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FBI Seizes Library Computers Without Warrant
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Aug 03, 2008 04:36 PM
from the we-don't-need-no-steenkin dept.
from the we-don't-need-no-steenkin dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Two FBI agents walked into a public library in Maryland, without a warrant, and walked out with two computers. The library director agreed to release the machines to these smooth-talking feds. According to the article, the director of Frederick County Public Libraries indicated that this was the third time in his 10 years there that the FBI had requested records, but the first time they had come without a court order. The director seemed to indicate no regrets, stating 'It was a decision I made on my experience and the information given to me.' He further justified his actions, noting that the agents indicated specific computers they needed (of the several dozen in the library) and further that they 'had an awful lot of information.'" The library director speculated whether the raid may have involved the Bruce Ivins / anthrax case, musing "Obviously it coincided with the events everyone is talking about," but he said the agents hadn't mentioned it.
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Firehose:FBI seizes library computers without warrant by Anonymous Coward
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No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
I am far from a libertarian extremist, and this does not fly with me.
The whole reason that we have *court-ordered* warrants, elected judges, and oversight and accountability is to prevent this -- namely the seizing of records / assets without any oversight.
I am happy when even television shows get it right (Law and Order occasionally), and when the cops / feds do stuff like this, it comes back to jeopardize their case. Illegally seized? Now watch as you just compromised yourself and potentially let somebody go free. Before somebody retorts with the obvious extremes, of course I do think that ridiculous cases of this are ludicrous (e.g. cop didn't sign one piece of paper correctly -> murder goes free), but the case above is clear violation of due procedure and oversight in my books.
The one justification I could see is in truly emergent cases -- e.g. hard drive will purge, but need to preserve data... must... pull... plug... NOW. I would say "do it," and, according to my lawyer friends, there are judges on call that the cop / detective / agent can call that can grant emergency access / warrants shortly after the fact (within hours) to make everything legitimate. It does not appear that this was done here.
I don't want some librarian making the decision on whether to give up these publicly financed assets for snooping by any authority. Any smooth-talking agent can come in, reciting that it is for "terrorism / anthrax" or "the children / child porn" and the intimidated lady will just cave in. I know my friend's 60 year old mother who works as our local librarian would. She is neither lawyer nor judge, and should not function as such.
Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can always ask for something and be given it. Warrants are only needed to forcibly remove an article.
Yes, and the library might well be within it's rights to release those computers.
But, to the extent that the public expects some measure of anonymity in a public library, it strikes me as a very bad PR decision.
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Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
But, to the extent that the public expects some measure of anonymity in a public library, it strikes me as a very bad PR decision.
I remember reading another article on how some librarian association or another was fighting tooth and nail about keeping records of what books were checked out by whom away from law enforcement without warrant. It baffled me why they were doing this until I realized they were fighting for their very existence. If goons with badges can go about asking for records of who reads what on a whim the police can effectively shutter a library by flooding it with requests for records. While the staff is running around to satisfy the whims of goons with badges nothing productive can be done and the people will never enter a library again for fear that yet another book was flagged as "bad" for public consumption and anyone reading it must be called in for questioning.
So, I agree, this is a very bad PR move. People expect to be able to read whatever they wish without some government agent looking over their shoulder.
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Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Interesting)
The library response was that they decided not to keep any records beyond who has what book checked out now. When a book is returned, the only information retained is the dates of check out--the reader's name is completely disassociated. They know a book was checked out, but they can't tell you who had it. Nice.
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Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
I work for a city, and the Librarian most emphatically does not have the right to give away, loan, or otherwise remove any city property. That is a crime.
There is a due process for disposing of City property. No employee can make that decision.
What the FBI has done is sweet talked some innocent person into committing a crime.
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Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
The value of a public library is that it offers the public the opportunity to inform and educate itself -- long recognized as valuable to enable the informed vote of the enfranchised in a democracy.
To this end, the privacy of what the individual choses to inform him- or herself about has long been upheld by the courts.
Imagine the chilling effect if the public could not inform itself about documents in a library contrary to the present government without scrutiny.
What the public has a right to know, and oversee, is WHAT the library chooses to make available, and not who reads it.
Parent
Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
I probably didn't say it succinctly enough, but that was exactly my point. I like to think that *we* own those computers in the library. My taxes paid for the construction, maintenance, and my overdue fines (sigh) also support it.
I don't want some mildly educated librarian making the decision whether to *give* stuff to a federal official.
That decision is for judges to make. It is not the librarian's decision to make, no more than it would be mine if I were a teenager working there at the time the officials walked in. With public assets comes increased accountability, which is why laws for crimes on public property (city halls, post offices) are generally so draconian.
The librarian should be subject to a thorough questioning of her judgment, with retraining or dismissal as indicated. :)
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Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Illegally? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Informative)
This goes completely against the American Library Association's issued "Recommended Procedures for Law Enforcement Visits" policy:
"Without a court order, neither the FBI nor local law enforcement has authority to compel cooperation with an investigation or require answers to questions, other than the name and address of the person speaking to the agent or officer. If the agent or officer persists, or makes an appeal to patriotism, the library director should explain that, as good citizens, the library staff will not respond to informal requests for confidential information, in conformity with professional ethics, First Amendment freedoms, and state law.
If the agent or officer presents a search warrant or other judicial process, the library director should immediately call the library's counsel and ask for assistance."
