Posted on 02/05/2007 9:17:13 PM PST by plan2succeed.org
LANCASTER, Ohio — Police tried to identify a woman they pulled from an icy river by checking on her library card, but the library would not cooperate, citing a policy set by its board.
The woman, who was treated for unknown injuries, was carrying her library card on a key ring but had no other identification when a passer-by found her in the Hocking River on Thursday night, police said.
So a dispatcher, then an officer called the Fairfield County District Library and were told the library could not release the information without a court order. The woman later was identified as Sheila Springer, 51, by someone at the local hospital where she was taken.
The woman was later taken to Grant Medical Center in Columbus, where she would not allow information to be released on Friday. The hospital said Saturday they had no information on Springer. There was no telephone listing for her. Police did not know how she got in the river.
The library's board set the policy of withholding information about cardholders, library Director Marilyn Steiner said Saturday.
However, Steiner said that after being contacted about the police request, she told her staff they could release the information if they were sure the caller was a law enforcement officer and it was "a matter of life or death." Steiner said the library was prepared to release the woman's identity about 10 minutes after the first call by police, but was told it was no longer necessary.
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Ridiculous.
Should your employer give out your information to anyone who calls and asks for it? Should your church give out your unlisted number for anyone who asks for it?
Anyone can claim to be a police officer. And people who want unlisted numbers or other such information should have a high level of proof put on them to legitimately receive it.
Check. I guess I'm "old school" !
I don't believe for a second that the entire process of confirming this situation with the police would take "less than a minute". Have you ever called a police station or other government entity and had it take less than a minute?
You say, "I don't think that government has any place regulating which information can be released to whom." The police work for the city. The librarians work for the city. They are fellow employees. They are perfectly capable of working together as employees of the same entity to maintain privacy and confidentiality. This thing where librarians, who maintain city records, will not release those city records to the police of the same city is a total made up excuse, made up by the American Library Association.
Then let a legitimate police officer show up at the library.
What is wrong with that?
Not at all. I think they acted completely responsibly in this situation. How loudly would you be screaming if a library had released identifying information to an abusive boyfriend posing on the phone as a police officer (without taking a few minutes to check if it was a legitimate request), and a woman was killed? How loud would the screams about invasion of privacy be?
The article clearly states that this was all done over the phone.
How easy is it to call someone up and pretend to be someone else? Think about it!
I think you missed the point. She said this in response to or after the incident was over, not during.
I guarantee you the police officers understood the situation. Every police officer I've talked with at the pharmacy where I work is well aware of privacy rules, including HIPPA law. Sure, it's frustrating, but no one -- including me -- wants to lose their job/be sued/go to jail because we did not guard private information.
In fact, I talked with a sheriff's deputy earlier this evening, and he was relating how hard it can be when dealing with traffic accidents to get the necessary information. They eventually get what they need, but it simply takes time.
What if this woman had a condition that needed immediate attention? She might have died and it would be some hand wringing liberal librarian's fault.
There are some really loony remarks on this thread but yours takes the cake.
Besides, what does that matter? Obviously, she refused to give out private information over the phone to an unconfirmed person DURING that time, or there'd be no issue here, right?
Get your head put on straight and "Plan to Succeed" instead.
It wouldn't have mattered with these pin heads. They said they wanted to see a court order, not a badge. Had the cop crashed his cruiser into the lobby, in uniform, these a-holes would still have said, "court order".
Well, even without anyone physically showing up, they had made the decision to tell the potential "unconfirmed stalker" the private information.
So the court order wasn't going to be needed at this library.
I am a librarian.
I have an IQ over 150. I am not "dumb".
I am not a loony lefty.
There is no way I would take a phone call from an unidentified "Officer Jones" or "Officer Smith" and release a patron's personal information over the phone without first verifying the legitimacy of the request.
The actions of the library in this story seem to me to be entirely appropriate and reasonable.
That wasn't the procedure. They initally required a court order. Somebody made an immediate decision to overrule the rule. It was only luck that everything and everyone came together that quickly.
As for confirming who it was, I'd say, "Call you back at 911" and that's hard to beat for validating you're talking to the police.
Not probable but it is possible that 10 minutes could have been a problem if she had a condition that needed immediate attention.
What pisses me off about these things is that the librarians are so ACLU anal when it comes to their worldview that even the obvious is a mystery to them.
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