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Librarians Join the Fight Against The Patriot Act
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."
Than an angry librarian. Those books can really hurt!
Is that kinda like book burning?
Oh, librarians, not libertarians.
-Tolerate my intolerance
Even the damn librarians are against it!
You can read the story here without registering. Whenever a NY Times link gets posted, replace www with archive to avoid registration.
There are lot of privacy concerns ever since the "war on terror". It seems to be the "war on privacy", and coupled with the governments ability to hold anyone for as long as they want without charging them, this is quickly becoming a place where you are guilty until proven innocent, and even then it doesn't necessarily mean you will not be prosecuted.
Everyone knows that to piss off a librarian is to call down unimaginable wrath, the consequences of which are often unpredictable.
I'm glad they're on our side, as they are very tenacious, and having a dedicated, intelligent, and socially-friendly ally will do more for the cause than a hundred thousand emails to congressmen.
Clickey here, no register.
So basically the Patriot Act says that library records can be used in terrorist investigations. Is that it, or is there something more sinister I'm missing? Honestly, I'm not trying to troll here.
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? I'm sorry, but what books someone has borrowed certainly seems like it could be relevant to me. We're supposed to ignore this information, why?
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
But in the same way a German Jewish sympathiser might have burned their nehibor's linage records when the Nazi party was in power.
News from Babylon
theres probably others, I just happen to come across this one yesterday...
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
I'm still not interested in registering at NYT.. so I'll not be able to read the article and flame here instead...
0 7L IBR.html
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=
It's not a matter of destroying public information. It's a matter of destroying what was private information. This has absolutely nothing to do with fascism at all. The Patriot Act makes a lot of what would be private information availible to the government, something that is quite possibly unconstituional (Hopefully the Supreme Court will take a look at it soon..). The librarians want to uphold that kind of privacy and so they're choosing to destroy the information rather than leave it to be confiscated by someone in the government. They're taking a risk for what has always been until recently an American freedom.
Terrorist.
Looked at a chemistry book?
Terrorist.
Read Mein Kampft(sp)?
Terorist
Read a physics book?
Dirty bomber
Che Guveras biography?
Terrorist
picke up a copy of 2600?
terrorist
When they control what you can read and see, they controll your mind. Of course it wont be illegal to read any of these(probably) but how many people will check them out to read once they realize that this will automaticaly get a record started on them with the FBI. I odnt know about you, but i buy my copy of 2600 with cash. How much longer will that be possible?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I hope they do this at my library... then they won't have a leg to stand on for those 5 books and 2 videos I have had out since August, 2000... since they couldn't tell me what they were, how am I to know whether or not I took them out... This could be the best policy ever!!! Any chance of Blockbuster adopting this policy?
Never argue with an idiot. They will just bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
I've been thinking about how libraries could allow the anonymous borrowing of books, while still ensuring that the proper book is returned when it's due.
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
JD Salinger was a well known member in intellignce circles in his day. Like the Scientologists, the spooks like to bolster their own, so all their brainwashed MKULTRA manchurian candidates are given a compulsion to buy the book, hence inflating the sales.
I should know, since I just made this shit up!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Here's one: the Kyoto Agreement. The one the U.S. bailed on because it would cost them too much money in the short-run.
Here's another: The U.N.
foreign concepts I know, but if you want to sling mud, you'd better check what you're standing in.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
If you're checking books on crypto from the library, you're obviously a terrorist and a danger to the status quo!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If I search for books about nuclear weapons, nuclear technology and guns, am I going to get flagged for it.
BOO! TERRO
As anyone who studies political science will tell you, a democracy only works well when you have an educated public. Those who visit a library are obviously seeking knowledge, and so any attempt by the staff of said library to provide them with knowledge should be applauded.
This, however, goes above and beyond simply providing their patrons with knowledge. This is an example of a group of people with a very subtle power using that power to advance the principles of freedom and democracy. By actively protecting the right to privacy of their patrons and seeking to educate them about laws that have a very real and chilling effect on their lives, they truly are making this country greater by the day.
