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Library Chief Criticized for Requiring Subpoena
sudnshok writes "Hasbrouck Heights (NJ) Library Director Michele Reutty is under fire for refusing to give police library circulation records without a subpoena. Her lawyer explained, 'Reutty did the right thing... At no time did Michele Reutty say to any police officer or anybody else that she would not give the information if it was properly requested.' However, borough labor lawyer Ellen Horn, who also represented the library trustees, said Reutty was 'more interested in protecting' her library than helping the police. 'It was an absolute misjudgment of the seriousness of the matter,' Horn said."
She's under fire from people with little regard for people's rights, and she's presumably respected by many readers of Slashdot for getting the authorities to apply `due process` and not just do what she's told like something out of Russia or something. If the police aren't abusing their powers and have a legal claim to the information then what's the problem here?
The police are out there busting their hump, protecting you and me. 99% of them are good, and when they have a hot lead that requires your help, there's no reason to be a hump. It's not "her" library, and I hope that the trustees show her that. It's a public library, and a public place, and if there's a sex offender scoping out my child, I want every citizen's help, whether they think they're somehow "doing good" or not.
She's obstructing justice, IMHO. By the time that warrant is issued, the lead could be cold. Did she consult the trustees? If it's the law, it's a law that should be amended.
What's a library? No, seriously...
Yeah, I think what happened was, the WTC thing happened, the PATRIOT act passed, and all of a sudden law enforcement could do anything to find "terrorists" (sex offenders was the old way). SO they probably used their new powers and found a bunch of terrorists. But then their lives went on. And they started getting bored. And then maybe some grungy 23 year old tries to hit on their 18 year old daughter, and she likes him. Dad better protect her, let's use a few of the systems to check up on him, no one will notice. All of a sudden, it's the new way of doing business. Except that 5 years from now, when the wrong people are getting arrested, and more people are getting arrested to control the backlash from the first wrongful arrests, pretty soon everyone who isn't too pilled out to notice is in jail or on the police force. Isn't that the goal? Oh wait, what about freedom, what about our children and the future generations. Would some chicken-hawk call me a "leftie" because I'm thinking about future generations? Fuck that. I'm sick and tired of people being so fucking ignorant. They want to take your rights away! The Police HATE civilians. Have you ever had a friend who's a cop? NO, why? Because cops only hang out with cops. They marry cops. And their children become cops. It's the same thing in the military. You think they give a flying fuck about the grungy 23 year old's rights. Fuck no, all they care about is THEIR JESUS, THEIR POWER, and the expansion thereof.
Thank you, Police Chief, for instructing your officers to diligently persue the matter of a twelve year old being threatened by a sexual predator. I'm sorry you're going to catch heat for trying to follow up on an eyewitness report which, by sheer coincidence, happened to mention a book title. A darn shame that the Internet doesn't understand the difference between a fascist government shooting everybody who takes out a certain book and a democratic government saying "We've got an eyewitness report of someone threatening to sexually molest a little girl in the last couple of hours. He was carrying a book we have absolutely no interest in. Time is of the essence here, could you quick look up in your records who might have it?". Sorry that the lady who jerked you around, forcing you to leave and get a SECOND subpoena because you had to ask to access a whole *two* computer systems (the horrors, I know) will be made to be the hero in all of this.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Caine, you do realize you paid for a Slashdot account like a mother fucking retard, don't you?
> There have been plenty of cases where people (re)gained rights without revolution -
> assuming that we're not talking about a loose definition of the term that equates to any sweeping change.
> Slavery ended, and so did government-institutionalized segregation.
After the Civil War.
> Women got the right to vote.
After World War I.
> The Japanese were allowed out of their internment camps.
After World War II.
> McCarthy's blacklisting stopped.
After the Korean War.
> Portions of the PATRIOT act were scaled back.
After Iraq was conquered.
I'm not saying there's a connection... could be coincidence. But it makes you think, doesn't it?
Out of curiosity, did you hear that quote before the release of Civ 4?
You misspelled "Democrat".
This would be a troll....how? When you discover the Gunpowder advance in Civilization 4, it gives you the Al Capone quote "You can get more with a gun and a smile than with just a smile", which the parent also quoted. So how is it trolling to ask him if he first heard it in the game?