The Patriot Act and Library Computer Usage

Very Intersting Article Here Regarding The Patriot Act and Library Computer Usage.

A Patriotic Act
By JUNE SANDRA NEAL
Courant.com COVER STORY
Sunday, September 24 2006

On Feb. 15, 2005, someone walked into a Connecticut library, sat down at a computer and used the Internet from 4 to 4:45 p.m.

Five months later, two FBI agents walked into George Christian's Windsor office and handed him a letter. It demanded "any and all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person or entity related to" the library computer's IP address on that February day.

To Christian, executive director of the Library Connection, the scene seemed a G-man version of the Odd Couple: one agent dressed nattily in a blazer and tie; the other gruff, in a knit muscle shirt. And though the atmosphere of the meeting was tense, Christian suspected the FBI's demand wasn't its Priority No. 1.

"It was addressed to the wrong person; it was dated May 19, 2005, and it referred to an event that had taken place six months ago."

The document they handed Christian was a national security letter, a piece of the Patriot Act few people had heard of at the time.Did Christian understand, the agents asked, that he could discuss the letter with no one?

"I said I did, but I would like to speak to my lawyer."

"Fine, have him give me a call," one agent said, and gave Christian his business card.

Even the agent apparently didn't know that the order he had handed Christian prohibited the library executive from discussing it with anyone - including his organization's board of directors, his wife or even his own attorney.

Had the national security letter been issued to someone else, it might have attracted little attention or created much stir as its recipient complied with its terms. But for Christian, whose agency oversees computer and other services for a consortium of 27 libraries around the state, it was a boot on his neck.

For one thing, he knew that Connecticut is one of 48 states with a statute expressly protecting the confidentiality of library users. Secondly, the letter struck at the core of Christian's definition of a library: "The nation's most democratic institution that supports a free exchange of information." Click Here to Read More

Good Luck!

 

True,scary and cool all rolled into one story thanks for the link

 

Sometimes I feel like Rip Van Winkle and I have been asleep for eighty years, for when I went to sleep there was this well known German leader, who was causing fear among the German people about a “terrorist threat” from a small group of people in his country called Jews. In the name of this threat, he restricted the German people’s rights and took them to war to rid the world of this threat. Boy, does history repeat its self or what????

A handful of demented souls commit an outrageous act, and the rest of society pays, and this makes any kind of sense????? Reagan had his “War” on drugs, the only thing that did was nail little Johnnie’s nether regions if he is caught with a bag of MJ, but the Drug Dealers party on. Bush now has his “War” on terrorist’s, and it now takes me up to two hours to visit my friends in the U.S.A., plus it now takes longer to travel from Washington to New York by plane than it does by train, but the extremist’s are still out there and will do what they want. If your Doctor operated like this he would remove your arms and legs because you complained that you couldn’t quit smoking.

The freedoms that not only Bush, but other supposedly “Free World Leader’s” took away from the every day citizen after 9/11 is not only criminal, it is darn right frightening. Mainly because the majority of society just shook their collective heads (not Brains) and let them do it, without so much as a whimper. Guess I had better go back to sleep again, for I am sure I am just having a reoccurring Nightmare

 

WOW, YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. ED

 

I don't see the big deal....

 

You are not old enough to know what your rights were, you only know what you have now, less and less. ed

 

I don't care about my rights... and you don't know my rights either because we live in different countries

Rights to change whether you do things or not anyway.

 

Joshcrick I think you need to "THINK", just a little before you post that you do not care what happens to YOUR rights. Today the rights were talking about may not affect you personally so you say what the heck. But tomorrow it maybe somebody telling you that you cannot do what you have in the past. Then you will complain, but by then it will be to late, for every freedom that is taken away from the citizens of the world, makes it easier to take away more, and one day one of those rights will be one that hurts you.

It has happened in the past and your relatives fought along with mine to protect your rights, and many died for that. So I would suggest some thought and compassion on your part might help

 

>> I don't care about my rights... and you don't know my rights either because we live in different countries. Rights to change whether you do things or not anyway. joshcrick <<

Your comments bring to mind a poem entitled "They Came for Me" which has often been attributed to a German Pastor named Martin Niemöller (1892-1984); although the poem's exact origin is frequently reported as unclear. The poem has been written in various versions over the years, is well-known, frequently quoted, and is a popular model for describing the phenomenon of social chaos, as it often begins with specific and targeted fear and hatred which soon escalates out of control...

This version of the poem is inscribed at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, Massachusetts reads:

They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.​

 

Excellent, thats a great poem.