So you checked out a book on Islam. Then you researched dirty bombs. Maybe you used the library's Internet access to look up, say, a recipe for French onion soup. Look out, you Person of Interest, you. Because, thanks to the Patriot Act, the police, the FBI, and probably even Wendell Williams has access to everything you've just looked up. But only if they can get past your newest, scrappiest privacy advocate: your librarian.
Librarians are letting their buns down and battling the feds to help protect your privacy from the Patriot Act. Passed quickly after 9/11, the Patriot Act expands the power of the federal government—particularly with regards to surveillance and investigation—and potentially allows law-enforcement officers to access records from libraries, bookstores and other agencies without probable cause. They haven't made any demands on local librarians yet, according to Dan Walters, executive director of the Las Vegas/Clark County Library District. But in the same sentence, Walters admits that if they had requested library records, the Patriot Act forbids him from mentioning it.
"I guess one of the more pernicious aspects of this, is let's say I had an inquiry, or I had been ordered by the courts to, at this point, release a patron's records or information, I wouldn't be able to tell you," says Walters. "That's one of the aspects of the Patriot Act. So that leads me to say that if I were to tell you that I can't comment, you can read between the lines, arguably. But at this point we have not had an inquiry, although we had inquiries prior to the passage of the Patriot Act, certainly."
Law-enforcement officers have always had access to your library records, but only if there's probable cause and the courts order it. The Patriot Act has lowered the bar, all but banishing probable cause and potentially allowing the police or FBI access to records based solely on suspicion. Walters, who just returned from an American Library Association conference focusing on privacy issues and the library as a public forum, explains the job of librarians is not to act as a surveillance unit for the state.
"We're not here to investigate," says Walters. "We're not here to retain data on what somebody reads or why. But to make sure that they can do this [use the library's offerings] in privacy."
To ensure privacy, Walters has been reevaluating the library district's record-keeping policy. As it is now, libraries keep track of whatever you've checked out until you return it, and, if necessary, pay whatever fine you owe. After that, the transaction record is wiped out of existence, except for—cue evil music—the back-up files. Back-up files are, of course, necessary for many aspects of the library's business. But they're also keeping around privacy-invasive vestiges that cops could consider suspicious: Who's that tattooed rapscallion suddenly interested in Rush Limbaugh and drugs? Which morally corrosive housewives have remained faithful to Martha Stewart? Walters wants to help those types remain anonymous. Next month, he'll present to the Library Board a plan to regularly purge back-up files with regards to patron transactions.
"Libraries have never been spies," Walters says. "We don't spy on our patrons. We're here to make sure they have a safe haven for their individual rights to read and view and do it in privacy."