Followup: Library Board Unanimously Supports TOR Relay

Wrath0fb0b writes: Last week, the administrators of the Kilton Public Library in New Hampshire suspended a project to host a Tor relay after the DHS sent them an email asking them to reconsider. At a board meeting yesterday, the exit node was reinstated by unanimous vote. Board member Francis Oscadal said, "With any freedom there is risk. It came to me that I could vote in favor of the good ... or I could vote against the bad. I’d rather vote for the good because there is value to this." Deputy Police Chief Philip Roberts said, "We simply came in as law enforcement and said, 'These are the concerns.' We wanted to inform everyone so it was an educated decision by everyone involved." Deputy City Manager Paula Maville added, "This is about making an informed decision. Whatever you need to do, we’re here to support that."

Comments

chalk another one up for the librarians

[GungaDan]

Those folks stand up for freedom.

Send Them a Thank you Note

[terbeaux]

KILTON LIBRARY

80 Main Street
West Lebanon, NH 03784

The good news that no one reports

[gurps_npc]

Crime is down, war is down, pollution per person is down, government taxes are down, and basically 90% of the measureable evils humans have discovered are all going down. But we don't hear about that because things that don't happen or happen less is never news.

Glad to hear some of the good news, where people stand up for privacy rights.

Yay Librarians!!

[gstoddart]

If you enjoy having your civil liberties and access to uncensored information .. thank a damned Librarian.

For literally decades they've found themselves on the forefront defending your rights saying "hell no we won't do that" against people who want to burn books, or outlaw various things which shouldn't still be up for debate.

That DHS felt the need to sew a little FUD and bring in the local cops to stir up the bullshit and lies is pathetic. That the library board has sent a big "fuck you" is awesome -- because someone needs to stand up to the fascists and assholes who are constantly trying to say that certain freedoms are just too dangerous to have.

It is literally true that without Librarians fighting to defend these things we might no longer have them. Either from moralizing old bitties, or assholes in government, these rights are often under attack.

Go Librarians, and thank you.

Re:all good?

[gstoddart]

You give them a lot of benefit of the doubt .. much more than I do.

They knew they had no legal basis to pursue this. They had no legal basis to demand it or fight for it. Because it's not illegal.

This is the soft approach by which they insinuate all of the bad things which could happen, and hope the current climate leads to the library board saying "holy crap, look at this".

This is fairly scary, as it means that the spy agencies and law enforcement are working to subvert legal rights in a fairly shadowy way. And my conclusion is to trust them less and less with every passing week.

Because the shit they're willing to do in order to make an end run around Constitutionally protected rights is reaching the point where you have to start asking if these guys aren't the real enemies of the state ... not 5 years ago it would be easy to dismiss that as crazy talk.

These days? Suddenly it's not so crazy.