You won't see major media protesting this law; only showing how great it is that our wonderful government is protecting us so that we may feel warm and fuzzy all over. To see a group of people standing up in defense of the rights of citizens at the risk of being denied their own rights is both comforting and encouraging.
If any of you notices a librarian tearing up a checkout card, handing out fliers or putting up posters on this subject, thank them; they deserve that much if not more. They're risking their safety and freedom to try and protect your's.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Question:
If the government knew a guy checked out a book on chemical weapons and the guy who checked them out was a Saudi exchange student and this caused a red flag that got him interviewed or deported, how does this violate my rights?
Answer:
It doesn't.
Basicly so that I won't be embarassed by checking out my books, the librarian is going to shred Achmed Al-Terrorist's records of books on explosives and chemical weapons?
It's not a violation of rights to keep information. It's what you do with information that may violate our rights.
The minute they violate the rights of law abiding citizens we should bitch, but why before then? They haven't done anything bad yet, shouldn't we at least give them the same benefit of the doubt we give foreign nationals who might be terrorists?
Evil Man
Yes, it could be relevant to terrorist investigations... And it can help find potential terrorists, too! For instance, if you see someone has checked out books on flying planes and September 11th, then they're probably a terrorist (or maybe a pilot); if you see someone has looked at books on chemistry and physics, they're probably a suicide bomber (or maybe a high-school teacher); if you see someone has read 1984, they're obviously a subversive commie-lovin' bastard (or maybe a student); if you've read anything on crypto, codes, Engima machines, numbers theory, you're obviously a cracker (or maybe a mathematician)... In any case, these potential terrorists, bombers, subversives, and crackers will likely commit crimes in the future, so for the safety of the little children, we MUST lock them up now!
This has been a message from the Ashcroft Bureau of Pre-Crime.
-T
Hopefully this Supreme Court will not take a look at it at all! Whose side are you on?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
From the article:
"There are people, especially older people who lived through the McCarthy era, who might be intimidated by this," he said.
All I can say is, GOOD! I'm sure many of these same older people (whose sensibilities that some libraries are trying to protect) voted for the president and members of congress we have that gave us this act. All the better if they are made to realize just what they are voting for, and what is being done in the name of "protecting us from terrorsim."
Scare tactics, spreading baseless FUD, and all that aren't good. Stating the facts and allowing people to be informed about what the government is giving itself the right to do, however, is a different matter altogether. Those who lived through the McCarthy era may have the perspective to realize that they should be intimidated by this, while those of us who are younger can shrug off based on the rest of that quote (that the probability that any one person will have their records searched is low, since there are so many people).
-Rob
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.You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Did you read Fahrenheit 451? (Actually the movie was pretty good too). It does have a weird irony to have librarians shredding records. Maybe we just need to have some firemen burning them, too.
Thank you.
http://wsulug.org
*** Work like a king, command like a slave, create like a dog.
It seems only librarians are able to appreciate the meaning of this:
/. who see the end in libraries and librarians forget that there are people who still *use* libraries for their reading materials, reference and enjoyment. Beware /.ers! You scream when your electronic "rights" of privacy are violated but seem far too quick to sacrifice the rights of those who don't fit in your clique of 'libraries are old school, the web is the only way'. Beware the pendulum of opinion, it swings like the sword: both ways.
.02% of all the books ever published.(Correct me if I'm wrong!) I want to go to my library (and web site) and read whatever I like without having the latest incarnation of a Cloaked Big Brother leaning over my shoulder looking for Thought Crimes.
[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 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
where some kid gets arrested because of his library record?
Did this theory have a life before the movie, or are you just referencing it?
"There are people, especially older people who lived through the McCarthy era, who might be intimidated by this"
Well, duh!
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
There has been fear in the past about using people's book preferences for profiling on a larger scale. Took out a book on gay relationships? maybe you're gay. Took out a book about religion X? Maybe you practice religion X. Took out a book on living with disease X? maybe you have disease X. This becomes a lot more insidious if records of specialized bookstores are being examined. I seem to recall a case recently about a gay/lesbian focused bookstore refusing to release their customer records.
