Slashdot Mirror
FBI Seizes Library Computers Without Warrant
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.
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.
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
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.
What would it be anyway? Most library computers I've used don't even connect to the internet, but rather just their online catalogue.
Some I know provide net access, although I presume websites are restricted/monitored.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
Honestly, with the amount of dust usually inside those things, i don't envy them. Anthrax is made up anyways!
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.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
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.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Our city's library director (and the board) declared that they would no longer keep records of ANY patron's activity. The only records they keep are issues currently checked out, and overdues for fines. Other than that, their attitude is: "The Feds can go screw themselves. They can't demand what does not exist."
Cops don't need a warrant to search a private citizen who gives their permission. But of course that citizen has to know they have the right to refuse, and then they have to have the guts to use that right. The Constitution doesn't emit alarm bells from its Smithsonian alcove whenever a government worker violates it.
That library director isn't acting as a private citizen. They're acting as the custodian of that equipment, working for the public. People have an expectation of some privacy when using library records. Courts held for generations that library records, though recorded and kept by a public institution, require due process - like a warrant or court order, based on evidence and probable cause - until Bush's Republican Era started relegislating those rights protections away with Patriot Acts and their ilk.
If those government employees colluded to expose private records without a warrant, whether through "incompetence" or disdain for their obligations (or, as has been the fad this decade, through both), then the evidence they seized is worthless. Yet another terrorism investigation blown by Bush's agencies ignoring the most basic and trivial due process.
Feel safer?
--
make install -not war
Most hotels have the feature that when you log off it nukes everything (history, cookies, and so forth). If you combine that with eraser, then there wouldn't be any evidence to sieze, and it wouldn't be a problem anymore.
Vee arrrr de F-B-I
Isn't this the government taking computers temporarily from another, cooperating government entity? There are no personal privacy issues that I can see here.
"Seize" isn't really the right word here, given they asked the library director for them and had no real force of law behind their request. This is basically the equivalent of a cop stopping you on a highway and asking to search your car. You're within your legal rights to say 'no', but if you say 'yes' he doesn't need a warrant.
to lure Carl Monday into coming to watch them masturbate!
Monstar L
1) If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
2) Wartime conditions rule (The War On Terror).
There does not seem to be any way of stopping the express train to the complete implementation of authoritarian capitalism.
That ain't liver; that's beef kidney!
I have always said that I will help properly identified authorities, if they politely ask me. If they try and sneakily do stuff, I will block then every way I can.
I don't think I would do the same with other peoples information though. In fact, according to the law here in the UK, I am not allowed to do that. We have the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Act. Surely you must have something like that?
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
I love free hardware.
I vote for more librarians like this guy!
It should read "FBI steals library computers..."
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
And here I've been thinking all along that libraries are one of the last bastions of Constitutional rights and privacy. To rollover like this? If this had been my local library and my records were on that computer I'd be demanding his immediate firing.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
...with a librarian there? Thus, the seizure??
Federal government can't just barge in and take things, even from a state government. Separation of power is there to curb exactly these transgressions. Doesn't matter what the excuse is, if the Feds want something they have to produce a valid warrant.
If citizens keep buying the line that the "government is doing this for your own good", the citizens are going to be screwed by the same government starving for more power, and won't stop until they literally own you.
Am I the only one thinking that the library should have just given them the hard drive rather than the whole computer?
This is good. The terrorist who checks out the Terrorist's Cookbook and blows himself (and others) up before returning it will still get nabbed.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
One question not answered is if these computers contained information necessary for the library to operate? In fact, what information was on them at all?
Btw, had this coincidentally quite appropriate Slashdot FC at the bottom of my page on this article:
Did you know the University of Iowa closed down after someone stole the book?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
No government official should have the discretion to unilaterally allow the removal of citizen owned assets without a warrant. The government is a property manager for the citizen's assets.
The feds can take any records from libraries at any time without notice without warrant and the depending on the situation the library can't even tell the patrons. I know this because I have a relative that works at a library.
The Board of Directors of the library is the owner of these computers. The director is just another employee, like the janitors, and has no authority over property disposition without a signed resolution from his board.
The director should have called his board president before acting. The board should fire him for exceeding his authority, especially because the director is an ALA member who isn't paying attention.
"Two FBI agents walked into a public library in Maryland, without a warrant, and walked out with two computers."
"It was a decision I made on my experience and the information given to me," [the library director] said."
