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Librarians Express Concern Over Google Books
angry tapir writes "Many libraries routinely delete borrower information, and organizations such as the American Library Association have fought hard to preserve the privacy of their patrons in the face of laws such as the US Patriot Act. But now, as more and more titles become available in Google Book Search, it's not clear whether digital readers will enjoy the same privacy protections they have at the library."
April 28, 2005, American Librarians Association President Carol Brey - Casiano responds to Oversight Hearing on Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act
"Using the public library is one of the benefits of living in our free and democratic society. The First Amendment promises everyone in the United States a fundamental right of free speech and free inquiry. Every person is entitled to read anything about a topic or opinion without the government looking over his or her shoulder. When there is evidence of a crime or evidence that a crime is about to be committed, law enforcement officers can obtain search warrants and subpoenas permitting them to access the records of the suspected criminal.
"Library patrons use our nation's libraries with an expectation of privacy because in 48 states, laws declare that a person's library records are private and confidential; the remaining two states, Kentucky and Hawaii, have attorneys' general opinions recognizing the confidentiality of library records. All of these laws existed before the USA PATRIOT Act was enacted.
"The USA PATRIOT Act preempts the privacy protections provided by state library confidentiality laws, which balance protection of library patron records with the needs of law enforcement. Because the USA PATRIOT Act does not require the FBI to name an individual or to give specific reasons to believe he is engaged in terrorism, Section 215 has the potential to open patrons' reading and research records to a 'fishing expedition.'
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
"it won't make untrackable but nothing really is"
QFT. You are not anonymous because you're so smart, you're anonymous because nobody cares enough to track you down. Be very careful not to change that.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Yea, but torrents still don't have the selection (or diversity of subjects) of books that libraries have. I've tried to find a lot of fairly popular books, but aside from well-known classics or very very mainstream titles (e.g. Harry Potter), you'll be hard pressed to find on torrents. And even then, book torrents tend to have very short shelf-lives (no pun intended). I often come across torrents of books I'm searching for, only to find that they were posted 2-3 years ago and are long dead.
Google Book Search was such a promising project. And the company itself has proven to be trustworthy (with them resisting government subpoenas and fighting to withhold user data from government agencies, unlike some other megacorporations). I was so disappointed when it was complaints over copyright violations by publishers rather than any technological or resource limitations that crippled the project (basically killing the project as it was originally conceived). So instead of giving every child, every student, and indeed every person with a computer and internet connection, free and instant access to all the literature humanity has ever published (ie. the largest corpus of human knowledge ever compiled) in a fully indexed, cataloged, and searchable digital format, we instead just have a small dappling of publisher-provided promotional samples of old, semi-obscure texts that aren't selling that well in stores.
Somehow we decided as a society (we're supposedly a "democracy" after all) that commercial profits are more important than the huge boon to society that such a cultural & informational/educational resource would have been. It would have been less of an affront if it had been a coalition of authors who objected to the project's existence in its original form. And even if publishers are worried that this would have threatened their profits, it would have been far more preferable to work out some kind of deal in which the digital library would be publicly-subsidized, with that money being used to compensate publishers (within reason). I'd be willing to pay more in taxes to support such a project.
Just like public education caused a cultural revolution (or evolution) in our society, I imagine making published materials so much more accessible, and to so many more people, in one fell swoop would have similarly caused an intellectual revolution (internationally). Every computer would immediately become the largest library in the world. Access to books won't ever be limited by the number of physical copies available. Out of print books would never again be lost to society. And people for whom the library is currently not accessible—whether because they have none located near them, lack transportation, are bed-ridden, are blind, or have been subjected to a recent book-burning campaign—would benefit unimaginably from such a resource. I mean, you could go to rural village in a poor developing country, and as long as they had a phone line (you could even get internet access by satellite) you'd be able to set up a $300 computer with a screen reader and give the children in that village access to all the books ever published, even if everyone in the village is illiterate.
The internet itself has been a huge boon to society, but as useful as it is now, it would be a million times more useful if copyright issues took backseat to societal progress and public good.