Libraries
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08.25.05
Back in July, Thom at Societas raised a ruckus about the renewal of The Patriot Act. Thom pointed out that many liberal bloggers lost sight of the Patriot Act amid coverage of the Rove scandal and the Roberts nomination.
I did what I could at the time — I put up a post about the Patriot Act, and called my Senators to urge them to vote against reauthorizing it.
I recently received a letter from Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum in response to my phone call. In it, Santorum writes that he “appreciate[s] hearing from you and having the benefit of your views.” He goes on to tout the power of the Patriot Act, noting that “this bill enters new and uncharted territory by breaking down traditional barriers between law enforcement and foreign intelligence.”
Acknowledging concerns that the Act could endanger American civil liberties, Santorum reassures constituents like me that the FBI has not used the Patriot Act to request library records:
In case that’s hard for you to read, the text, which appears in bold, is as follows:
Notably, at no time has the FBI used its authority to request records from libraries or bookstores.
In a press release today, the ACLU reports that, in a direct rebuttal to Santorum’s claim, the FBI has indeed gone after library records:
FBI Uses Patriot Act to Demand Information with No Judicial Approval From Organization with Library Records
ACLU Seeks Emergency Court Order to Lift Gag As Congress Prepares to Make Patriot Act Permanent
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today disclosed that the FBI has used a controversial Patriot Act power to demand records from an organization that possesses “a wide array of sensitive information about library patrons, including information about the reading materials borrowed by library patrons and about Internet usage by library patrons.” The FBI demand was disclosed in a new lawsuit filed in Connecticut, which remains under a heavy FBI gag order.
The ACLU is seeking an emergency court order to lift the gag so that its client can participate in the public debate about the Patriot Act as Congress prepares to reauthorize or amend it in September.
“Our client wants to tell the American public about the dangers of allowing the FBI to demand library records without court approval,” said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson, the lead lawyer in the case. “If our client could speak, he could explain why Congress should adopt additional safeguards that would limit Patriot Act powers.”
Papers reveal that the client, whose identity must remain a secret under the gag, “strictly guards the confidentiality and privacy of its library and Internet records.” The client is a member of the American Library Association.
The lawsuit challenges the National Security Letter (NSL) provision of the Patriot Act, which authorizes the FBI to demand a range of personal records without court approval, such as the identity of a person who has visited a particular Web site on a library computer, or who has engaged in anonymous speech on the Internet. The Patriot Act dramatically expands the NSL power by permitting the FBI to demand records of people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing.
The lawsuit, ACLU v. Gonzales, was filed on August 9, and is pending before Judge Janet Hall of the U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It names as defendants Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and an FBI official whose identity remains under seal. Both the national ACLU and its Connecticut branch said they were forced to file the lawsuit initially under seal to avoid penalties for violating the gag provision, which they are challenging on First Amendment grounds.
The court has set an emergency hearing for Wednesday, August 31, 2005 on the ACLU’s request to lift the gag.
Whether the Patriot Act has been used to obtain information about library patrons has been a flashpoint in the Patriot Act debate. The government has repeatedly dismissed the concerns of librarians that the act could force them to violate their ethical responsibility to protect the privacy of library users. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft even called these concerns about the Patriot Act “baseless hysteria.”
It looks like I may have to place another call to my esteemed Senator, to ask him why he lied to us again.
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03.19.05
After a hectic day spent blogging and comment-blogging about national issues, there’s nothing like a Geno’s cheesesteak to turn one’s mind towards local affairs.
Yesterday, I went down to City Hall to protest the proposed budget cuts for Philadelphia’s Free Library system. The cuts would transform twenty local branches — many in impoverished areas — into “Express” Libraries that would be open four hours a day and would be serviced not by trained librarians but by hourly employees with no advanced training in library science (they would be required to have only a high school degree). The local library in my neighborhood has already made this transition: it is open from 1-5 Monday to Saturday, which means that it closes soon after children get out of school.
As the Inquirer reports, 200 raucous bibliophiles showed up to protest these changes. Librarians talked about the social services and learning opportunities that libraries provide in their neighborhoods; kids from after-school programs spoke about libraries as safe shelters they could visit when problems at home or at school became too overwhelming; local activists emphasized programs for ESL students and senior citizens, and mentioned the importance of free internet access in Philly, where 41% of City households do not have home computers; and staffers from Friends of the Free Library gave concrete financial reasons why these cuts were bad for the long-term fiscal health of the city.
The members of the City Council expressed solidarity with the protesters, and repeatedly mentioned that they had allocated $1 million dollars for the library system. The Council, however, has no way to force the Mayor to spend that money on its intended target.
Councilman Michael Nutter, who called for the hearings, emphasized the need for continued public action on this issue:
“We need to seek restoration of the funds, but more importantly, the citizens of the city need to express themselves, as loud as possible, to the administration.”
