"Terror Reading"

[Harmon Seaver]

   Obviously you don't realize how pissed off librarians would be about it.
There would very quickly be a court challenge, just as there was a court
challenge to it back in the 50's, and just like there has been a court challenge
to everything else like this -- the filtering acts, etc.
   How would they serve this order? If they came to me as the sysadmin, I'd have
to talk to my boss, the director about and also to an attorney, before I did
anything for them. And if I changed the settings on the database to keep all
records, everbody in the library would know about it very quickly, and there
would be a some real pissed off people demanding to know why I had done
it. Furthermore, most libraries these days have joint databases with a bunch of
libraries in the area, and they would notice the change and would be jumping up
and down, demanding public meetings, etc. 
   So the only way they could have it done is to approach someone to have them
look at the system day by day and write down what the victim of the warrant was
checking out. And what if he didn't check it out, just read it in the
library? So much for that data, there'd be none. Or would the Feebs just have
one of their own come into the library each day and access the staff side of the
software -- people would certainly notice that too. People would talk, believe
me. You can't get people to do something that pisses them off and expect them to
really cooperate. 
   I'd be willing to bet that in most libraries if they didn't file a court
challenge the victim would get an anonymous phone call from a pay phone some
night. 



On Tue, Jun 25, 2002 at 07:49:46PM -0400, Adam Shostack wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 25, 2002 at 04:56:10PM -0500, Harmon Seaver wrote:
> 
> | would be aware of it, and people would be talking. I don't know of any way it
> | would be possible to make the software keep track of just one person, it would
> | have to keep the records for everyone. Of course, someone could keep track
> | manually, but I'd be willing to bet that if this were happening at all, the ALS
> | would know about it and would be filing suit against the DOJ. 
> 
> 
> No, they wouldn't.  The USA PATRIOT act forbids a library from talking
> about it.  Thats why point 12 of the recent House Judiciary committee
> letter to Ashcroft asks about libraries.
> 
> http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism_militias/20020613_letter_to_ashcroft.html
> 
> 
> 
> | 
> | On Tue, Jun 25, 2002 at 02:23:08PM -0700, Joseph Ashwood wrote:
> | > ----- Original Message -----
> | > From: "Eric Cordian" <emc at artifact.psychedelic.net>
> | > 
> | > > It was my understanding that libraries destroy records of patrons'
> | > > activity as soon as the books are returned.  Nonetheless, this is an
> | > > interesting Federal fishing expedition, with warrants issued by secret
> | > > courts, and criminal penalties for librarians who talk too much.
> | > 
> | > I can tell you that at least in some areas that is simply not the case. I
> | > have personal experience with the San Jose City library and know this for a
> | > fact to be incorrect. They store information since the last upgrade of the
> | > central database, currently the better part of a decade, but coming up on a
> | > cycle point. Although it is very difficult to get the information, and large
> | > portions of even that have been lost through various issues.
> | > 
> | > That is just a single area, but it seems reasonable that most
> | > cities/counties/schools would follow the same general principle. Of course
> | > with the lax way the information is kept it takes nearly a week to recover
> | > the list of books you've checked out in the last month that have been
> | > returned (unless there are penalties), so there is some saving grace to the
> | > system.
> | >                     Joe
> | 
> | -- 
> | Harmon Seaver	
> | CyberShamanix
> | http://www.cybershamanix.com
> | 
> 
> -- 
> "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
> 					               -Hume

-- 
Harmon Seaver	
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com