Hi, Ed!

Once upon a time, the FBI, like any other law enforcement agency right down to the local constable, would need to present a search warrant to obtain access to a library's personal and circulation records, the same as to search any other confidential personal records. This new twist to the law would do away with that. The FBI can come in and get anybody's records because, well, they don't have to say why. Perhaps they want the names of everybody who has checked out a certain title because the FBI thinks it's dangerous and subversive. Perhaps they suspect a certain patron of criminal activity, but have no evidence and are fishing. Perhaps they suspect somebody of dating one of their sisters. We don't know, because the standards they must satisfy are not a judge's, but their own, and they don't have to tell.

Librarians must, as a matter of professionalism and a matter of statute in many states, keep our mouths shut about our patrons' borrowing and reading. Reading and thinking about things is not against the law. Use of library computers for illegal purposes (including criminal conspiracy) is governed by other laws of which we are aware, of which we make our patrons aware whenever they sign out a computer, and which we will enforce by various means.

We have a history of cooperation with police bearing warrants. The existence of the warrant shows that the police have other, independent evidence of wrongdoing good enough to convince a judge. We can support that.

The whole idea of blabbing to the FBI for no clearly articulated reason, and then not even being able to tell the person whose records have been seized or even our lawyers is repellant to many of us. It also, incidentally, violates privacy laws in many states.

The ACLU may have to wait a while before it can challenge this law in the courts, however, because the reaction of many libraries to this new vulnerability of patron records has been to pre-empt the law by dumping their records. The FBI can't seize a history that doesn't exist.

Ironically, had the Administration been content to stick with the old-fashioned practice of obtaining a warrant, there might be something left to sub poena.

Regards--
Mary Anne