Stupid cop tricks
A Washington librarian had a run in with the FBI:
On June 8, 2004, an FBI agent stopped at the Deming branch of the Whatcom County Library System in northwest Washington and requested a list of the people who had borrowed a biography of Osama bin Laden. We said no.
We did not take this step lightly. First, our attorney called the local FBI office and asked why the information was important. She was told that one of our patrons had sent the FBI the book after discovering these words written in the margin: “If the things I’m doing is considered a crime, then let history be a witness that I am a criminal. Hostility toward America is a religious duty and we hope to be rewarded by God.”
We told the FBI that it would have to follow legal channels before our board of trustees would address releasing the names of the borrowers. We also informed the FBI that, through a Google search, our attorney had discovered that the words in the margin were almost identical to a statement by bin Laden in a 1998 interview.
Undeterred, the FBI served a subpoena on the library a week later demanding a list of everyone who had borrowed the book since November 2001.
May 26th, 2005 at 9:02 am
Kinda OT: I don’t recall where I read it, but I read that the powers in the Patriot Act have been used more for non-Terrorist prosecutions that for their intended (and promised) purpose – Terrorist prosecutions.
/grumble
May 26th, 2005 at 9:56 am
Here’s a dumb question: why do libraries keep records of who has checked out a book anyway? Beyond the name of the person who has a book checked out, is it really necessary?
If I ran a library, the computer system would automatically erase any record of who borrowed a book when the book was checked back in.
May 26th, 2005 at 10:25 am
One reason I can think of Heartless, is to keep counts of which books have been checked out and which have not.
So you can sell the ones that have not been checked out in the last 10 years and keep the ones that have. With your design you could not do that. Though, you can keep counts with out keeping names.
May 27th, 2005 at 4:33 am
So why didn’t they show up with a subpoena (or warrant) in the first place?