Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.