Proof FBI subpoenas library records. (Washington state incident)

[troublemaker]

How many times have we heard that library records haven't actually been investigated under the Patriot Act? I have no idea whether this particular subpoena was Patriot Act related, but it's hard to pretend the FBI isn't snooping through library records. The punch-line is that the hand-written note was probably made by somebody writing an article about how bad Bin Laden is, but research is now intrinsically sinister. (The subpoena was withdrawn by US Attorneys after the library filed a motion to quash, but the point is that the subpoena was served in the first place.)

DEMING, Wash. -- The FBI would like to see who checked out a Deming library book about Osama bin Laden because of what someone wrote in the margin of the book.

The book is "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America."

The handwritten note in the margin is a quote from bin Laden saying, "Hostility toward America is a religious duty and we hope to be rewarded by god."

A citizen reported it to the FBI which served the rural library district with a subpoena demanding names and addresses of everyone who checked out the book.


http://www.kirotv.com/news/3781969/detail.html

[Arancaytar]

1. Remind me never to check out a book in the US.

That's all. o_O

[Pragmatique]

2. Ashcroft and St. Helens both ash-holes

It just goes to show you that Mt. St. Helens isn't the only ash-hole operating in Washington state.

[bklyncowgirl]

3. Not Patriot act related IMHO

Under the Patriot Act the FBI doesn't need a subpoena.

As a librarian, I can tell you that people writing comments on library books is not unusual. At our library Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men" was tagged with the comment "this was written by a self-hating stupid white man". Since we in the library business take a dim view of anyone defacing our books, I would have liked to find out who took the thing but the way our system works, our records are not accessible to staff.

One of the strangest episodes--and one where I seriously considered calling in law enforcement--was the case of someone who liked to take true crime books and underline in red flair marker, what the victims and the scene looked like after people like Charles Manson's Helter Skelter gang got done with them.

It's a real issue for librarians. Librarians are defenders of the first amendment. We value the idea that people's reading habits are their own business but we live in the same society that everyone else lives in and are subject to the same fears.

It seems to me that that library is doing the right thing. If the FBI really wants these records, they can go about getting them the right way through a court order.

[jilln]

4. There are dozens of accounts of libraries saying this...

and who says some library patron who just happened to see it on the shelf didn't write that, didn't have to be someone who checked it out at all!

But whoever did check that book out will soon find themselves getting interrogated at airports.

[bklyncowgirl]

5. Absolutely right

It's perfectly possible to take a book into a private place, bathroom stall, etc. and do damage. There's nothing to guarantee that anyone who charged the book out is the one who wrote the Bin Laden quote.

That's why it's so important that unless there is a specific reason that can be verified by law enforcement before a judge, that library records must be confidential.

[wellst0nev0ter]

6. Well, At Least It Seems That The Subpoena Is Public

[zbdent]

7. Sounds like a freeper wanted to cause some trouble

I mean, if we lefties believed that crap that the righties/Bushistas/Freeptards/dittododos say we believe, then we wouldn't be checking out a book on how terrible Osama is, would we?