So they asked if they could take the computers, told the librarian why, and he said they could?
FBI Agent 1: We need two more computers for Dave and Terry.
FBI Agent 2: It's cool let's just grab it from the local library.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's fashionable for the left to go and say that Bush has rendered the FBI somehow clueless or incompetent. But I'd like to let it know when it was.
Let's see.
The FBI was originally founded to deal with the likes of Al Capone but despite all the self promotion of Elliot Ness and the Untouchables, it was the Treasury that nailed him. Speaking of Elliot Ness, the famed super-detective never did catch the Cleveland serial killer and while we are at it, the FBI completely missed the rise of organized crime in the 1940s and 1950s and the total corruption of labor unions that continues to this day.
As a measure of domestic counterintelligence, the failures of the FBI are numerous. The Soviets had no problem infiltrating any number of American institutions during the Cold War, garnering everything from the US Navy codes, plans for the atomic bomb, and more.
The FBI has not produced a victory in the war on drugs. If anyone does any drug interdiction its the Coast Guard. The FBI usually only finds serial killers across state lines after they've killed a dozen people. The FBI couldn't put two and two together and prevent either the first WTC bombing and then 9/11, and in the meantime proved its inestimable worth by shooting up a child at Ruby Ridge and burning up 93 people at Waco Texas.
If anything, that the FBI hasn't done a Ruby Ridge or a Waco should be viewed by an improvement of Bush, over Clinton, but even still, with that said, if you hate Bush so much, when was the year and term of President where you thought the FBI was actually good?
This is my sig.
Not to be melodramatic, but any Librarian(real MLS), who gives up patron records without a fight would really have a tought time justifying their existence in that capacity. If librarians are just going to be glorified shop attendants, we can get them for a whole lot less, and with much less investment in education, than we do know.
We might agree to give up some peripheral rights for perceived safety thinking it is a good deal. However, the greatest risk to the elite is that the at-risk servants might become educated. Therefore, the primary objective of the elite is to minimize the educational opportunities for said servants. Recall that many citizens of Texas, partly because they could not read, were held up to four years after slavery because illegal.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Who's the (sole, I presume) citizen?
"Don't Talk to the Police" by Professor James Duane - 27 min - May 21, 2008
James Duane explains why innocent people should never talk to the police:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865
What makes it illegal for the FBI to request and be given the computers?
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
So I guess, "two agents walking into a library and asking for two computers which were given voluntarily", equates to a raid?
Good thing they didn't use harsh language or it would have been considered a "brutal assault by jack-booted Federal thugs".
As noted earlier, warrants are not required to obtain all information. They are a mechanism to legally compel someone to produce or give access to evidence.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If we guess that this library is average, then each of those 10k libs is visited every ~3 years. Or about 10 Libraries per day, every day of the week/year. Thats a crapload of data collection.
Remember that Libraries can't talk about when they get visited if the (un)Patriot Act is used.
Scary.
And they dont even need to visit a judge.
is simply a test to see if the brain-dead U.S. population tolerates the bills passed by their selected representatives to repeal the U.S. constitution .
Good luck in The United Gulags of America.
Cordially,
Kilgore Trout
Me: "I'm... err.. an FBI agent.. and we have to confiscate.. um... all of your RAMs because one of your visitors is suspected of making LOLCats. I'm sure you wouldn't want me to have to get a warrant because then that would mean you were harboring suspected LOLorists."
Library: "Okay."
There is no problem with the owner turning over his property.
The librarian isn't the owner.
It is a sad day when the last bastian of free speech and free thought, the library, decides to trample on what little freedom is left in our country and hand over computers to the FBI without court order. And this was done in the name of security or law enforcement?? I am reminded of the very astute saying on the part of Thomas Jefferson: "Those that would sacrifice liberty to gain security get none and deserve neither." One could only hope that a higher level official in the Maryland Public Library System will challenge this. But, I wouldn't hold my breath
I did a brief stint in retail in my 20's at a new regional mall's opening so everybody was "green". Couple suits walked into the Sears and said "Give us your till. This is a surprise audit." And the kid did.
Librarians may be smarter but I wouldn't bet it won't happen.
it is not illegal to give evidence to the fbi. Conservatives are not (usually) stupid, and liberals are (usually) not trying to hinder the police.
This country is not going to hell simply because someone decided to give evidence to the police.