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
Maybe we should create a list of "books of interest" and everyone goes and checks one of them out each month. One way to really screw with information systems is to throw useless data at it. If the government is collecting this information in legal or non legal ways, let's throw a wrench in it. After they find the 1000th person they have investigated for checking out "Leaving the 21st Century", "Lipstick Traces", "Days of War, Nights of Love", or any of the thousands of other subversive books out there, they will have to get more creative with things and stop looking at what I read as an idicator.
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
In the article, it mentioned handing out brochures with information about the patriot act and privacy rights. Could anyone post the text of these and/or link to scans or copies of them?
I've been interested for a period now in getting information about this stuff out on my campus, but haven't found a concise way to state what is important. Maybe the libraries did a good job, as they usually seem to be competent institutions.
For better or worse, here is a nation that undertook the globally unpopular use of force to eradicate a beligerent regime from the face of the earth. No doubt the motive was self-interest, but the global positive side effect of this can not go unnoticed. While the rest of the world (read "U.N.") remained paralized over the agony of even a single drop of innocent blood being spilled, the security of the world was, in some small measure improved. For better or worse.
Now the cries of utter hypocricy of a nation that also exercizes its might in the world, in a manner that might be labeled beligerent, would have a voice, save not for the actions of it's citizens that keep its government's overreach in check, lest it too be absolutely corrupted by apparent absolute power.
Take note: American citizens undertake risk and fight to constrain the seductive power-mad leanings of its unavoidably corrupted rulers. And not radical militia units: librarians, of all people, armed only with card catalogues, a belief in their Constitution and Bill of Rights, and, above all, principle. Perhaps if people of other nations undertook similar responsibilities, they would not suffer collateral damage when the stench, fear, and oppression of their regimes, elected or not, drifts over the global landscape, and drives others to act in their stead -- never a desirable circumstance, regardless of how supposedly necessary.
America may have bred a large brutish beast, but at least it strives to keep that beast on a leash. While the leash may stretch and strain, so long as that spirit does not die, it shall not break. Take heart that that same spirit lives in the hearts and minds of others around the world, regardless of whatever citizenship was figuratively slapped on their buttocks at the time of their birth -- for it is in our interest as well that it not die.
FWIW, I was regretably born with the stigma of Canadian citizenship. This does not mean that I share the beliefs, opinions, or policies of my government, or the apparent majority of my birth country's population. It should be obvious that these views are in no way meant to represent those of my employer or anyone other than myself.
You could've hired me.
My Grandpa died in WWII. Which all history will remember as a JUST war. We got in that one before the States and lost more men. Get over yourselves. You won't be the last superpower but you act as if you are the first and only...ever. You're not. Brush up on your hisory champ, instead of just flag waving.
I went to battle MC Escher but drew a blank
Even the damn librarians are against it!
Probably the proponents of privacy invasion were those kids that in grade school that talked loudly, joked, farted, scraped chairs, cut up with each other, and generally made all kinds of obnoxious noises in the library and ticked off the librarians.
Come to think of it, those kids, now grown up and in positions of authority, are still making all kinds of obnoxious noises!
"Provided by the management for your protection."
That's absurd. The state owns the toilets in its buildings, too -- how would you feel if they filmed you taking a dump and then interrogated you about it? They own the toilets and the stall you were sitting in, so how could you complain?
... *gasp* ... a terrorist, are you?
It is unreasonable to expect (or want!) our government to be scrutinizing us for anti-American behavior at all hours, when we are decent law-abiding citizens who have done nothing wrong. Nobody would expect the FBI to be going through our library records, and it's utter bullshit that they have the right to (in the absence of some sort of criminal investigation).
If you are so comfortable with having your privacy invaded, please post the following:
Your real name and address
Your social security number
Which books you have read in the last two years
Which movies you have watched in the last two years
What, you don't want perfect strangers having access to such personal information? Why not? You're not
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Libraries have become nothing more than monuments to the community prominent.
Do you really need multimillion dollar facilities to house books?
I am the first to agree a book is better than a monitor screen, but it's time to get current and cut government costs. If books in libraries were distributed via network or if the libraries also offered community WiFi, wouldn't that be more useful, less costly?
