FW: Librarians Use Shredder to Show Opposition to New F.B.I. Powe rs

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/07/national/07LIBR.html

NY Times. Apr. 7. 2003
Librarians Use Shredder to Show Opposition to New F.B.I. Powers
By DEAN E. MURPHY

SANTA CRUZ, Calif., April 4 - The humming noise from a back room of the
central library here today was the sound of Barbara Gail Snider, a
librarian, at work. Her hands stuffed with wads of paper, Ms. Snider was
feeding a small shredding machine mounted on a plastic wastebasket. First
to be sliced by the electronic teeth were several pink sheets with
handwritten requests to the reference desk. One asked for the origin of
the expression "to cost an arm and a leg." Another sought the address of a
collection agency.

Next to go were the logs of people who had signed up to use the library's
Internet computer stations. Bill L., Mike B., Rolando, Steve and Patrick
were all shredded into white paper spaghetti.

...

The move was part of a campaign by the Santa Cruz libraries to demonstrate
their opposition to the Patriot Act, ....

... 

Last month,Santa Cruz became one of the first library systems in the
country to post warning signs about the Patriot Act at all of its checkout
counters. Today, the libraries went further and began distributing a
handout to visitors that outlines objections to the enhanced F.B.I. powers
and explains that the libraries were reviewing all records "to make sure
that we really need every piece of data" about borrowers and Internet
users. ... A spokesman for the Justice Department said libraries were not
breaking the law by destroying records, even at a faster pace. The
spokesman, Mark Corallo, said it would be illegal only if a library
destroyed records that had been subpoenaed by the F.B.I.

Ms. Turner, the library director here, said librarians did not want to
help terrorists, but she said other values were at stake as well. "I am
more terrified of having my First Amendment rights to information and free
speech infringed than I am by the kind of terrorist acts that have come
down so far," Ms. Turner said.

...