THE PATRIOT ACT AND ITS EFFECTS ON LIBRARIES
One of the essential components of Intellectual Freedom is the right to privacy. The right to privacy implies that people will feel comfortable accessing any type of information without fear of repercussions. The USA Patriot Act, standing for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism, was introduced less than a week after September 11, 2001, signed into law on October 26, 2001, and reauthorized on March 9, 2006. ("The USA Patriot Act," 2008). The Patriot Act was intended to “update wiretap and surveillance laws for the Internet age, addressing real-time communications and stored communications (email, voice mail), and to give law enforcement greater authority to conduct searches of property.” (“The USA Patriot Act,” 2008). However, the Patriot Act has had a sort of sweeping effect and has authorized law enforcement officials to use alternate means of obtaining information against persons that go beyond the traditional methods of seeking information from libraries. (“The USA Patriot Act,” 2008).
In light of the importance of privacy and the reinstatement of the USA Patriot Act, the ALA created a model policy detailing how a library should respond to demands for user information. In the article “MODEL POLICY: RESPONDING TO DEMANDS FOR LIBRARY RECORDS,” there are guidelines for dealing with third party and law enforcement requests for library records and user identification and procedures the staff should follow when handling these requests. The mission of this model was to “provide the best guidance for those in the library community who wished to ensure that users’ records were secure from unauthorized or unjustified disclosure.” Within the guidelines are directives for releasing records only when presented with a search warrant or a subpoena and when the officer’s identification had been provided and the information recorded. The guidelines provided are thorough and make it easier for individual libraries to understand their rights and obligations.
An example of the Department of Justice’s demands for records was their subpoena of Google’s search records in August of 2005. When Google denied the request, the DOJ went to court to get an order to force Google to comply. Google does not purge its records due to its privacy policy which leaves these records open to seizure by the DOJ. DOJ’s reasoning behind demands for records is that they would demonstrate the effectiveness of COPA (Child Online Protection Act). This situation and others like it prompted action. “Reacting to the DOJ requests, Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) announced January 20 that he would introduce a bill requiring search-engine companies to purge personally identifiable information about their users after a reasonable amount of time, (Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, 2006).” Ultimately, however, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California denied the government’s request of users’ search queries from Google’s query log. Gonzales v Google, Inc, Case No. CV 06-8006MISC-JW (filed on 3/17/06). How do you feel about patrons’/users’ records being used by law enforcement? How can we defend against these types of subterranean methods of obtaining materials from libraries?
5 comments:
I believe that librarians try to uphold patron confidentiality. It is like much like the Doctor and patient confidentiality. I believe that a library needs to have policies and procedures in place, so that if they do face a situation where records need to be released they are prepared.
The Patriot Act has left no sector of the United States unaffected. I worked as an employee of a credit union for two years, and several monitoring programs to prevent terrorist activities were in place due to the Patriot Act, including ones affecting a person as they apply for an account and then others that are enacted to track "suspicious" activity.
I myself am very for freedom of speech and see no excuse for its compromise, including the government's wishes to monitor and "protect" its citizenry (from themselves).
Librarians have an obligation to maintain confidentiality for all patrons. One thing that bothers me though, is when I hear librarians talk about how they value confidentiality and then they call a patron for a hold- next thing you know on the answering machine they say who they are calling for and what materials are waiting for them at the library. Often this occurs in an area when other patrons can hear the conversation, too. Other little things can be done to help along the confidentiality process, for instance, not maintaining a record of past books or material check out activity for a patron, or not having more information about a person in their record than absolutely necessary. While these seem fairly simple and maybe they are minute, it still helps us as libraries to feel we are doing what we can to increase the confidentiality in which we work afford our patrons.
I do not approve the use of a patron's records by the government. The way to defend the privacy of patron's can be done in steps like the library's code.
It is important as librarian that we keep our patrons records confidential. However I feel that if law enforcement needs these records to prove guilt in a crime than we should comply with the request only after the proper procedures have been followed such as a subpoena or warrant. Without these documents I would not provide any information on a patron.
Post a Comment