Yeah, great idea. Lets shut down public libraries and tie them up in technologies that no poor person can possibly afford, because they're too busy spending what little money they have buying food. Then, when they try to educate themselves, they'll be unable to find any information, because it will be all but unavailable to them. Friggin' brilliant.
Why is it that technophiles have such a hard time realizing that there are people who are a) less computer literate than them and/or b) don't have as much money. It's great how people in the cushy middle-class can so easily forget about the massive poverty which exists in their own country. And don't get me started on this Utopian ideal that, somehow, computers are the solution to (and cause of?) all of life's problems.
On the March 13 Diane Rehm show on NPR, I remember hearing the president of the American Library Association, Mitch Freedman, interviewed. He talked about many things, the woefully inadequate funding of our library system, his distaste for government mandated censorship of library internet connections, and his anger at the Patriot Act's impact on the library system.
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.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
After the September 11, 2001, the Ad Council ran Campaign for Freedom consisting of several ads of what it would be like if we didn't have our freedoms. My two favorites would have to be the Diner and the Library ads.
Well we've got 1984 covered and now Fahrenheit 451. Lets try for the trifecta and get A Brave New World into the mix.
Visit www.seriouslythough.com
Good. Those people SHOULD be intimidated, because they've lived through an era where absolute bullshit such as this went unchecked and they saw the results. And I don't CARE if it's unlikely that the public records will be unchecked. It's unlikely that someone will win the $300 million Powerball on Sunday, but that doesn't mean some guy won't be $300 million richer come Monday. It's also unlikely that my local library will run a check to see who's checked out "The Art Of War" and "1984", but that doesn't mean that it won't happen.
It's at times like these that you realize how blind the general public really is.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for SEGA. ..."
Libraries are a socialist service. What does that mean? It means COMMUNISM AHHHHH!!! I won't be happy untill every library is replace by a freedom loving capitalistic Barnes and Noble!
Yes, I'm joking.
In the extra materials on the Minority Report disc, there was a mention that Mel Gibson was involved in an aborted attempt to develop a new Fahrenheit 451 treatment. Too bad. I'd like to see more positive-subversive movies in the mainstream theaters.
[
Except the trouble is, I paid for that Library directly with my property taxes (about 20% of my total tax, in fact -- it's a special levy here). That makes the library MY property, not the government's.
Well, at least it should. The gov't sees it otherwise.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
While it is scary how much power the "patriot act" gives the government for search and sieseure, I think this library thing is a total joke. These are PUBLIC libraries we are talking about. There should be no expectation of the privacy of records from a PUBLIC institution. As far as I'm concerned, the government is well within their rights to keep any and all records from public institutions. Now for the flip side of that... Banks. Banks are privately owned institutions that are being REQUIRED to provide all sorts of personal information about us their patrons to the government. I consider this a horrible violation of privacy and a huge abuse of government power. Granted, one of the best ways to prevent a terrorist from doing his thing is to take away his finances. But this is supposed to be a free country and we shouldn't be violating the constitutional rights of the law abiding citizens to combat the evil ones. Banks and Libaries are just single examples of how the government is right and wrong on this (in my opinion). Trading freedom for security only yeilds a false sense of security.
and
have that in some database somewhere for the rest of your life living in fear.
This is a problem for freedom of speech. If you are afraid to check out a book, you may never gain that knowledge. Knowledge is power. Governments and businesses tend to want to keep this knowledge to their selves.
You can't have complete safety in a free society. Pre-emptive tracking, striking, etc. moves us closer to what we are supposed to be against.
Dictatorship!
As I heard it the terrorists were using computers in the libraries to keep in touch. I never heard of 9/11 hijackers ever taking out any book related to their act, they might have but I have not heard that raised yet.
So now they are using the mere fact that the terrorists were in a library to have secret courts and secret police track your reading habbits under J Edgar Ashcroft.
So what about college computers that anyone can use without signing up or passwords, how about internet cafes or wireless hotspots that give free access. Will they now shut all those things down or require people to track anyone that uses them.
Euphemism, what is that a euphemism for something.
And none of the librarians there are government employees, they all work for the private college that I attend.
