Rebel Librarians

The tag line to this article on the BBC News' front page reads: "Rebel Librarian: The U.S. PATRIOT Act encounters some unlikely opposition."

I'm quite aggravated with this tag line because I believe it portrays librarians as stereotypically quiet, conservative, and compliant, with only a select few protesting the U.S. PATRIOT Act. In fact, the U.S. PATRIOT Act has widely upset the library community and moved it to speak out and campaign against the consequences that this Act has had and is having on American Civil Liberties.

Ever since it was passed in October 2001, the U.S. PATRIOT Act has encountered opposition from the library community. The main bone of contention lies in the fact that using the PATRIOT Act, the Department of Justice (including the FBI) can access a patron's library records using a grand jury subpoena without judicial approval at all. In addition, one provision orders any person or institution served with a search warrant not to disclose that such a warrant has been served or that records have been produced pursuant to the warrant. (More information about the U.S. PATRIOT and libraries can be found at the ALA PATRIOT Act Site.)

Librarians are stark defenders of the First Amendment and believe that "privacy is essential to the exercise of free speech, free thought, and free association. In libraries, the right to privacy is the right to open inquiry without having the subject of one's interest examined or scrutinized by others." (from ALA's Guidelines for Developing a Library Privacy Policy) As a general rule, librarians guard a person's library records much like a doctor protects a patient's medical records. Not only is the PATRIOT Act an assault on patron privacy and freedom to access information free from scrutiny, it is an insult to the Library Bill of Rights and our Code of Ethics.