Many protestors at the hearing carried signs; mine, I am sure, was the only one that mentioned blogging:
PHILLY’S BLOGGERS SUPPORT PHILLY’S LIBRARIES!
READ A BLOG!
READ A BOOK!
IT’S ALL GOOD
AT THE LIBRARY!
Few, if any, of the 200 people there knew what a blogger was or what blogging had to do with the city library system (and to be honest, I was more than a little embarrassed by my own sign). But they should, because blogging — and netroots sites like Philly Future — has the potential to empower local citizens’ groups on issues such as this. Who else will speak for the affected communities? Denied the pathways towards education that libraries provide, they may soon be unable to speak for themselves.
Anyone who has read Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave knows that the most effective tool nineteenth-century slave-owners had in their arsenal of oppression was their denial of the alphabet to their slaves. In a famous passage, Douglass recounted a conversation he overheard between his master and his master’s wife:
“If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master — to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.”
These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty — to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. The Free Library of Philadelphia holds thirty-seven titles by Frederick Douglass. But children living in ignorance of them will not find such guides to freedom if library doors are locked.
And in a time when our own national government is engaging in blatant propaganda, an ignorant populace is a populace that is enslaved.
If you think that I am exaggerating the problem, consider this: one librarian at the hearings told a story of a Philadelphia high-school senior who attended an after school program in Roxborough. After hearing someone refer to Hitler during a roundtable discussion, the child asked, “Who was Hitler?” A senior in high school. The librarian walked right out to the shelves in the library and gave the student a stack of books to read over.
The issues involved in this battle have nothing to do with city financing. If the state of Pennsylvania can give over $300 million for new sports stadiums, surely it can find $5 million dollars to keep the doors of its libraries open. Nothing less than the economic and intellectual freedom of its most vulnerable citizens is at stake.
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02.14.05
A few weeks ago, I tried to return a library book at noon on a Saturday. The doors were locked; there was no drop-box; and the library wasn’t going to open until 1pm. From my car, I watched as ten other people, mostly of them elderly, trudged up to the doors, only to turn away in disgust.
If Mayor’s office has its way, this scene will be repeated across the city in the coming months. In response to budget cuts, twenty Philadelphia libraries will become “Express Libraries,” open only four hours a day, and staffed by clerks rather than trained librarians.
On Saturday morning, about 300 protestors turned up at the Central Library to fight these cuts in services. The rally, organized by Friends of the Free Library, was an invigorating scene: it was downright refreshing to see so many people so worked up about books. I was happily surprised to find my local councilman, Michael Nutter (who is also behind the effort to make Philly restaurants and bars smoke-free) and my local state representative, Kathy Manderino, leading the charge.
My favorite protestors were a mother and her two daughters, all wearing wonderfully geeky glasses (if the rally was a harbinger of Philly style, half-inch thick bifocal lenses are making a huge comeback). I loved them instantly. One of the girls, about five years old, sat on her mother’s shoulders, ensconced in a puffy pink jacket and gripping a cardboard sign listing her favorite books.
I’ve gotten heated up about this issue not only because I’m using the library more and more these days, but also because I remember how much I loved my childhood visits to the library. I could never get over the fact that they’d let me take out so many books for free. When I got home, I’d walk into my room and dump the wobbly pile on the floor like a kid emptying candy from a bag of Halloween loot.
Today, libraries provide access to knowledge in many forms: one of the speakers at the rally pointed out that 40% of Philadelphia homes lack a computer. For many of them, libraries are the only places where they can use a computer for free. Libraries also provide essential programs for kids and senior citizens.
All politics is local, as they say–and this rally was very local–but I see these cuts as part of a coming national trend. Library hours are only the first of many social services that are going to be cut in the face of budget crises and a huge national deficit. That’s what trickle-down wealth does: the rich get tax breaks, and everyone else pays for it in reduced governmental services.
If you missed the rally, stay tuned: the City Council is holding public hearings on March 17. And if you don’t live in Philly, you can still make your voice heard by printing out and signing the petition. If you’re really feeling it, you can start calling and faxing City Council members whose districts contain libraries affected by the cuts.
It’s time for the geeks of this city to stand up and be counted, in all of our bifocal glory.
photos courtesy of Hallwatch.org
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02.08.05
Three times in the past week, I’ve tried to return books to my local library. Each time, I found the doors locked; they’re open only four hours a day.
Philadelphia’s Free Library system faces a crisis. Hours have been cut at scores of libraries, and many skilled librarians have been replaced by non-accredited librarians.
The Friends of the Free Library will hold a “Love Your Library” Rally on Saturday, February 12, at 10am on the steps of the Central Library. Click here to find out more, and please attend the rally if you can make it.
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