And just as somehow I was modded offtopic, so are you - this was concerning public libraries (which the government (sorry, taxpayers) pay to employ ) A minority of libraries that are open to the public are private.
To the other post, how would increasing technology (and decreasing million dollar architectural costs) cost the poor anything? How would free "library based" internet access cost "the poor" anything?
The other post also failed to address why we have to have multimillion dollar facilities. I am in no way against libraries. I am against wasteful, excessive spending.
And by the way, the "poor" you would find are NOT the ones using libraries anyway, so check your figures. The average person in a public library is an educated, high upper middle income person, or home educated Christian kids with their mother getting books for the week. Besides, is your library card free? Most cards I know are at least $15 annually. What poor person pays to read? lol!!
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I am aware that people have differences of opinion on the concept of filtering in schools and libraries, but I don't think that there is a difference of opinion on the idea of phone companies paying back the loans and subsidies that the government gave them year ago by giving reduced rates to educational facilities.
> Borrow books from the state, and then get
> suprised when they pay attention to what you are
> borrowing?
The government isn't like a private or corporation; its powers are clearly defined in our Constitution. Our system of government is based on the idea that the citizens have certain unalienable rights -- you know, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The government's powers on the other hand are derived from the consent of the governed -- us. Therefore, one can clearly be "cranky" if the government steps out of those bounds.
As for other administrations, well, it's silly to argue about the hypothetical. That's like saying that an embezzler shouldn't be arrested because well, who wouldn't steal millions of dollars if given the chance?
We can only argue about what has actually happened. The Bush Administration asked for the Patriot Act and they've demonstrated they're not afraid to use it. The Bush Administration has also been steadily undoing the Watergate-era reforms that were designed to reign in the Executive branch and now they're running amuck.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
No, public libraries are typically owned by the citizens of the counties and municipalities in which they operate. Obviously I don't know about all states, but the libraries I've seen have not been owned by them.
Anyhow, governments don't own things in the way that an individual or business owns things. Public libraries belong to us, not to the state or county that created it. We merely entrust their operation to them. It is their responsiblity and duty to operate them in the manner that best suits the citizens that they are sworn to serve.
So, yeah, I get pretty angry when the state wants to violate my 4th Ammendment rights at the local library. That's my library, not theirs, and they don't have the right to search my records without a clear, legal search warrant obtained with probable cause.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
At first hitler came for the jews.
I didnt speak up because I was not a jew.
Then he came for the catholics.
I didnt speak up because I was protestant.
Then he came for the polish.
I didnt speak up because I was hungarian by birth.
Then they came for me.
And there was noone left to speak up.
(Paraphrased, I couldnt find the original version)
If you wait until the government specifically targets YOU, then you will be too late to save even yourself.
Just in case anyone feels that this article hightlights only what crazy Santa Cruz does ...
I know that my community library shreds their logs on a daily basis. Internet user sign-ups are discarded within 24 hours. Years of old Interlibrary loan records are now gone.
Librarians are great because they protect our rights. The ALA is a great organization that really protects free speech.
Thank your local librarian!
I live in Santa Cruz, and I am glad that this controversy has resulted in the libraries destroying old records. I am more concerned about Santa Cruz misusing the old data than about the FBI misusing its subpoenas. The best solution to privacy invading databases is to purge the unnecessary info from the database, and not to rely on controls on who can access the database. If the data is there, then it can be had by low-level workers who can be persuaded, bribed, or coerced.
The place mentioned in the article, Santa Cruz, seems to me like the ideal place to live:
;)
* 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.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
If books in libraries were distributed via network or if the libraries also offered community WiFi, wouldn't that be more useful, less costly?
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.
Well, we do try to do a good job of not being noticed by Americans. But for the record, we've particpated in Afganistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, and Rwanda to name a few of the more recent conflicts.
Didn't you terrorist-lovers get the memo? Shredding paper to preserve privacy is only okay when directed by rich people who work for multinational corporations. It's right there in the rule book. You know, the rule book that only applies to those who don't "think" properly...
Not everyone agrees with Nicholson Baker though, not even the Society of American Archivists, but it sure is fascinating. Even more so than the current trendy paranoia about privacy.
