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Librarians As the First Line of Privacy Defense
The Guardian features a look at the influence of librarians in the evolving fight for various of the liberties that here on Slashdot we group together as Your Rights Online. The article points out that the evolution of libraries from book repositiories to more general centers for information technology means that librarians have been pressured in many small ways to give up their patrons' privacy, and have (at least often) successfully resisted that pressure, including some from the NSA. A small slice: The first politician to discover the danger of underestimating what happens when you have thousands of librarians on your case was attorney general John Ashcroft who, in 2003, accused the American Library Association of “baseless hysteria” and ridiculed their protests against the Patriot Act. ... US libraries were once protected from blanket requests for records of what their patrons were reading or viewing online, but the legislation rushed through after after 9/11 threatened to wreck this tradition of confidentiality in ways that presaged later discoveries of bulk telephone and internet record collection."
The congress will soon create a copyrighted API to interact with libraries that will closd all those bugs that allow terrorists to have privacy.
And half the battle is knowing.
This is from about a month ago
http://www.thenation.com/artic...
Watch those corners
My local librarians don't even understand why you wouldn't want them keeping a record of who used the computer and when. Some librarians may understand privacy, but most of them are completely clueless about technology.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So whats the second line of defence?
Scorpians? Sagitarians? Arians? Taurans?
I mean, I am sure the university libraries are busy but in the 21st century the vast majority of information isn't flowing through them. So how do they protect me?
It isn't going to work. What we have to do is anonymize our traffic. Do that and most of their crap won't work.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
repository
University librarians are increasingly guardians of copyright - not distributors of knowledge. Increasingly their resources are digital - the curatorship is done by whoever they outsourced their collection management to. Better they close down entirely than pretend to be something thhey are not.
it was always rumored to be on that list of books the government kept track of at public libraries.
Though it's been referenced in popular culture (conspiracy movies and novels) several times, it's curious but perhaps unproven.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Ook!
What this tells me is that libraries are hothouses for terrorism. Shut 'em down! Shut them down, now!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Offering my two cents.
It's true that libraries operating in this century are faced with the grim spectre of obsolescence. With the advent of the Internet and the ubiquity of computers, tablets, and smartphones, most people have a wealth of information at their fingertips that dwarfs anything to be found among the physical holdings of your local library.
However, this is beside the point.
Libraries offer more than a given collection of information. They offer the principles of universal access, privacy, and the freedom of ideas, all of which seem to have fallen by the wayside in modern times. The American Library Association maintains an Office for Intellectual Freedom specifically dedicated to teaching ethics, supporting privacy and confidentiality, and fighting censorship. Your library is one of the few organizations today that is actively looking out for your best interests and those of your fellow citizens, and asks for virtually nothing in return, save for a few tax dollars to keep the lights on. When you think about all the other stuff your taxes will be used for--including the NSA's continued efforts to spy on you--I believe that's a more than fair trade.
In his interview with John Oliver, Edward Snowden said that by conducting surveillance on Americans, the NSA is effectively holding a gun to your head and asking you to trust that they won't pull the trigger (unless you give them a reason).
Your library is asking the NSA to put down the gun.
I've been in a fight with my local library for about 6 months, this after I noticed that multiple business were connecting to my machine while I search for books. One of those connections sent data to a government Piwik database. I managed to get them to improve things somewhat, but they're still using google-analytics and the pages still have the search string in the url, enabling Google to record which books each connecting IP is searching for. In the process, Google also drops tracking cookies. My last resort will be to go public.
After 9/11, FBI announced that it would (without any Constitutional or Congressional authorization) demand records from local libraries. Records about who checked out which books, when.
The head of our local library board (who I don't mind saying is a bit of a heroine of mine) said: "We have no choice? FINE. We'll stop keeping records!"
And they did.
The only records they keep now are currently-checked-out books, which realistically they have to do. In addition to that, they keep records of overdue books. ONLY until the overdue is paid, then EVERYTHING is deleted and you're back to zero.
It was my local library's "Fuck You" to the Federal government. And they made it stick.
Librarians where also among the first to fight the National Security Letters:
http://media.ccc.de/browse/con...
New things are always on the horizon
Haven't thought about that peice of shit for a while... what an asshole.
The Librarians already control the Hushlands. Sleep well.
Back when the American Library Association was supposedly standing up to Ashcroft and his ilk, my library card mysteriously expired. The one that I applied for decades ago, just by filling out a little card. No problem, they told me. Just apply for another. It will only take a few minutes. And please show some form of government-issued picture ID.
Have gnu, will travel.
I used to be the IT Manager of our local library, and literally 2 weeks into my new job there, I got a call from the Secret Service. Apparently, someone went onto one of our computers, went onto a forum, and made threats to Obama. They wanted all our records, and everything. So, I went to my boss and the Executive Director about it, and they told me "If they don't have a warrant, they don't get shit".
I tell that to the Secret Services, and never heard from them again.
because most libraries buy an off the shelf black box for a huge amount of money and they have no idea what info is kept and what is truly deleted. its closed source proprietary and expensive
As we know from respectable source, there is no higher life-form in the multi-verse than a librarian. That's why Horace Woblehat is not very keen on being turned back into man. Ook?