The FBI are most likely NOT the criminals, and all this yelling about "court order! court order!" makes you sound like people who go look up child pr0n on library computers....
posted as AC because I never bothered to create an account. and probably never will, the way things are going.
they did the flashy thing to the librarians
There could be a question of whether the librarian in charge had the power to hand over the computers to the FBI without going to a higher up. However, this is only an issue if the FBI knew that the person they talked to had no power to hand over the computers without a warrant, and specifically attempted to get around having to request a warrant. If the FBI did not know, then the FBI had full rights to seize the computers without a warrant.
For example, my wife gives the police permission to search my business records even though I did not want them searched, most courts will allow anything that is discovered in those records to be used as evidence. It is generally assumed that one spouse can give permission to search another spouse's belongings. However, if the FBI had contacted me earlier about searching my business records, and I told the FBI I wouldn't give over the records without a warrant. And, then the FBI asks my wife for permission, the courts will normally not allow anything discovered by that search to be used in court.
The bigger question is whether the librarian should have cooperated with the police in a search without the FBI first getting a warrant. If I was the librarian, I would tell the FBI I'll take the computers out of service and lock them up, so that whatever is on the computers isn't destroyed, but they must first get a warrant before I can allow them to seize them. That just makes sure that the FBI isn't simply trolling for possible information. I don't mind the library cooperating with authorities. What I do mind is cooperating in a way that doesn't ensure the rights of their patrons.
Getting a warrant isn't difficult. All it takes is a quick phone call by a D.A. to a judge - in emergencies, most judges will allow the paperwork to be filled out later. There have been cases where the police requested a search w/o a warrant, the occupant said "no", the police sit around questioning the subject, and fifteen minutes later, someone comes in with the warrant.
The FBI came and asked. The Librarian agreed.
The law isn't exactly clear in this case.
Was the seizure illegal? Was it even a seizure?
Do you have an expectation of privacy when using public computers?
The FBI certainly didn't violate the law. The librarian may have.
They're using their grammar skills there.
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 (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
And all the sheep of slashdot said baa, baa, baa.
1) The FBI didn't seize the computer, contrary to the headline and just about every frigging commenter. The computers were given to them when the FBI asked nicely.
2) That's legal as another commenter pointed out.
3) Library computers have no expectation of privacy
4) If I own a computer, and the FBI asks me if they can borrow it, and I say "ok", then that's legal. If I said "no" and the FBI took it anyway, then THAT'D be seizure and illegal without a warrant.
5) The library director was totally within his rights to say "sure, take them." Did he do the right thing? Who cares?
OT, slashdot is really starting to suck. So many stupid articles, so much stupid politics, so many asinine headlines. We need a site that's "news for nerds" not "news for political junkies." There are already tons of the latter. Anonymous commenting has become a waste of time with tons of bugs. Slashdot has just become utterly retarded, and I'm not really new here (my /. user id is in the 30,000 range.)
to get free computers :-)
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
If what the FBI agents had to say was so compelling, I would imagine they should have had very little trouble convincing a judge to issue a warrant.
It's a shame not only that our government considers due process to be "too much trouble"... but also that citizens abide that mentality. As should have been exactly the case with the illegal and unconstitutional "telco immunity" matter, if a business or organization feels they need some kind of immunity, we call that a warrant. Warrants allow government agents to break the law, and shift the burden of responsibility onto the government.
This is very disturbing. I stopped using public libraries years ago. I either buy used books, download e-books, or "borrow" books from the library, read them, and return them on my own time. I do not want the federal government knowing what I read about. Why?
Because it's so easy for a list of book titles to be extrapolated into something it's not. Say I check out a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook for research into the rebellious attitudes if the 70's. Say I also check out a book about Osama bin Laden because I want to learn about the most wanted man on earth. Say I also check out a book about the construction of the White House.
What could be extrapolated from that? That I could be a proto-terrorist building a bomb to kill the president. All they would have to do is read my checkout queue. And it seems that those who supposedly stand for free access to information are beginning to go along with Uncle Sam now too. This just convinces me further that I should not be checking out books from libraries.
Yes, I imagine the police reading the miranda rights to a bloody mess of gore and limbs.
