. out of site, out of mind.
I want checks and balances, I'm getting bread and circuses.
Copy machines aren't monitored by the FBI yet. (Score:2, Interesting)
rob