Ironically, Baker's Vox is probably one of those books most of you are afraid of getting caught with. It's so naughty, Monica gave it to Bill, 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!!
Teacher: Did you complete your library research assignments?
Class (in unison): We couldn't - the library was Slashdotted again.You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
That is an excellent idea. It is impossible (and probably undesirable unless one advocates total anarchy) to dispense entirely with monitoring, but this method of community behavior can provide a modicum of intelligently-targeted cover for activities that ought not be infringed upon. It's not a great and sustainable solution, but it's probably an effective measure in a pinch: If you can't stop the monitoring, increase the noise level.
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
I think not...(*poof*)
And by the way, the "poor" you would find are NOT the ones using libraries anyway, so check your figures. The average person in a public library is an educated, high upper middle income person, or home educated Christian kids with their mother getting books for the week. Besides, is your library card free? Most cards I know are at least $15 annually. What poor person pays to read? lol!!
What area of the country are you in? I've never paid for a library card, and there were times when I had library cards for several different public libraries in the area. At the moment, my card is registered in three public library systems (my small home library, and the two larger districts that surround us) and I didn't have to pay for my card or to register it in either district.
Can someone remind me what we are protecting again?
scare / educate their patrons
Don't worry, I get those confused sometimes, too.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
Maybe if our kids played better hockey, Canadians would take us more seriously, eh?
On another totally off topic, when you Canadians finally get around to applying for Statehood, please have each Province apply separately. Fifty-one stars on the flag would suck.You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
It is our duty as Americans to constantly and aggressively keep the bureacracy in check, to hold our rights as precious treasures, and to always assume the worst of government. Our forefathers knew this hundreds of years ago. Why do you think the founders of this country put those laws into place? They put it into place hundreds of years ago, because they knew the American people, or any people, would have to fight tooth and nail to hold onto the rights that were only won with the loss of American lives. For hundreds of years, people have known that the government, any government, every government, has, does, and will abuse the power you give it if you allow it to.
What would you do differently if someone was staring over your shoulder every minute of every day? What would you not read, what would you not write, if someone with the power to lock you away indefinitely, without a trial, was watching you every minute? If you'd do anything differently (and who wouldn't) then you must know that you are being violated with these laws.
Why distrust the government? Because we stayed awake in history class. Because we read what our founders wrote. Because we love our country. Because we love our liberty.
Don't think those rights you are giving up are yours. That's your daughter's liberty, that's your grandchildren's freedom. And they wont be able to buy it back with that US Savings Bond, liberty is bought with flesh and blood and suffering, it always has and always will be.
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
Holland
That doesn't even BEGIN to cover the attitudes in the town.
I'm willing to bet they are at the forefront of this issue(on the side of individual privacy) for the entire planet.
What that really would mean then, is that most library systems are far more compliant.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Even if the world was coming to an end and this kind of inquisition was the only way to guarantee that a country would be the last one to have the sky fall on it, I wouldn't submit to it. Even if it were possible to reverse the end of the world this way. Even if there were no blatant contradictions in thes presumed usefulness of such an inquisition.
if that's all that's left for a society, we're already DEAD.
This is what I think of your cry baby logic.
1. I do not believe any entity is entitled to any "something that must be admissable", expecially one that does not accept that scenario. You are not trustworthy if cannot accept no for an answer.
2. What makes you think you're not the one wasting people's time?
3. A demonstration:
Enter Little Snivelling Investigator - a man who can't provide any useful service to the law enforcement industry and so precariously hanging onto fulfilling his intelligence quota to avoid getting fired that he harrasses anyone he can and devises ways of justifying his Inquisitions
Enter Big Voice - The transfigured to deity form of Superman, Gandhi, Crocodile Dundee, Ben Franklin, Marie Curie, Mother Teresa, Joan of Arc, Lara Croft, or whoever happens to be one's hero.
Little Snivelling Investigator:We want to see what kind of magazine you read.
Big Voice: Why?
LSI: The majority of terrorists are male.
BV: No.
LSI: Something must be admissable.