FBI should not even be ASKING for such things without a warrent. Seriously, if this was about ivars, and he was working solo, then nobody else is going to touch the computers. OTH, if he was not working solo, and they obtained data from thee computers, then any actions that even APPEAR to be derived from these will be thrown out in later court. IOW, both FBI and Librarians actions could make it such that more guilty ppl get to walk. Of course, this could just be a clean up job.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm really from the FBI, it's okay, can I have all of your computers? Sure, Yeah, it's for an official investigation... would I wear this shiny suit for the heck of it?
At the end of the day they were public computers. It really would make no sense for the library to hold them. It would have simply been easier for the library director to hand them over and in doing so separate them from any investigations.
It doesn't matter what you "like to think", the library owns the computers in the library. They even have receipts to prove it.
Taxes != Ownership.
Fees (like overdue fines) != Ownership.
I'm not sure what mildly educated librarian you're referring to, but in the story above, it was the library director. Usually, they get to make decisions regarding the library, it's staff, and it's equipment. (It's kind of like their job, or something).
If this library director made a different decision, then, perhaps a judge could have gotten involved. But in this case, the director allowed the FBI to take a public computer in the interest of solving a crime. Big deal.
It seemed reasonable judgment from where I stand. It would seem foolish, on the other hand, to expect any level of privacy in a public space, on public equipment. You can have the right to privacy, and the right to stupidity, but if you mix them, the former is going to suffer.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
Legally, the Board owns the kit and kaboodle, and its two charges are to hire and fire the director, and approve and implement the budget. Budget includes purchase, disposition, and retirement of assets.
There are laws governing what they can do with the assets, no they cannot give them to themselves, that's inurement or embezzlement, but they can give them to another nonprofit. They have strict bylaws governing property disposition, and this dipstick didn't follow them.
If you weren't so stupid you wouldn't have thrown up that non sequitor.
I am happy when even television shows get it right (Law and Order occasionally)
Feel good propaganda.
Add some bread, and you've got a population Caesar himself would be proud of.
Remember, subliminal means "below a threshold", and the limit here is coming right out and actually saying "see, the system works!", they just repeatedly show you examples of the system working. That falls below the textual threshold.
You can't take the sky from me...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Call the cops. Tell them that a couple of guys are trying to pass themselves off as FBI agents and are trying to steal computers. By the way, I think they have guns and they look pretty nervous. I overheard one say to the other, "I'm not going back to prison. If the cops come, they'll never take me alive."
Have gnu, will travel.
So the librarian has no regrets for tossing out the 4th amendment.
Sure its a public facility, but you would think that a librarian would be a bit more concerned about protecting freedoms.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is about a computer but I often see comments similar to some here saying that we should not expect privacy of what we do (read) at a public facility. Just to bring some history into this... if you would have said that 25 years ago, in most venues people would have protested heavily. You would have been a very small minority. That kind of access was thought to primarily belong to authoritarian regimes and not a Democracy (or Republic). We *are* changing our values in a historical way. And I fear that we are losing a sense of the history that has kept us free from Tyranny.
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.
WE also ay for the FBI. You may have forgotten this, but the FBI is in fact a part of the government - just like the library. Why on earth SHOULD they need warrant? Does your IT department need a warrant to take the desktop at your company?
Yet another case of absurd expectations of privacy from the government, when using government equipment.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
From TFA:
"They had an awful lot of information," he said, but he was not allowed to discuss specifics.
He feels its ok to just hand over two computers, but he is "not allowed" to duscuss anything about it??????
If he was compelled by a warrant to hand over the machines, then fine, I can accept he cannot speak further.
But he wasn't so compelled.
They walk in an talked him into handing it over. How the f-bomb is he compelled to not talk about it???
What a complete and utter wussy.
.... if they GIVE the computers to them you tards. and since when the hell is there an expectation of privacy on a PUBLIC computer???? honestly the stories on /. are getting worse by the minute.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
There is nothing wrong with the librarian's actions. There is no, nor should there be, any expectation of privacy on a public terminal. Often times access is already being monitored for violations against the library's terms of use, with illegal activity being logged and reported to the authorities. If you are using a public library computer for something sensitive, then there is something wrong with your decision. I know most libraries only require one to be either over a certain age or to have a library card to use the terminal, nor do they clean any information between users.
