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.

Comments

No warrant == not legitimate.

[neapolitan]

I am far from a libertarian extremist, and this does not fly with me.

The whole reason that we have *court-ordered* warrants, elected judges, and oversight and accountability is to prevent this -- namely the seizing of records / assets without any oversight.

I am happy when even television shows get it right (Law and Order occasionally), and when the cops / feds do stuff like this, it comes back to jeopardize their case. Illegally seized? Now watch as you just compromised yourself and potentially let somebody go free. Before somebody retorts with the obvious extremes, of course I do think that ridiculous cases of this are ludicrous (e.g. cop didn't sign one piece of paper correctly -> murder goes free), but the case above is clear violation of due procedure and oversight in my books.

The one justification I could see is in truly emergent cases -- e.g. hard drive will purge, but need to preserve data... must... pull... plug... NOW. I would say "do it," and, according to my lawyer friends, there are judges on call that the cop / detective / agent can call that can grant emergency access / warrants shortly after the fact (within hours) to make everything legitimate. It does not appear that this was done here.

I don't want some librarian making the decision on whether to give up these publicly financed assets for snooping by any authority. Any smooth-talking agent can come in, reciting that it is for "terrorism / anthrax" or "the children / child porn" and the intimidated lady will just cave in. I know my friend's 60 year old mother who works as our local librarian would. She is neither lawyer nor judge, and should not function as such.

Re:No warrant == not legitimate.

[m0s3m8n]

You can always ask for something and be given it. Warrants are only needed to forcibly remove an article.

Re:No warrant == not legitimate.

[Rene S. Hollan]

You can always ask for something and be given it. Warrants are only needed to forcibly remove an article.

Yes, and the library might well be within it's rights to release those computers.

But, to the extent that the public expects some measure of anonymity in a public library, it strikes me as a very bad PR decision.
 

Re:No warrant == not legitimate.

[DeadDecoy]

Yes, but doesn't that assume that they'll follow due process to prosecute whomever their after? What if they just use it to target someone as a suspected terrorist and ship them off to where the laws are somewhat bent to serve their purposes? It seems like nowadays, so much is done to safeguard freedom that it actually jeopardizes it.

Re:No warrant == not legitimate.

[neapolitan]

I probably didn't say it succinctly enough, but that was exactly my point. I like to think that *we* own those computers in the library. My taxes paid for the construction, maintenance, and my overdue fines (sigh) also support it.

I don't want some mildly educated librarian making the decision whether to *give* stuff to a federal official.

That decision is for judges to make. It is not the librarian's decision to make, no more than it would be mine if I were a teenager working there at the time the officials walked in. With public assets comes increased accountability, which is why laws for crimes on public property (city halls, post offices) are generally so draconian.

The librarian should be subject to a thorough questioning of her judgment, with retraining or dismissal as indicated. :)

Re:No warrant == not legitimate.

[Harinezumi]

Since the library is public, I believe the people who own the computer are the taxpayers of the state of Maryland, and the director is merely their caretaker. By giving them away to people who claimed to be FBI agents without receiving a proper warrant, he has failed at his job.

Re:No warrant == not legitimate.

[cpn2000]

I hope you're joking. What the librarian handed over was not his personal property. It was paid for by the taxpayers. If you made a personal tape of a crime you can do what you please with it, but you don't (or at least should not) have the same latitude when the property in question is not your own. There are reasons we have courts and legal processes. They may be inconvenient, but that does not men they can circumvented when it suits us.

Re:No warrant == not legitimate.

[Orion Blastar]

But in that case, you owned the video tapes. In the article, the librarian does not own the computers and hands them over without even talking to a higher up manager (like a president or chairman/chairwoman) and getting permission to give them over. It is not the library director's computers to give over, and he/she has to follow the chain of command before giving over library property. What if it was two fake FBI inspectors trying to pull a scam via social engineering by posing as FBI officers to scam the library director out of two computers? People do that sort of thing to McDonald's as they pose as police officers and ask the assistant manager to strip search employees. The library director should have at least called the FBI to verify if they sent over two agents and ask what their names are and badge numbers and then given that to his higher ups along with any warrants if they exist.

There is also a federal law of privacy rights of the people who used those computers and aren't suspects. Esp since a library gets funding from the government.

Re:No warrant == not legitimate.

[blindseer]

But, to the extent that the public expects some measure of anonymity in a public library, it strikes me as a very bad PR decision.

I remember reading another article on how some librarian association or another was fighting tooth and nail about keeping records of what books were checked out by whom away from law enforcement without warrant. It baffled me why they were doing this until I realized they were fighting for their very existence. If goons with badges can go about asking for records of who reads what on a whim the police can effectively shutter a library by flooding it with requests for records. While the staff is running around to satisfy the whims of goons with badges nothing productive can be done and the people will never enter a library again for fear that yet another book was flagged as "bad" for public consumption and anyone reading it must be called in for questioning.

So, I agree, this is a very bad PR move. People expect to be able to read whatever they wish without some government agent looking over their shoulder.

Re:No warrant == not legitimate.

[ThatsNotFunny]

Elections are funded by public dollars, too. Who did you vote for in the last election?

Re:No warrant == not legitimate.

[Rene S. Hollan]

The value of a public library is that it offers the public the opportunity to inform and educate itself -- long recognized as valuable to enable the informed vote of the enfranchised in a democracy.

To this end, the privacy of what the individual choses to inform him- or herself about has long been upheld by the courts.