BV: What part of No don't you undestand?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I'm still not interested in registering at NYT.. so I'll not be able to read the article and flame here instead...
If you're concerned about your privacy while reading the article online, your local public library almost certainly has a print subscription to the New York Times, which you can still read anonymously.
That is, as long as there are librarians like the ones described in the article, who will defend your right to read newspapers anonymously.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
Librarians have been fighting for open access to information for more than 100 years. One of the scariest provisions of the law is that librarians are not permitted to mention the FBI visit to anyone but their attorney, and so far Mr. Ashcroft has refused to tell Congress how many times it has been used. And, these searches can be conducted without court intervention. I think that's scary.
The irony slays me, a "BE READY FOR TERRORISM" advertisment smack dab in the middle of this NYT article.
Screen shot lives here
The part that pisses me off is the fact that it's even necessary. It's a slap in the face to most librarians that they have to deal with such things, but they'll go through with it - most of their funding is from public sources after all.
:D tho I liked the book better.
How do I know this? Because I've had several librarians in my immediate family and friends. I can say for sure that you'd be amazed at the amount of passion and energy that goes into their work after hours (the public never sees it).
And yes, I read Fahrenheit 451
C|N>K
The Gautama Buddha was an ordinary man who used paradoxes when necessary because there is a disparity between the truth that can be understood and the truth that can be told in words. Sometimes the best way to explain something is to say something which seems unrelated but which has a chance of bringing about the same spontaneous realization in your listener as you yourself have achieved. Sometimes that thing which you say is a contradiction.
If you believe that there is a contradiction between enlightenment and being a spiritual teacher, you have a very poor understanding of what Buddhists mean by the word enlightenment.
Please stop with the faith-bashing.
lysergically yours
This would be the same supreme court that looked at a law that said police could confiscate your money, house or car just by saying you'd used it for or paid for it from drug dealing, and you could only get it back by suing (at your own expense) in a civil court ("balance of probability" rather than "beyond resonable doubt"), and found that law constitutional?
Freedom in the USA was already dead before the PATRIOT act.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Providing
Appropriate
Tools
Required to
Intercept and
Obstruct
Terrorism
Just wanted to clear that up
He was a library assistant at university library. The disrepected of librarian professions indirectly led to the culture revolution. More of the professors who dissed him ended up dead or worse in the cultural revolution.
Don't make librarian mad.
A few years ago, I read a book by Neil Postman called: Amusing Ourselves to Death. In the first chapter, he compared the books 1984, and A Brave New World. The conclusion he came to is that it is much easier to control people through what they love, rather than through what they fear. A distopia like in 1984 can never last long (on a historical time span) because people will try to destroy it, either covertly, or overtly. On the other hand, we have already accomplished 90% of the distopia presented in A Brave New World, and no one is worried about it, no one rallies against it. People openly embrace it. The funny thing is I'm not too worried about our government ruling through fear. I'm more worried about how our government currently rules: through apathy. How do you think it was that we were presented with the Hobson's choice of Al Gore, or George Bush.
I swear I don't know which is worse, some of the sillier parts of the Patriot act or liberals jerking off to the tune of, "You are violating my rights!!"
Sorry folks, you go to a library, you have no expectations of privacy. A public library is a public institution and if public policy determines that your checkout list should be available to the police, then it will be so. In some areas, a late or overdue book will will earn you a citation and those are definately public record, so don't let your books get overdue, or librarians will be forced to shred your documents keep you from the prying eyes of the 'man.'
The main argument is public records. You do business with a public institution in the United States in most states, your records are available to everyone, except for income taxes, and even those are available for the price of a supoena from law enforcement.
Now, if you want to maintain your rights to privacy, you can go to a bookstore and buy your book using good old American cash, and I promise not even the local police will so much as raise an eyelid, or even drop a donut of interest with you.
Dawn of the Dead
If you're really paranoid about the FBI reviewing your circulation record, I suggest reading the book within the library or photocopying it; perhaps over several days time. Copyright infringement? Maybe. Expensive? Possibly. Anonymous? Absolutely.
rob
Perhaps we should all spend our energies slashdotting Congress. Then, perhaps, we might make a difference.