The Library Director may not know what he is talking about, but as an ex-MIS director of a fair-sized library system, I can tell you what I did in the same circumstances. All our public computers had devices in them that erased all activity on a reboot, and most of it on a sign-off (bookmarks, cookies, etc.) When the local police officers decided they wanted to snoop on a computer used by a pedophile, I explained to them that it was useless because the material, if any was automatically erased. They didn't believe me, rather snidely, I thought, so I let them run a DOS-based program that explored the hard drive for images. They were so proud of their little program. I even coached them how to get to a DOS prompt (which they couldn't quite do.) Sure enough--nothing. They wanted the name of the manufacturer of the device, which I gave them readily. They never got anything.
The point here is that if you set up the computers in such a way that they do not retain information, this whole issue is a moot point. Our Director did not understand any of this. I had Wi-Fi up in all our libraries for a year before she understood what it was. She then got a public service award award for being so far-sighted as to start it. I'm retired now. Ha ha.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
...and all this yelling about "court order! court order!" makes you sound like people who go look up child pr0n on library computers....
To me they sound like people who have picked up a history book at least once in their lives. You, however, sound like you have "nothing to hide" and will be completely shocked one day when you discover that maybe whether you had something to hide or not didn't matter.
And I hope they look carefully. Just think, if we had had this common sense approach to national security earlier, the 911 attacks could have been prevented.
How useful are library records anyway? The last time I got a library card they did not go to any great lengths to establish my identity. How do they know if the record of person x checking out a book/using a computer is really person x and not person y?
Surely letting people walk into the library and steal a few computers, and doing nothing to stop them is a fireable offense?
I'm so glad that we're talking about the 4th amendment and not the 1st... Because it'd be pretty horrible if you were only allowed freedom of religion, freedom of speech/press and the right to peaceably assemble in your own home.
What is being discussed is the 4th amendment as grabbed from Wikipedia:
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.
Now I dont know about you but papers and effects dont necessarily have to be in your house. Do you want the FBI to walk over to your bank and go 'Hey can you please open up Safety Deposit Box #XXXXX for us?'... Didnt think so. Same thing here, except the guy who did it is also a public employee. A search is typically unreasonable if a police officer is unable to obtain a warrant in a court of law (which would indicate probable cause). It also states that a warrant cannot be a 'fishing expedition' indicating the specific place and things to be seized (IE. they cant take a warrant for your financial records on your computer, find child porn they cant charge you with possession of it because their warrant did not cover it, although it may be probable cause to check the rest of your house for such).
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
s/Seizes/Removes with Permission
I'll be first in line to tell the FBI to come back with a warrant, but don't blame them for the library director's stupidity.
IIRC, by law, the librarian isn't supposed to say or even acknowledge that the FBI was on the premises and took records. So how do we know this happened?
... as long as the FBI agents had up-to-date library cards. But if the computers aren't back by the due date, those agents are going to face hefty fines!
#DeleteChrome
first off these computers contain confidential information. neither the librarian or the library has the right to disclose it.
example: if I ask a IRS agent to give me your tax return it would be illegal for him to give it to me (unless your an elected official)
second the FBI agents had no right to ask for the information and that act was itself illegal as they knowingly asked the library director to commit a crime.
example: if i asked you to steal something for my I would be guilty of a crime too.
I can just imagine how the conversation went. I have a friend in the restaurant business who had something very similar happen (only it was locals, not Feds).
"Ok Mr Director, we can get a warrant if that's what you really want. BUT we will close this library and rip every book apart looking for 'evidence'. You'll be closed for months just picking up the mess. Now then, do you really want to exercise your rights?"
And perhaps most of them already did. But our city's libraries did not... at least, not until the government declared library records fair game a few years ago. This move was directly motivated by those changes in the law.
Unfortunately, most people would have done the same in this situation. That is, unless they were told during training not to comply with government officials without a warrant.
A suit, with or without a badge, grants a lot of power on its own. I remember a study being done a few years back about who people allowed to enter their home. Most of the time, if a guy claiming to be from their telecom company, with an authentic outfit and vehicle came to their door, people would let him in without any documentation.
I get your point, but that was a judge's order regarding a case in progress.
There is currently no federal law stating that libraries have to keep records. The law only states that if they DO have records, they are required to turn them over. So... no records, no turnover. It is that simple.
Responding as a Library and Information Science major, quoting assorted 'parents and cousins:
whether to give up these publicly financed assets for snooping by any authority.
FBI = Federal Bureau of Investigation. They are the HIGHEST authority on domestic snooping, and they are also publicly financed. This wasn't social engineering and seizure, this was government enforcement making a request for a reason, likely to prevent a crime.
