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By LANE FILLER lfiller@leader.net
Monday, March 17, 2003 Page: 3A
Osterhout Free Library executive director Diane Suffren has been busy
lately. Busy learning about and explaining a new law that could force her to
tell the federal government what you’ve been reading, even if the government
doesn’t have a strong reason to believe you’ve committed a crime.
“I think it goes against the grain of what libraries stand for, which is
free and open access to information,” Suffren said. “Certainly, we want this
to be an environment where people can express opinions and learn and not have
it held against them.”
Six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress passed the
Patriot Act. The act drastically expanded the federal government’s right to
search and track Americans. A little-noticed provision, Act 215, gave the
federal government the right to find out what books and magazines the public
obtains from stores and libraries. It also made it a crime for libraries and
bookstores to let people know they are under investigation.
Suffren said she has had no Patriot Act requests for information from the
Wilkes-Barre library but doesn’t even think she would have what officials
would desire.
“Our computers show what books patrons have out, not what books they had
out,” Suffren said. “I wouldn’t know how to call up that information.
“We just had a conference call about it Tuesday,” she said. “The
American Library Association has been dispensing information that essentially
says if we get one of these orders, we have to comply with it.”
Previously, the government needed probable cause and a warrant to get this
information. Now, no probable cause is necessary. The fact that your name
showed up in an address book would be reason enough.
Bob Curry, general manager of Barnes & Noble Booksellers at the Arena Hub
Plaza in Wilkes-Barre Township, said he hadn’t heard much about the new law,
nor has he received any information from the corporate office about it or any
federal requests for records.
“There’s always been a privacy in bookstore transactions; that could not
be breached without probable cause,” he said. “When I hear about this, I
have to say it’s awful, the idea that people could find out what you’re
reading like that.”
Curry also said information on what books customers buy isn’t really kept.
The new act frightens attorney John Bednarz, president of the Osterhout
Free Library board of directors.
“As a citizen, I can see that we would want to know if someone was
checking out `How To Make A Bomb,’ but in every other way, I have real
reservations about whether private reading matter should ever become public
knowledge,” he said. “That right to privacy is almost sacred. Finding out
what a person is reading is almost like looking in someone’s mind.”
“I’m not reading anything bad, but the whole idea still gives me the
creeps,” library patron Ellen Holmes said. “What could be more private than
what I read? I can understand stopping terrorism, but I think there should
have to be a suspicion of that terrorism before the government can just
ransack your life.”