Don't Mess With Librarians

[Guest guest]

Don't Mess With Librarians

By Adam L. Penenberg

Wired News

9-15-4

 

Jessmyn West is a 36-year-old librarian living in central

Vermont. But she's not your stereotypical bespectacled

research maven toiling behind a reference desk and offering

expert advice on microfiche.

 

She's a " radical librarian " who has embraced the hacker

credo that " information wants to be free. " As a result, West

and many of her colleagues are on the front lines in

battling the USA Patriot Act, which a harried Congress

passed a month after 9/11 even though most representatives

hadn't even read the 300-page bill. It gave the government

sweeping powers to pursue the " war on terror " but at a

price: the loss of certain types of privacy we have long

taken for granted.

 

What got many librarians' dander up was Section 215 of the

law, which stipulates that government prosecutors and FBI

agents can seek permission from a secret court created under

the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to access personal

records -- everything from medical histories to reading

habits. They don't need a subpoena. In fact, they don't need

to show that a crime has even been committed. And

librarians, stymied by a gag order, are forbidden to tell

anyone (except a lawyer).

 

Naturally, this hasn't sat well with West, a self-described

anti-capitalist blogger who was invited to the Democratic

National Convention, and who has posted a page with links

and photos that might best be described as library soft-core

porn.

 

She worries that a researcher could check out a book on

Islam and suddenly end up on the no-fly list, forced to take

the Greyhound with Teddy Kennedy for the rest of her life.

Or an HIV-positive teen living in a conservative community

could be outed after reading about the disease. If this

sounds far-fetched, two years ago, in Punta Gorda, Florida,

a British man was arrested in a public library after

visiting websites that posted material on mineral

supplements and the world's first chemical generator of

electricity, the Baghdad Battery.

 

" In a democracy, citizens can access information they view

as important, " West said, " and traditionally we as

librarians have kept it private. We are in favor of free

speech and against censorship, and believe in the right to

research material without the government looking over your

shoulder. "

 

While mainstream media have blandly stood by as the free

flow of information is threatened, some librarians have been

agitating. They have been collecting signatures -- close to

a million of them -- to petition the government to amend

portions of the Patriot Act. They have purged circulation

records. They have pushed elected officials to propose

legislation to exempt libraries from government snoops, and

have worked with more than 300 cities across the country to

adopt measures to weaken the most extreme aspects of the law.

 

West, for her part, has created a series of popular,

quasi-legal signs to warn users. One -- " The FBI has not

been here. (Watch closely for the removal of this sign) " --

was provided to every library in the state by the Vermont

Library Association.

 

Others include:

 

* " We're sorry! Due to national security concerns we are

unable to tell you if your internet surfing habits,

passwords and e-mail content are being monitored by federal

agents; please act appropriately. "

 

* " Q. How can you tell when the FBI has been in your

library? A. You can't. "

 

* " The Patriot Act makes it illegal for us to tell you if

our computers are monitored; be aware. "

 

Still another lists organizations like the Red Cross, Boy

Scouts, Rotary Club, United Way and FBI that have not

stopped by this week, except FBI is crossed out.

 

After the American Library Association, or ALA, came out

against the Patriot Act, Attorney General John Ashcroft

called librarians' resistance " baseless hysteria. " He

ridiculed the organization, claiming that " some have

convinced (it) . . . that the FBI is not fighting terrorism;

instead, agents are checking how far you've gotten in the

latest Tom Clancy novel. "

 

The ALA challenged Ashcroft to reveal the number of times

law enforcement had requested library records. In response,

the Department of Justice released a declassified memo that

claimed the number was zero, which was contradicted by a

University of Illinois Library Research Center study that

found more than a dozen libraries had received visits and

requests for information from law enforcement.

 

" That's the problem, " West said. " The government wants us to

trust them, but how can we without greater transparency? "

 

She believes that you have to be somewhat radical to become

a librarian in the first place. In addition to a good

education, you need to devote yourself to

low-to-middle-paying jobs where even your friends make jokes

about you, and fear that one day you will be replaced by a

computer.

 

And she's not the only one trying to recast her profession's

image. For instance, at the Modified Librarian, users relate

stories of their tattoos and piercings. The Anarchist

Librarians Web posts links to radical book fairs and

information on anti-filtering software. At the Librarian

Avengers, the battle cry is " Thwart not the Librarian. "

 

What does the irascible West say to people who tease her by

asking if she has taken classes on holding her finger up to

her lips and saying shush?

 

" I'm pretty good with this finger already, " she replied.

 

-- Adam L. Penenberg is an assistant professor at New York

University and the assistant director of the business and

economic reporting program in the department of journalism.

 

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