In general I think most of us are interested in stopping (dangerous) crimes from happening. If the police could produce photo evidence that drug dealers were stealing your car each night for heroin runs, would you say no they can't inspect it for the benefit/safety of yourself, or the dealers' right to privacy, or so that the public can feel safe drug enforcement has to follow due process? Meanwhile your car is developing a strange odour...
People expect to be able to read whatever they wish without some government agent looking over their shoulder.
Except child porn. We as a society have decided there are no absolute freedoms when those freedoms harm the defenseless.
namely the seizing of records / assets without any oversight.
RTFA. The Library Director was there to function as oversight. Library procedure normally involves court orders, but the agents explained the situation. If the Director felt intimidated with the agent, he is fully able to write a stronger policy. No warrant, no deal.
If the library network is set up with any degree of respect for patron privacy, there will be no identifiable logs of who used it. Forensically they are probably looking for times of accessing specific links or content to trace and corroborate other evidence.
It's funny how libraries uphold patron privacy (ie. you shouldn't know if I borrow copies of 2600 magazine), yet with anything online like Google or Netflix or Amazon, it's part of the feature set to keep track of a user's history, and that's where more and more of the subpoenas are going. When /. reported the Youtube user log demands, did you go and flush your view/comment/rating history? Oh, you can't? Darn.
I can see every movie I've rented online for the entire 550 days of my 'flix membership. I can access a very thorough history of my Amazon purchases across three continents. eBay records all my feedback history, though the item pages expire. A couple days after I flush my Google or browser cache I usually want to find something that would be on those lists... Our internet lives are full of embarrassing potential.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is more evidence that the US is moving towards a police state.
Fire Mr. Batson before the end of the month and immediately retrieve your stolen property for the good of the public; nothing else will serve.
....the Frederick County Public Library has a lovely little comment site, complete with an invitation from Darrell Batson, Director (and would-be Destroyer of the Fourth Amemdment) to "tell us what you you think."
Also, Mr. Batson's office phone number is listed on the Frederick County Organizational Chart.
To lazy to register says:
I would have liked to see the library at least put one of those little "return by" cards on the side of the pc's just for fun.
"A subsequent 51-day siege by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ended on April 19 when fire destroyed the compound. Seventy-six people, including 21 children and two pregnant women, along with Davidian leader Vernon Wayne Howell, better known as David Koresh, died in the fire."
"Autopsy records indicate that at least 20 Davidians were shot, including six children under the age of 14, and three-year-old Dayland Gent was stabbed in the chest."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_Siege
"We," also employ the librarian. Usually hired by your local government (the people you should be MOST familiar with when it comes to government officials because they are generally your neighbors).
Home rule on this one: If the librarian has dealt with the Feds on 3 occasions before chances are he has hashed the subject with her bosses. In this case, and maybe even in this community it may have been more of not wanting to be associated with defending/protecting a pedophile/terrorist. That is publicity I'm sure the Feds are well aware of when it comes to persuasion on getting what they want.
Oh Librarians have Masters degrees. That's a hair better than being "mildly," educated.
What you should be more worried about is those letters that say, "We are taking machine 013, 037. They don't exist anymore and you never got this letter. Thanks!"
Maybe that library was on double-secret probation.
and stated that "information wants to be free".
The slashdot title is very misleading: "Seizes Library Computers" is very different from what the cops did.
..But if the computers had somehow managed to find their way into the waste and from there into the hopper of the garbage truck... It becomes non private property and therefor able to be picked up and taken for investigation without a warrant.
The hard part is.. getting them into the waste.
"Persistance is Fertile" - Me. I can quote myself if I want to.
Many people want to help. Also there are people who think that if it is the police (or FBI or whatever) they will be in the right to know.
And then there are people from police or the like who will try to get data by social engineering. Basically they try to bully it out of you. You then must be pretty strong and care for things like privacy to block the person from getting the data without a warrent.
I have been in a situation where they called and told me they were from the police and that they have the court order. I basically told then to FOAD until I had the court order. They phoned back and tried with somebody else who then almost gave the data.
Luckily I just past, asked for the phone and told them that I wanted to file a complaint for industrial espionage and if they could give me their supervisor.
