Librarian's brush with FBI shapes her view of the USA Patriot Act

USAToday ^ | Wed May 18, 6:25 AM ET | By Joan Airoldi

[Redcitizen]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050518/cm_usatoday/librariansbrushwithfbishapesherviewoftheusapatriotact

Gannett allows headline and URL only.

[OKIEDOC]

Why are your federal tax dollars being used to pay the ACLU to bring frivolous lawsuits against you.</p>

Your tax dollars pay their attorney fees.

It's time to repeal the law.

Check it out.

[BullDog108]

What good does publishing a private citizen's email do?

Huh? Since when is a Public Libraian's public email address private? And vigilante? Puh-lease!

[VeniVidiVici]

I also think the librarian was correct not to release the list without a subpoena.

I can go to the Property Appraiser's office and find out everyone who's ever owned my house and what they paid for it.

I can also go to any public agency and ask, by name, what their salary is. To a point, I can even get their employment record.

I can go to the police station and look at the arrest blotter and find the names and addresses of the folks arrested.

I can look up divorce records at the courthouse. Find names, property divsions, etc.

So in an open records state like FL, why should I not be able to find out the check-out record of a publicly owned book in the library?

[Publius6961]

That makes one of us. I'd rather not have Uncle Sam going snooping around in my personal business, thank you very much. I don't particularly feel the need to justify my reading habits to the government.

I am not susceptible to paranoia, but do you realize how easily followers of the killer cult can check out books and return them with anthrax randomly within their pages?

Letting the government know what you read is the least of your problems!

Fortunately, perverts and "progressives" running the libraries cured me of visiting those bastions of socialism decades ago. And I love my own library.

[Rodney King]

Libarians, as a class, are the most useless over-educated people in the country. The computer has pretty much wiped away any use they once had as professionals. The clerks at Borders could do just as good of a job at stacking books on the shelves and walking around the Library telling peope "shhh". Back before the computer, Librarians were neccessary to help you figure out how to find what you were looking for, but now they are mostly useless.

[BullDog108]

Librarians were neccessary to help you figure out how to find what you were looking for, but now they are mostly useless.

HEY! I resent resemble that remark!

I am probably the only conservative librarian in the country........

[NJ_gent]

"So I'm wondering why some people think that the government checking on a library record is radically different from what the government has been doing for years."

Well, there are two answers to that. The first is something you already stated: "when they have probable cause to relate them to a crime."

The second is that your financial transactions can relate directly to criminal activity. Want to blow up a building? You need to buy the materials to make the bomb and you need to buy or rent the vehicle to transport it there. What you read relates to one thing and one thing only: what you think. My thoughts, regardless of what they may be, how awful they may be, how disgusting they may be, are NEVER within the policing jurisdiction of my government. Orwell addressed this in '1984'.

Any free people must have their thoughts free from government oversight. My government should never have veto power over my own mind.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Setting aside asking about public employees' job details -- that wouldn't apply to a private employee -- everything you list is a legal transaction or, in the case of the property appraiser, has to do with taxation. Borrowing a library book isn't.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

You have a point.... I read the marginalia as being someone attempting to emulate OBL by quoting him. You read it as a reader making a neutral reference to what OBL said.

If the latter interpretation is correct, you're right. If it seemed more of a threat via emulation, then I think its more than a fishing expedition.

IOW, there's a small, but key, bit of context that's not available in this article.

[LauraJean]

From what I understand of the situation the ALA didn't want to support the Cuban librarians because they didn't consider them real librarians. They didn't go to the ''official'' library school.
At least that was the reason they gave on their website at the time.
If you ever want to read a bunch of sanctimonious bs I suggest you read their monthly magazine, American Libraries.

[rattrap]

It does not have to show that the people whose records are sought are suspected of any crime or explain why they are being investigated.

What country am I living in again? I still don't understand how the USA Patriot Act (I wonder how much they paid someone to come up with that acronym) is even constitutional. Good for the librarian and the board of trustees, well done.

[The Electrician]

However a thorough investigation (if such were warranted, which is unclear from the article) would require that likely leads be checked out. If the terrorists who rented the Ryder truck that blew up in the original WTC attack were stupid enough to return to the rental company to get their deposit back, then clearly it is plausible that the genius who wrote the "threat" into the book may have checked the book out using their real name and library card.

[Steve_Seattle]

Well, in the following hypothetical examples, contained in hypothetical emails, which - if any - of these "thoughts" would be a legitimate cause for a criminal investigation or a subpoena:

"I wish someone would blow up the Twin Towers."

"I'd like to blow up the Twin Towers."

"If I hijacked a plane, I could fly it into the Twin Towers."

"I think I'll hijack a plane and fly it into the Twin Towers."

"Mohammed and I think we could hijack a plane and fly it into the Twin Towers."

"I'm learning how to fly a plane; maybe I could crash it into the Twin Towers."

"I'm going to hijack a plane and fly it into the Twin Towers."

In your opinion, would any of those emails - if they were brought to the attention of the governmnet - justify the government issuing a subpoena to check that person's library records, to see if perhaps they were doing research to carry out a hijacking?

[GarySpFc]

Which law has she violated?

Not responding to a court order is breaking the law.

[WoofDog123]

'However a thorough investigation (if such were warranted, which is unclear from the article) would require that likely leads be checked out. If the terrorists who rented the Ryder truck that blew up in the original WTC attack were stupid enough to return to the rental company to get their deposit back, then clearly it is plausible that the genius who wrote the "threat" into the book may have checked the book out using their real name and library card."

agreed, as i noted in my comment, IF they are clever....most folks apparently aren't.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Libarians, as a class, are the most useless over-educated people in the country."

I've always had a bit of a problem seeing them as a professional class. Oh, I suppose you need to have a general knowledge of literature and what books are being published and what books are worth buying and what aren't, but as far as technical knowledge is concerned, practically zip. I think that's part of the reason librarians talk so tough these days - they have an inferiority complex.

[VeniVidiVici]

Borrowing a library book isn't.

Why not? It's a public entity, with public employees and public property being checked out.

What if it was the Parks Dept. lending out chainsaws to the town's citizens. Could I get the log of people who signed out chainsaws?

[Steve_Seattle]

Librarians

Kramer (from Seinfeld): "The Dewey Decimal System is the biggest fraud since one-hour Martinizing."

[oldfart]

I've kicked around this world a long time, but I still have to defer to others who have already said it much better than I can:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
George Washington

[Steve_Seattle]

A question for the libertarians in here: If the FBI got a call from a flight instructor who said a Middle-Eastern man paid $2,000 cash for flight lessons, would that justify a subpoena of the customer's financial records? Would it justify a wiretap? Would it justify any governmental action whatsoever?