At 8:12 PM 1/29/96, Alan Horowitz wrote:

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Do you really think that the FBI foreign counter-intelligence squad has nothing better to do than keep a database of who is reading Che Guevara memoirs?

Yes.

Heck, I remember this was a big issue about 15 years ago. Try asking someone who was active in library science in the late 70's, early 80's.

I did. They said you're wrong. Shall we start a CP flame-war of unattributed allegations from librarians who will recall what *they thought* the FBI is interested in?

I'm not interested in a flame war about librarians and the FBI, but will tell you what I know: the "Library Awareness Program" was very real. It reached public awareness in the mid- to late-80s, and was the subject of numerous news reports. The various librarian unions blew the whistle on this. As I recall, new stantards about access to materials by patrons, and privacy expectations, were issued. Ah! Once again I thank Alta Vista. A simple search on "Library Awareness Program" revealed 20 hits on the Web. Here is an excerpt from one of the hits: ------ WHAT'S NEW, Friday, 3 June 1988 Washington, DC 1. THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE FILED SUIT AGAINST THE FBI yesterday to force the release of documents relevant to the FBI's "Library Awareness Program" (WN 9 Oct 87). The documents were requested under the Freedom of Information Act eleven months ago. The FBI at first denied the existence of the program, and now contends it is confined to the New York area, but librarians from all over the country report FBI visits. Meanwhile, the FBI has not provided a single document either to the National Security Archive, or to the American Library Association, which filed a similar FOIA request. People for the American Way is assisting the National Security Archive in its lawsuit. 2. THE FBI'S "LIBRARY AWARENESS PROGRAM" is not an effort to raise the literacy of its agents. Even as President Reagan was lecturing to students at the University of Moscow on the virtues of a free society, his new FBI chief, William Sessions, before a Senate Committee, was defending the FBI's attempts to recruit library employees as snitches. Sessions released an unclassified version of a top-secret FBI report that must have been ghost written by Art Buchwald. Entitled "The KGB and the Library Target: 1962 - Present," it includes examples of suspicious behavior, such as an individual who "is observed departing the library after having placed microfiche or various documents in a briefcase without properly checking them out of the library." .... --- Boycott espionage-enabled software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."