Two days later I finally got the court order dated on a time after they called us. So at the moment of asking they did not have a warrant. To me it is very simple. No court order, no information. Unfortunately not everybody thinks like that.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The American Library Association, ALA, has a professional code of ethics. It includes the following:
In practice, this means that patron privacy is protected--period. No search warrant, no information, no cooperation. It is not difficult for an investigator pursuing a valid investigation of a legitimate crime to obtain a warrant. They shouldn't even bother showing up without the paperwork. The ALA statement on confidentiality goes into more detail about this.
This wasn't social engineering and seizure, this was government enforcement making a request for a reason, likely to prevent a crime.
That's the same as the warrantless wiretaps performed by the NSA with cooperation from AT&T & other telcos. "Oh, they're probably trying to do something good. Go ahead. Abuse all these people's right to privacy. I'm willing to make that judgment call." It doesn't sound like the Library Science curriculum includes any sections covering constitutional law....
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Well I don't know what they can get from this other than evidence of a possible crime, but not who was on the computer.
It could have been that the FBI had traced a message back to this computer's NIC. They probably have a good idea who the sender of the message was, but they want to corroborate it with physical evidence. By grabbing the computer, they can check the keyboard for fingerprints (unlikely, but possible) and DNA. If they find a match, then it's strong evidence supporting their claim that a particular individual is responsible for a given communication.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
This is a question. There is no information or insight brought to the discussion by asking a question like this.
Two FBI agents walked into a public library in Maryland. They see a dog and said to the man, "does your dog bite" The man said, "no!" They patted the dog and it bit them. Surprised, they cried "I though you said your dog doesn't bite?" The man said "that's not my dog.."
Agent 1: Here are the seized computers.
Agent 2: As soon as we extract the information from these thin client computers you can start making arrests.
Library records (and other business) have always been available to law enforcement. If fact, pretty much everything has always been available to law enforcement under the right circumstances.
The Patriot act just changed how those requests work. Previously you'd need a grand jury to issue the subpoena, now the investigators can do it on their own.
Awful, isn't it? I can feel my liberty slipping away ...
First, I didn't know that constitutional protections applied to libraries, since they are not "people."
Second, don't most libraries get federal money anyway? Seems to me that it could be argued that those computers belong to the federal government anyway.
Besides, it's all moot because the computers were not seized. They were removed after the custodian gave the FBI permission to remove them.
It's very clear now that americans are a nation of surrender monkeys... What will you surrender next ?
Not flamebait, but hey, it was my tax dollars that funded the agents, and my tax dollars were hard at work as these men went about "fighting" crime. So the point is a bit sarcastic. The sad truth being that in this PATRIOT ACT world we now live in, compliance keeps you open for business, non-compliance can get you closed down, or worse. Think any page-shuffling librarian really wants to risk a vacation at Gitmo?
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
That said, I know how our director feels about stuff like this and *she'd* be calling for her own head on spike if this happened. There is NO way anyone in my library would give up those computers without a warrant.
Show a warrant and you've got all the cooperation in the world. No warrant, no dice.
JHutch
... I was getting curious about how many times i had actually loaned a particular book so i asked the librarian if she could look it up. What did she do? She said "no go, mr!" (well not exactly, but you get the drift). Why? Because once a book is returned they're not legally allowed to store who loaned it. Basically they can't make lists of who loaned specific books because the names connected are removed once the book is returned.
Read & Learn, And Legalize Marijuana
Since the article is often pulled from websites, the first article you should read and burn into your mind is this, Google for the title and archive a copy for yourself:
"A break-in to end all break-ins"
"In 1971, stolen FBI files exposed the government's domestic spying program"
It's an amazing story, and in 2008, how much has this expanded into every corner of our lives? The majority of Americans are brainwashed sheep consumers with a limp wet noodle for a brain, thrashing around with their Wii and Paris Hilton media like a fat dinoasaur in a tar pit. Stay informed, we have no privacy, encryption is good but useless with acoustic monitoring, reflections in the eye and objects in your environment, etc.! If it's electronic, there's always a loophole. You shine brighter with each electronic device you use, in many ways. Don't trust Hushmail or any web based mail service to keep anything of yours secure or to provide any reasonable degree of security. Secure your computer room and rig your computer to shut down if you use encryption like Truecrypt or other when your environment is entered by someone other than you or those you permit and trust (you shouldn't trust anyone, everyone has a price)
Compromising Reflections or How to Read LCD Monitors Around the Corner
http://www.infsec.cs.uni-sb.de/~unruh/publications/reflections.pdf [uni-sb.de]
And more:
http://www.eff.org/wp/detecting-packet-injection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_remailer
http://cryptome.org/tempest-law.htm
http://seclab.uiuc.edu/pubs/LeMayT06.pdf
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dfrankow/files/lam-etrics2006-security.pdf
http://cryptome.org/nsa-vaneck.htm
http://www.alobbs.com/macchanger
http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live--encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy-237227.php
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/five_stages.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-92/SP800-92.pdf
http://csrc.nist.gov/itsec/guidance_WinXP_Home.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-84/SP800-84.pdf
http://all.net/books/document/harvard.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc2/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc3/
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/emsec/optical-faq.html
http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/csep590/06wi/
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/mcnamara/links.html
http://lifeha
You're right. I suggest we just burn all the books that we find offensive. Oh, that's too hard to agree upon you say, well I bet you'd be happy if we just burned all the books YOU found offensive.
