Curiosity, lies and audiotape

The Bottom Line

ISSN: 0888-045X

Article publication date: 1 June 2006

226

Keywords

Citation

Boese, K.C. (2006), "Curiosity, lies and audiotape", The Bottom Line, Vol. 19 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.2006.17019baf.001

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Curiosity, lies and audiotape

One issue that has been in the news a lot lately is that of the right to personal privacy and intellectual freedom. While it is not a new issue, it heated up in December 2005, when key portions of the USA Patriot Act were up for renewal. It took an interesting turn when news of the NSA’s secret surveillance program became publicly known. Breaking just prior to the Senate’s vote to renew the Patriot Act, it caused enough concern that the vote to renew failed. While the outcome is still to be decided, a mid-February compromise passed by the Senate had the intent of excluding most libraries from National Security Letters demanding information. However, the language is still vague enough that some libraries could still be forced to turn over information (Abrams, 2006).

What is troubling about these events is the secrecy, and the growing appearance of unlawfulness behind the wire tapping program. I am sure everyone agrees that national security is important, but no more important than civil rights. A balance needs to be found, but I do not see that happening in the near future.

Librarians have long held sacred the privacy of our patrons, and any records that may pertain to their use of our materials. Personally, I think that there may occasionally be a good reason to allow agents or investigators to see our records, but only after courts have viewed all other resources available and determined that the information is relevant to the investigation, civil liberties have not been abused, and the case is of the scale that loss of human life could be the outcome of failing to do a thorough investigation. Divorce, embezzlement, and petty larceny are not justifications to look at a library patron’s records.

The wire-tapping program adds an entirely new dimension to what we do. While not immediately apparent, it does impact how libraries operate. In the course of working on this journal, I have had to communicate outside the USA by telephone, e-mail, letter, or by whatever means necessary to places including the UK, Pakistan, and Botswana, to mention a few. I also have colleagues that are involved in collaborative digitization projects that include natural history museums from around the world, again requiring international communication. Additionally, one of our catalogers for Asian and Middle Eastern art questioned whether or not her conversation to Iran included more parties that the two speaking. Brushing up on her Farsi, she contemplated if this would be the sort of trigger that would attract the NSA.

The problem is that no one knows. Secret programs with little, if any, oversight can lead to large-scale abuses of power, even when they have the best of intentions at heart. What is among the more disturbing aspects of this story is the hint that more aggressive surveillance was considered. According to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, the administration had considered a broader effort that would have included purely domestic telephone calls and e-mails but abandoned the idea in part due to fears of the negative public reaction (Eggen, 2006). Public reaction should not be a justification to implement or abandon a plan, although it must be considered. The legality of an initiative, on the other hand, should be core to the decision-making process.

The trouble with covert programs and surveillance is that when they become known, what is reported is only an indication of what is going on. There are usually many more secrets that have not come to light. We now know that far more invasive measures where considered and decided against. Are there measures that were adopted but we do not yet know about?

Once the library is put in the awkward position of having to monitor user information, provide user information when subpoenaed, and ensure its equipment and services are used in an appropriate way, we cease to be effective centers of gathering and providing vetted information. We begin to become less relevant to society, and this is something we are already struggling with.

As more and more seekers of information turn to the internet as their first choice when information is needed, we need to make sure that when they do come to the library they get what they need in a secure environment. An environment that allows them to learn, explore, develop, and discover without prejudice or bias. One can not always easily assume the purpose of a user’s behavior, no matter how clear cut it may seem.

Much to my shock, while in graduate school I was once instructed to examine a five-year spread of Playboy and look a the pictures. The purpose to this was to look for images of bedrooms and see what furniture was in them, what technology was used in them, and try to forecast how bedrooms might evolve in the future. The librarian assisting me, however, merely saw me paging through the issues without reading the articles. This action could have been misinterpreted as me looking at the models. Studying the models, however, could even be valuable is someone was studying clothing design. The point is, it is not the information that is the problem, nor access to it, but rather the intent of the individual and that cannot be ascertained by looking at a person’s information use history.

If information was guns, and librarians had a lobby as powerful as the NRA, the rights of information users would be sacred. It is often said that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, and with that idea any encroachment that might restrict access and ownership of firearms is aggressively fought. Similarly, information does not kill people, just the misuse of it, and any effort to criminalize it, monitor it, and deny access to it needs to be aggressive resisted.

Edited by Kent C. BoeseGreenberg Taurig, Washington, DC, USA

References

Abrams, J. (2006), “Hastert backs compromise on Patriot Act”, The Washington Post, February 11, available at: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021100389.html

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/06/AR2006020600195.html

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