Imagine the chilling effect if the public could not inform itself about documents in a library contrary to the present government without scrutiny.

What the public has a right to know, and oversee, is WHAT the library chooses to make available, and not who reads it.

Re:No warrant == not legitimate.

[cptdondo]

I work for a city, and the Librarian most emphatically does not have the right to give away, loan, or otherwise remove any city property. That is a crime.

There is a due process for disposing of City property. No employee can make that decision.

What the FBI has done is sweet talked some innocent person into committing a crime.

How Pathetic...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they had an "awful lot of information.." then they could have gotten a damn court order. When you just roll over and accept totalitarianism, don't complain when they come for you next, with nothing more than "an awful lot of information..."

This country and its people are a disgrace.

additionally

[someone1234]

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.

Re:Its little things like this that matter

[Perseid]

If the cops come to your house, ask for your laptop and you say "Here you go!" that's fine, but this was a public library. I would argue that the librarian was far from the owner of the computer and he certainly wasn't the user of it. It's not the computer itself that I worry about, it's the information on it - what it was and what it's going to be used for.

Re:Its little things like this that matter

[inKubus]

Exactly, and no reasonable court would allow a warrant unless they had definite probable cause to search. The government can't just search records for people they "think" might be breaking laws. That's very specific. Now, if they found a library book dropped at the scene of a murder, I would say they have probable cause to see who checked out book, because you might find the murderer. But getting information on a crime that hasn't happened "yet" is illegal. I could go and read books on making bombs just out of interest in high energy chemical reactions and not be a terrorist. But they could spend thousands of taxpayer dollars investigating every aspect of my life just to make sure I'm not a terrorist. That's the slippery slope. It's about MONEY more than FREEDOM.

This massive expansion of "homeland security" is wasteful of tax dollars because they are investigating thousands of people who haven't done anything. Not to mention building dossiers which I'm sure could be used for political means. But it's wasteful when they could be out solving other crimes that have happened. It's amazing that there's so little crime nowadays that they spend this much time trying to prevent things from happening. And the massive amount of money they are spending is not making people feel safer (the real goal). So lets reverse this and take a step back:

All of these policies were put in place during a frantic time when no one knew what was going to happen. Decisions made in a panic are often not the right ones. We need to review ALL of the policies made during the years of 2001-2005 (even if it takes years to review) and decide what we need to keep. There needs to be a massive PUBLIC effort to review the policies and decisions that were made, now that we "have time". And we need to cut costs where we can, because this stuff is extremely expensive and they can't just have a blank check out of fear anymore. If you added up the cost of 9/11, just in terms of government expansion, it's probably well over a trillion. And for what? You can't save people--we're all going to die anyway. The real idea is to maintain American (and global) confidence in the American economy, which is ALL THAT MATTERS if we are here for our purpose--to support future generations. But I question whether these current wasteful policies have really increased confidence all that much! If anything, they have hurt our confidence even more, because they have been wasting so much money on no-bid contracts and just JUNK like these pointless "preemptive" investigations.

If there's evidence of a crime, a court will issue a warrant. If there isn't, they cannot seize the data, because there's no warrant. That's why there are warrants and that's the law and that's IT. There are good reasons for these laws and this will get struck down when the ACLU goes after those agents and their boss.

Again, we need to review ALL the policy decisions made during this time period again with clear heads. Otherwise, we may do our children great injustice.

Re:When has the FBI EVER been competent?

[Thing 1]

I'm sure even the geniuses at the FBI got that memo. Though maybe they got it earlier, since they seemed to know they should ignore their field office's warnings that Qaeda terrorists were learning to fly planes but not to land them.

Hi Doc. I'm currently re-reading Machiavelli's The Prince, and came across an interesting passage which might help to illuminate the current administration's behavior.

"When there are no external enemies, create one, to unite the people and quell unrest."

It's from memory so may not be an exact quote, but the sentiment is uncannily close to what we've been doing since Sept. 10, 2001.

Re:Illegally?

[iamhigh]

He did have a point. Cops and FBI agents can easily use their position of power to influence what others give them. There should be an expectation that if a cop asks for documents and such, they have a legal right to do so. Every librarian, school teacher/administrator, small biz owner, etc. knows exactly what to ask, what is legal, what requires a warrant (what if they say "blah blah... Patriot Act... terrorist... bomb... blah blah")? I think not. When the cops step over the bounds they must be slapped back and with force to prevent such actions from becoming the norm.

Re:Thank you for your co-operation.

[WgT2]

It's not clear to me why any business or public institution should be able to turn over its records to law enforcement without a search warrant.

Read past the demagoguery of the Slashdot title:

'It was a decision I made on my experience and the information given to me.'

The librarian willing GAVE the computers - they didn't have to.

But, the funny thing is that your statement, as fully quoted, is actually saying that the librarian, that is, an institution or business, shouldn't be able to cooperate with an investigation unless there is a 'search warrant'. Taken literally that would mean we should be run by a judicial oligarchy. Meaning: that unless a judge said so, I, as a business owner, couldn't cooperate with an investigation - I guess you're saying because I wouldn't know, myself, whether I should cooperate with them or not.

I know your argument only extended to a 'public' librarian, but they have to go by policies of their own. If that policy allows such cooperation then a judge isn't needed. After all, the director was hired with not only the capacity to make these decisions but with the authority as well.

What's really grievous that you think only a judge has a right to tell someone whether they can or cannot cooperate with any kind of investigation unless they give their intellectual blessing. It's not only what you stated but what you later explained.