Then we wouldn't have to worry about tracking down everyone who checks out the Terrorist Cookbook, and you can still feel safe!
if the library has a privacy policy in place, the library director has very likely exposed the library to a potential lawsuit.
And what if the FBI agent and his buddy decide they want to seize other things? What if they decided to start seizing books? Will the librarian just hand everything over without a warrant or court order?
How does the librarian know that these agents had an actual need for or case involving those computers? How do they know they were acting on behalf of the government and not in their own interest?
If you surrender your property (or the property of the People) to anyone who flashes a badge, you teach those with badges that that is to be expected.
Liberty is a not something that you are entitled to without sacrifice. It is something that every individual has a responsibility to preserve and we must fight tooth and nail every day to preserve it. There are no magic Liberty fairies scattering Liberty pixie-dust everywhere. It makes me very sad that people have fought and died to secure Liberties that others would mindlessly toss away. A librarian should know better.
You clearly fail to understand sarcasm when it slaps you right in the face. The stupid terrorist would be identified because overdue lists are still kept and he would have not returned the book before killing himself and others. Besides, AFAIK, there is no Terrorist's Cookbook.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
As someone who works in a library on a college campus where law enforcement has come in to take away computers, we have a very specific policy for this kind of situation.
Unfortunately, while campus law enforcement is aware of the library's policy, they do not always make it easy for us to comply with it.
I once fielded a call from campus computing services where they wanted to know where a computer in the Libraries was located based on its IP address. I looked up our records and gave them the floor and area number.
Later, I found out that law enforcement officers later showed up on the floor to take away the computer that I had helped identify. At no point during the call had I been made aware that this was a law enforcement request.
So now, I have to ask every time a query like that comes in: "Is this in response to a request from law enforcement?" If it is, then I have to contact my supervisor, my department head, and the designated person (an assistant head librarian) in charge of dealing with these requests. The designated liaison will then check about whether or not they have a warrant, and will supervise the removal of the computer(s) if necessary.
Everyone in the library (from the students and staff at the public services desks to IT to technical services) has been trained on this procedure.
[Unfortunately, it's very unlikely that law enforcement will be able to get much from the computers that they do take. We use public accounts, and after a certain period of idle time, the computer forces logout and then automatically logs back in, overwriting the public profile with a clean copy from the server and effectively erasing the user's browser history, cookies, etc., as well as any documents left on the desktop. While forensics might be able to recover something, by the time law enforcement even contacts us, the data they were interested in has probably been overwritten at least ten times.]
unfortnately, a few people with lots of power have been overruling the majority of people with more sense. For example, Congress lately has passed a number of Orwellian laws that it KNOWS the voters do not want or support.
By the way, "the Feds can go screw themselves" was not an official pronouncement by the library board, but it does accurately reflect their feelings on the matter.
One Word:
C_O_R_R_U_P_T_I_O_N
And to date, I'm not aware of anytime where the NSA letters or anything concerning a library has bee abused.
FBI Found to Misuse Security Letters
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
They were voluntarily handed over.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
While I read through many replies, I did not read them all-- so sorry if this was already posted. But here is a situation where the opposite happened: the librarian refused to give up the computers, and some people wanted her head for it.
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/wireStory?id=5409499
As a librarian myself, I disagree with what the library director did in the story posted here on Slashdot. I suppose in reality, what I would do depends on my employer's policy-- but I wouldn't be comfortable working for a library that handed over records without requiring a warrant.