Book Burning

[Dob]

One of the web sites that I visit regularly had a link to this story (bold mine):

WASHINGTON, DC - The American Library Association (ALA) today welcomed the Department of Justice's decision to rescind its request that the Government Printing Office Superintendent of Documents instruct depository libraries to destroy all copies of five Department of Justice publications addressing forfeiture. The Justice Department claimed that the documents are "training materials and other materials that the Department of Justice staff did not feel were appropriate for external use." ALA disagreed with this categorization of the public documents, two of which are texts of federal statutes, and with the instruction to destroy them. ALA trusts that there will be no repetition of such unjustified instructions to destroy government information.

Michael Gorman, President-Elect of the American Library Association, said, "We had concerns about the Department of Justice request to destroy documents that have been in the public domain for four years. To obtain an official rationale from the Department of Justice about the nature of these public documents, the American Library Association submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the withdrawn materials, which will now be moot." Carol Brey-Casiano, President of the American Library Association added, "Our only interest in this issue is that we want to ensure that public documents remain available to the public."

The topics addressed in the named documents include information on how citizens can retrieve items that may have been confiscated by the government during an investigation. The documents that were to be removed and destroyed include: Civil and Criminal Forfeiture Procedure; Select Criminal Forfeiture Forms; Select Federal Asset Forfeiture Statutes; Asset forfeiture and money laundering resource directory; and Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA).

http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section ... ntID=72299

[Rob P]

My wife is a librarian, and I can vouch for how powerfully they feel about keeping our informational freedom intact. They are completely united on the issue of providing information to their patrons, even if the information is controversial or inflammatory. They were perhaps the most prominent, influential group to criticize the unconstitutional Patriot Act when it was slipped through Congress. One measure of the Patriot Act stated that the government could seize hard copy records of what people check out from the library. When the ALA found out about this, they recommended that library systems burn those records before the government could get their hands on them.

Thanks for the post.

[Dob]

My wife is a librarian, and I can vouch for how powerfully they feel about keeping our informational freedom intact.

The fellow who runs the aforementioned web site (www.urbansurvival.com) had this comment, which I think you will appreciate:

"Who would have ever thought back in the days of high school civics classes that librarians would be the ones on the front line of defending the Constitution - and our individual liberties. Buy every librarian you can find a drink, cup of coffee - or send them flowers."

[Rspaight]

My wife has an MLS, and the ALA is indeed right in thick of things on this stuff (on the right side).

Ryan

[Patrick M]

On the right side?

[Rspaight]

Correct.

Ryan

[Rob P]

[/quote]

"Who would have ever thought back in the days of high school civics classes that librarians would be the ones on the front line of defending the Constitution - and our individual liberties. Buy every librarian you can find a drink, cup of coffee - or send them flowers."[/quote]

Ah, librarians. Meek and mild mannered to the patrons, but full of fight and passion on the inside.

[Patrick M]

Here's another librarian for ya:

[Rob P]

I wonder how Laura Bush feels about the Patriot Act policies. She's too smart to say something that would damage her old man's credibility, but this can't possibly sit well with her, can it? Who knows....we know she won't reveal.