Transcript
Library Gag Order
April 13, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: We're back with OTM. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled this week that a bookstore did not have to tell the police the name of a person who had purchased two instructional books about making drugs. The unanimous decision assures booksellers and librarians in the Centennial State that they need not turn over their sales or check out records to the authorities.
BOB GARFIELD:But there's no such assurance nationwide because privacy protection of what a person buys or reads varies from state to state, and the USA PATRIOT Act passed shortly after September 11th in an effort to combat terrorism now permits the FBI to seize what it vaguely defines as "any tangible things," including those sales or check out records. Why haven't you heard about it? The law also forbids librarians and booksellers from telling anyone else -- be it a reporter, neighbor or 14 month old daughter if the FBI has come a-searchin' in their place of business. Lynne Bradley is the director of government relations for the American Library Association. She says the PATRIOT Act greatly expands the kinds of records the FBI can search.
LYNNE BRADLEY: Before the PATRIOT Act there were more almost common carrier types of information -- phone records - hotel records - whether you rented a car. But now, under the larger term called "business records" it can be any tangible item, and in the case of a library situation it might be the hard disk or the whole computer from an on-line system that the library operates or anything down to the clipboard with a sign on sheet that often our patrons use to sign up to take their turn to use a public terminal in a library.
BOB GARFIELD: Do you know of any cases where a computer or a hard drive has been seized?
LYNNE BRADLEY:We have had reports -- and I must say they are unverified because [LAUGHS] of the gag rule --where I believe two different terminals were removed from a library.
BOB GARFIELD:But in the meantime, when law enforcement goes over the contents of the hard drive, they will find the information that the suspect has generated there and in addition all of the dozens or hundreds of other citizens have generated there.
LYNNE BRADLEY: We're very concerned that we are not able to confirm or deny just what leniency the FBI or whatever investigatory agency has access to all of these other files of other library users and so forth, and that's one of the things where in terms of the gag order doesn't allow for public accountability. Librarians, just like every other sector of our country want to follow the law; they want to do the right thing. At the same time we owe it to our country to protect certain basic rights which indeed we're fighting this war for. And we are very concerned that this kind of broad-ranging access to all kinds of business records compromises that anonymity and that sense of confidence that the library is going to be a safe and personal space to be used without undue and inappropriate fishing expeditions into the users' activities.
BOB GARFIELD:What about the gag order itself as an impingement on First Amendment rights. Is it legal? Can an entire class of citizens be placed under prior restraint of free speech rights?
LYNNE BRADLEY: That's the hard question. One way that we look at it is that we're kind of in the pre-school phase. We have not had a lot of court cases. At some point there will be leaks, there will be court cases, there will be people charged -- but I think it's going to take a while.
BOB GARFIELD:All right. Well if you would kindly memo your member libraries and tell them that if an FBI agent comes knocking on the door inquiring about stuff that I've looked at on their computers -- you know was doing some research for my cousin.
LYNNE BRADLEY: Oh, okay. All right. [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Thank you very much.
LYNNE BRADLEY: Thank you. You're welcome.
BOB GARFIELD: Lynne Bradley is director of government relations for the American Library Association.