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/confidentiality.cfm [ala.org]
This library director was just a putz (and I can say that as a libraian-in-training).
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Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Informative)
Silly me, I thought the easy way would be to Get. A. Warrant. Plus it fulfills another coda of law enforcement: Cover. Your. Ass.
It would just be the cherry on top of this whole escapade if evidence from those computers is used in a trial...and it gets slapped down for violating the fourth amendment.
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Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:No warrant == not legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
But in that case, you owned the video tapes. In the article, the librarian does not own the computers and hands them over without even talking to a higher up manager (like a president or chairman/chairwoman) and getting permission to give them over. It is not the library director's computers to give over, and he/she has to follow the chain of command before giving over library property. What if it was two fake FBI inspectors trying to pull a scam via social engineering by posing as FBI officers to scam the library director out of two computers? People do that sort of thing to McDonald's as they pose as police officers and ask the assistant manager to strip search employees. The library director should have at least called the FBI to verify if they sent over two agents and ask what their names are and badge numbers and then given that to his higher ups along with any warrants if they exist.
There is also a federal law of privacy rights of the people who used those computers and aren't suspects. Esp since a library gets funding from the government.
Parent
How Pathetic... (Score:5, Insightful)
If they had an "awful lot of information.." then they could have gotten a damn court order. When you just roll over and accept totalitarianism, don't complain when they come for you next, with nothing more than "an awful lot of information..."
This country and its people are a disgrace.
additionally (Score:5, Insightful)
They could be fake agents, who know an awful lot of information BECAUSE they are the criminals.
This way without a court order, they can simply clean up after themselves.
Nice.
Parent
Its little things like this that matter (Score:5, Interesting)
A police state isn't erected in one chunk. It is built up brick by brick, and this kind of seizure is one of these bricks.
People will tell you that you are being alarmist when you raise this sort of thing with them. But if you don't pay attention to it when it is at this level then there will be nothing you can do about it when you've completely lost your freedom.
Re:Its little things like this that matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, and no reasonable court would allow a warrant unless they had definite probable cause to search. The government can't just search records for people they "think" might be breaking laws. That's very specific. Now, if they found a library book dropped at the scene of a murder, I would say they have probable cause to see who checked out book, because you might find the murderer. But getting information on a crime that hasn't happened "yet" is illegal. I could go and read books on making bombs just out of interest in high energy chemical reactions and not be a terrorist. But they could spend thousands of taxpayer dollars investigating every aspect of my life just to make sure I'm not a terrorist. That's the slippery slope. It's about MONEY more than FREEDOM.
This massive expansion of "homeland security" is wasteful of tax dollars because they are investigating thousands of people who haven't done anything. Not to mention building dossiers which I'm sure could be used for political means. But it's wasteful when they could be out solving other crimes that have happened. It's amazing that there's so little crime nowadays that they spend this much time trying to prevent things from happening. And the massive amount of money they are spending is not making people feel safer (the real goal). So lets reverse this and take a step back:
All of these policies were put in place during a frantic time when no one knew what was going to happen. Decisions made in a panic are often not the right ones. We need to review ALL of the policies made during the years of 2001-2005 (even if it takes years to review) and decide what we need to keep. There needs to be a massive PUBLIC effort to review the policies and decisions that were made, now that we "have time". And we need to cut costs where we can, because this stuff is extremely expensive and they can't just have a blank check out of fear anymore. If you added up the cost of 9/11, just in terms of government expansion, it's probably well over a trillion. And for what? You can't save people--we're all going to die anyway. The real idea is to maintain American (and global) confidence in the American economy, which is ALL THAT MATTERS if we are here for our purpose--to support future generations. But I question whether these current wasteful policies have really increased confidence all that much! If anything, they have hurt our confidence even more, because they have been wasting so much money on no-bid contracts and just JUNK like these pointless "preemptive" investigations.
If there's evidence of a crime, a court will issue a warrant. If there isn't, they cannot seize the data, because there's no warrant. That's why there are warrants and that's the law and that's IT. There are good reasons for these laws and this will get struck down when the ACLU goes after those agents and their boss.
Again, we need to review ALL the policy decisions made during this time period again with clear heads. Otherwise, we may do our children great injustice.
Parent
Re:Its little things like this that matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
This would not fly in my town. (Score:5, Interesting)
Maryland Privacy Law... (Score:5, Informative)
Maryland DOES have a library privacy law that forbids the library from sharing information that identifies individual users, etc.
Those computers are accessed using the patrons library card (or a temporary access card) that identifies the usages to an individual.
With a warrant, the library can, of course, release the information, but lacking a warrant patrons DO have an expectation of privacy BY LAW in that state.
Here is the pertinent information that the library director should have known by rote:
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifgroups/stateifcchairs/stateifcinaction/marylandprivacy.rtf [ala.org] (Courtesy the American Library Association)
The computers, with information on individual patron usage of same, were unlawfully seized if taken without a warrant, even with the incorrectly given permission of the library director.
--Tomas
Re:When has the FBI EVER been competent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hi Doc. I'm currently re-reading Machiavelli's The Prince, and came across an interesting passage which might help to illuminate the current administration's behavior.
"When there are no external enemies, create one, to unite the people and quell unrest."
It's from memory so may not be an exact quote, but the sentiment is uncannily close to what we've been doing since Sept. 10, 2001.
Parent