From: Goldman, Ava (Ava_Goldman@CalPERS.CA.GOV)
Date: Tue Jun 21 2005 - 15:47:20 PDT
Subject: FW: Librarians assail record *fishing expeditions* : Group documents 268 law enforcement requests for reading records Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:47:20 -0700 Message-ID: <781B30BA0EB0904F8203EC15339A3B690460E3F2@hqk110.calpers.ca.gov> From: "Goldman, Ava" <Ava_Goldman@CalPERS.CA.GOV>
Cross-posted.
Ava Goldman, Senior Librarian, PODB, CalPERS, 916-795-1533
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8304018/
Updated: 2:35 p.m. ET June 21, 2005
WASHINGTON - U.S. librarians say they have been asked at least 268 times
since 2001 to give law officers data about readers, despite repeated
Justice Department denials that it is interested in patrons' reading
habits.
A survey released this week by the American Library Association found
the inquiries from law enforcement came formally and informally - that
is, without a formal legal order - to public and academic libraries.
That is despite laws in 48 states and prevailing opinion in the other
two that library information is private.
"Now we have solid information that no matter what the Justice
Department is saying, they are interested in libraries because they are
coming, and not once or twice, but in appreciable numbers," Emily
Sheketoff, executive director of the library association's Washington
office, said on Tuesday.
'An expectation of privacy'
"There is an expectation of privacy when you walk into a library," she
said in a telephone interview after the survey's release.
Sheketoff said it was unclear how many law-enforcement requests were
made under the Patriot Act, the sweeping investigative tool passed soon
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
She noted that current and former U.S. attorneys general, as recently as
April, have denied using the Patriot Act to target library records. But
whether under the Patriot Act or some other authority, she said the
requests kept coming.
The House of Representatives last week defied President Bush by
approving a measure that would make it harder to secretly gather
information on people's library reading habits or bookstore purchases.
The Senate has not yet debated its version of the bill.
Kevin Madden, a Justice Department spokesman said the library survey was
not a comprehensive or comparative study of law-enforcement inquiries,
and did not say which type of law enforcement - local, state or federal
- made the request.
"The federal government is not interested in the reading habits of
everyday Americans," Madden said. "Any conclusion that there is
extraordinary interest is wholly manufactured as a result of
misinformation.."
Concerns of 'fishing expeditions'
Sheketoff called for proper oversight to prevent what she called
"fishing expeditions" at U.S. libraries.
One such expedition occurred at a library in Whatcom County in
Washington state, Sheketoff said, when a library patron noticed a
handwritten notation in the margin of a biography of Osama bin Laden and
reported it to the FBI.
The note, dealing with hostility toward Americans, was found to be an
often-cited quotation from bin Laden that was included in the report of
the Sept. 11 commission investigating U.S. response to the attacks.
The FBI reacted by seeking the names and information on all those who
had checked out the book since 2001, but the library's board challenged
the request and it was later withdrawn, Sheketoff said.
"You have to have a reason to believe that the information is necessary
for some investigation and there has to be some specificity," she said.
"Just because I read murder mysteries, that doesn't make me a murderer
.... and if somebody reads a book on Osama bin Laden, that doesn't make
him a member of al-Qaida."
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