--Matt
Back home, it would be trivial to pass messages by placing ads in papers - walk into the office and pay cash. Or even <gasp!> by mailing letters to each other... A picture postcard could designate the target, with the number of written words specifying date and time.
Or how about posting random comments in Slashdot? Maybe not all the trolls are actually trolls, maybe some of them are terrorists passing messages... OK, so that one needs computer access... Never mind. But seriously, computers are easy to acquire cheaply, and online access is even easier, particularly if you use the free coasters that AOL shovels out.
Another things libraries could do would be to set up an email list to tell you that your records were not examined by the FBI today. The PATRIOT Act forbids them to tell you if the FBI has taken the records, but it doesn't compel them to lie. If you suddenly stop receiving that email, then you know those records aren't private any more.
A large number of your country's "children under 21" are currently alternately blowing people to bits and scraping bits of their mates off the desert landscape into body bags.
Yet you seem to be saying they should be protected from reading "trash" (by whose definition ?) books ?
sounds more like something out of the Third Reich to me.
I hate librarians , - maybe this will be their redeeming act. ??
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
As I read the threads related to this topic, I see that the vast majority of slashdotters find the idea of the patriot act to be disturbing and an infringment on the rights we as Americans take for granted. This nation is a great as it is because people like us stand up for what is right. If we allow the Patriot Act to become policy without offering some sort of resistance, we undermine the effectiveness of a free democracy and run the risk of turning into a totalitarian society.
Isn't that what we are fighting against in Iraq?
Slashdot is one of the best forums out there to discuss your views and get them heard by a large audience. But we need to take it a step further. We need to let the people in charge know that we cannot stand for these blatant infringments on our rights of free speech, privacy, and free thought. Libraries and ISP's are only the beginning. We need to write letters (remember them?) and make phone calls to our representative officials. Trust me, they will listen. Take part in proactive measures. Support your local librarians.
Let's have the next headline read "Hacker's and Computer Geeks Take Up the Fight Against the Patriot Act!"
Fellow Geeks,P A&templ ate=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentI D=21667
Go visit the American Library Association's website sometime: www.ala.org
Librarians are a mixed bag of people, naturally, but when you get right down to it, they service a huge point of presence on the internet, for those who use it. Where I live, there was a substantial, multi-segment news investigation about the libraries downtown being used for wanking off in public.
The ALA uses the first Amendment as an opportunity for exploitation. Heaven forbid they prevent people from going to porn sites, and wanking off, 20 feet from the children's book area. Read this:
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=CI
Apparently, it's "Unconstitutional" to block porn sites in public libraries. You know what they say, people who get jobs that are around children, some of them are child molesters...
-Vexar
To the other post, how would increasing technology (and decreasing million dollar architectural costs) cost the poor anything? How would free "library based" internet access cost "the poor" anything?
Umm... you need a computer to access your lovely computerized books. No computer == no access to books. Your average person below the poverty line probably can't afford a computer...
And by the way, the "poor" you would find are NOT the ones using libraries anyway, so check your figures. The average person in a public library is an educated, high upper middle income person, or home educated Christian kids with their mother getting books for the week. Besides, is your library card free? Most cards I know are at least $15 annually. What poor person pays to read? lol!!
Wow, that's very predjudiced of you. Nice to know that you think all poor people are bums on the street who are uninterested in reading.
You know, I spent a good part of my childhood living under the poverty line. No, I didn't live on the street... I lived in a lower-end condo in a subburb of my city. I was raised by a single mother who has held down 2 or 3 jobs at a time for as long as I can remember in order to support three children. We couldn't afford a computer for quite a long time. Now, I'm a relatively successful, University educated software developer. So your computerized library fantasy would have cut people like me out of the loop. Really great idea. Thanks!
And to answer your impending question, yes, I spent a lot of the time at the library, and yes, I think that's part of the reason I am as successful as I am today... it helped me to foster a passion for learning.
... that I will log out and cry now.
Some people just don't get it and peacefuly, smiling, carry on towards their cages.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Those are not phone numbers.
What are you trying to hide?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.