|
 Celebrate Cognitive
Liberty
and the Freedom to Read:
Banned Books Week and the CCLE’s Readers’ Rights Project
In conjunction with
the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual Banned Books Week, the
Center for Cognitive Liberty is launching its
Readers’ Rights Project.
This
year’s
Banned Books Week: Celebrate the Freedom to Read—is
the twenty-first anniversary of the ALA’s annual celebration of intellectual
freedom. Events and read-outs will be held nationwide to raise awareness
about censorship and the right to access books. As Judith Krug, director of
the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, says, “The ability to read,
speak, think and express ourselves freely are core American values.”
Through the
Readers' Rights Project,
the CCLE intends to examine library surveillance as an obstacle to cognitive
liberty, and focus law, policy and educational attention on the fundamental
rights of readers to freely access information.
As part of this project, the CCLE is
filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request this week with the US
Dept. of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI. The FOIA request asks for a list of
books and materials placed under scrutiny as grounds for surveillance,
policy directives regarding library surveillance under the PATRIOT act, and
the number of times that the FBI and DOJ have sought records from libraries
since the passage of the act. This request may provide much-needed public
information about the nature and extent of law enforcement activities in
libraries across the US.
The Readers’ Rights
project will also work to protect cognitive liberty by:
- Analyzing the legal
rights of readers under the USA Patriot Act, and produce an informative
pamphlet explaining the terms of the USA Patriot Act regarding library
surveillance and the rights readers may have;
- Raising public
awareness of reader’s rights through dissemination of information at local
and regional libraries;
- Drawing media
attention to the larger implications of surveillance on individual public
library users;
- Continuing to
collaborate with other organizations (such as the ALA) who have an
interest in First Amendment rights and civil liberties of readers in
general, and public library users specifically.
Intellectual freedom
is a cherished right at any time, but recent events have underscored its
importance. The passage of the USA PATRIOT act on October 25, 2001 has many
implications for intellectual freedom, the right to privacy and other vital
civil liberties.
Despite the fact that the
library records and Internet logs of several September 11th
hijackers were successfully recovered from several libraries under existing
law, the USA PATRIOT gave broad new powers to FBI officers wanting to pry
into the records of library patrons. Though direct banning of books is
prevented by the First Amendment, library surveillance circumvents
constitutional protections. It produces a climate of fear and suspicion that
turns readers into suspects; the scrutiny of law enforcement corrodes free
access and intellectual inquiry when readers are hesitant to check out
certain books or look at certain Web sites for fear of investigation or
arrest.
The PATRIOT act removes legal
protection of “any tangible things” that an FBI officer claims are pertinent
to an investigation of terrorist or intelligence activities. Librarians
immediately recognized the threat this law would pose to maintaining
confidentiality of library patrons’ reading records or computer usage logs.
The Act also contains a “gag order” that prevents librarians from revealing
that their patron records or library computers have been searched. Thus, the
public has only recently learned that intensified federal monitoring of
public libraries is in fact taking place across the country.
The CCLE believes that
readers should have the unfettered right to access information without
monitoring or control. After all, freedom to read, freedom to think, freedom
to speak: what sort of country would this be without them?
Information and
Resources:
CCLE Readers’ Rights
Project:
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/proj_readers.html
CCLE Op-Ed on library
surveillance, “Who’s Reading Over Your Shoulder”
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/News/library_surveillance.htm
American Library
Association Web site:
http://www.ala.org/
For more information
on Banned Books Week, go to:
http://www.ala.org/bbooks/ or e-mail
oif@ala.org
ALA on Libraries and
the USA Patriot act:
http://www.ala.org/washoff/patriot.html
Coast
Weekly Article on
Cognitive Liberty and the Total Information Awareness Office
Alternet article on Total Information Awareness
Office data mining and personal privacy |
