aclu surveillance campaign video

just wanted to share this link with the class. it's a video showing how even a pizza delivery place could eventually have access to collections of personal data and use it to judge what you should order and charge more based on health status and location. it's far-fetched, but visualizes the influence of large databases on personal privacy.

contagious diseases and the library

here an interesting blog that i ran across today. it's basically a few emails from librarians questioning the legal and social ramifications of asking patrons with communicable diseases/illnesses like chickenpox and tuberculosis to leave the premises. probably some patrons are just interested in entertaining material while they are out of work or school, while others are in need of vital health information. virtual reference would be perfect in the latter situation, as long as the sick person had internet access at home. unlike so many other americans, i do have health insurance, but have yet to find a primary care physician since moving to seattle. it turned out to be an extremely frustrating experience this past week to find a clinic that could take me on short notice to simply look at an ear infection. i can't imagine what it must be like to have no health insurance and no access to health information. a patron could be experiencing painful symptoms and want to look up reference information for possible causes before deciding whether the extremely expensive emergency room bill would be worth it. would we then just kick them out of the library? or would we risk the health of others to help this one person? of course we could quickly give ill patrons listings for low-cost community health services, but those services are often only open during weekday business hours. by kicking such patrons out of the library, they might not seek more assistance until it is too late.

washington legislature passes anti-real id bill

this post is coming a bit late, as the washington state legislature passed the bill early last month. i didn't know that states were opposing the federal real id act of 2005 until i browsed the aclu website today. as far as i understand the act, it doesn't create a national identification system so much as force states to meet certain requirements that might as well turn state driver licenses, id cards and their databases into national ones. the ala has joined the anti-national id campaign, and some of the details are here. a few of the reasons the ala gives for opposing it are higher risk of identity theft and security risks due to its machine readable content. the ala gives a pretty scary image of the shared database:

"Under the REAL ID Act, states and federal government would share access to a vast national database that could include images of birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce papers, and more, including detailed information on the name, date of birth, race, and Social Security Number for more than 240 million individuals, with no requirements or controls on how this database might be used."

while some of the content can already be found through public records, having so much information in one place can only cause problems for the privacy of individuals. but it is heartening that states are beginning to take a stand against the act.

viruses, spyware and filters

i'm sure most people in our class have already read this story on google finding that 1 in 10 websites contain malicious code/viruses/spyware. according to the article, much of it is not written by the site authors, but by third-parties that distribute banner ads, traffic counters, etc. to a variety of domains. but we all know that the chances of getting viruses are greatly increased when visiting porn sites or those enabling illegal downloads. one of the questions that has been raised previously in the class is whether it is worthwhile to acquire library material that we know will just be stolen. on another practical note, at what point do you decide to keep allowing access to sites that continually stay one step ahead of anti-virus software programs? is there a point where the right to receive information is trumped by the need to protect patrons from identity theft, or corruption of personal files/papers? you could argue that users take their own risks when visiting these sites. But it seems unfair if the next patron to use the computer only wants to visit cnn.com, then unknowingly e-mails the virus along with a news story to read later, and ends up infecting her home computer. this is all hypothetical - i have no idea how often this actually affects library i.t. departments. i assume that most libraries do not take responsibility for malicious codes that users download, and are not liable for it. but i'm still curious how many are affected by this.

thoughts on this week's lecture

i really enjoyed all of the lectures for this week, especially the interview with david levithan. i was particularly struck by cindy dobrez's comment about a teacher who could not display presentations that were linked to blocked sites despite the educational purpose. teachers don't have the authority to bypass filters? i'm sure this varies throughout school districts, but after some searching i found several personal accounts verifying this. There was even one website where a student wrote about how he used technology to help teachers get to needed information.

of course local news programs constantly report on instances of improper relationships between faculty/administrators and students. pornography is inevitably found on the fired teacher's school computer, and the school board probably fears that access to such material might fuel lawsuits for somehow encouraging unprofessional behavior. this really ties into the lecture about how the media can exclude all but the most salicious details, in reviews of controversial material and in stories on school scandals. how much porn would be found on the hard drive of the anatomy or sex education teachers' computers? its mere existence doesn't prove any link to bad conduct. of course the multitude of porn sites and pop-ups are extremely annoying when you're trying to search for legitimate information (i won't even go into my results when looking for pictures of nurses for a presentation in lis 510). but, as we have discussed before in the class, when you attempt to block one segment of material, you block other unintended ones as well.

I shouldn't be surprised at the lack of trust given to those who are responsible for educating the youth, but still...

sectioning off

for assignment 2 i cited the case of sund v. city of wichita falls from our i.f. manual, which raised a lot of additional questions for me. in it, the court struck down a city council resolution allowing books, mainly “daddy’s roommate” and “heather has two mommies,” to be moved from the children’s section to the adult section. the court found that it would create a burden for people browsing the children’s section even though the books could still be located through the catalog and were not restricted. so are cataloging decisions just as much about ethics as designing an efficient retrieval system? if i mistakenly label richard brautigan’s “trout fishing in america” as non-fiction in a marc record, could the library be sued for creating a barrier to access even though there was no intention to do so? of course, if the mistake was found it would surely be corrected and there would be no need for a suit. but what about a library that invests little money in hiring a knowledgeable staff? if the library were poorly managed and the materials located in a haphazard manner, could it then be sued then for repeatedly limiting access?

also, i wonder how many librarians and bookstore owners truly think through their decisions when designing and labeling the different subject sections. at times it almost looks like segregation, with so many authors divided by race and sexuality. when i was younger, living in the south and in the closet, i was nervous as hell whenever i stood in the gay and lesbian area. it made me paranoid and certain that everyone around me was staring and judging. why shouldn’t all literature just be labeled as fiction and collocated? is there a reason why african-american and asian authors need separate shelves? i always felt that i was being singled out when browsing, and that the books were either consciously or subconsciously placed there to create a subtle level of intimidation. but it completely depends on the context. when jeanette winterson is in a separate section in a seattle library, it feels more like a positive acknowledgment of diversity. i think it's hard to predict the reactions of patrons and whether they'll view the physical separation as easier access or as a barrier, and is best left together.

net nanny bought out by (potentially) biased company

i recently read a post on librarylaw blog that raised an issue concerning internet filters that i hadn’t considered before. net nanny, which some libraries use, was bought out by contentwatch in february. apparently there are links on the contentwatch website which eventually lead to quotes from religious figures and the christian broadcasting network.

“ContentWatch also maintains a list of articles about pornography and child safety under the heading “LearningCenter.” Their list on pornography includes articles such as “Internet Porn Is a Drug and Pornographers Are Drug Dealers” and “It’s Not About the First Amendment,” both by Mark Kastleman (who has published a book called “The Drug of the New Millennium: The Science of How Internet Pornography Radically Alters the Human Brain and Body,” published by Granite Publishers, which is affiliated with the Latter Day Saints).”

if contentwatch is religiously-biased and not concerned with the first amendment, i wonder if they would be brazen enough to make any obvious changes to the number of sites that are blocked. surely they know librarians are just waiting to pounce on new evidence against the very existence of filters. at this point we can only hope they are that oblivious so the ala can raise new legal challenges to cipa.

the opinions of ala's president-elect on blogs and google will blow your mind

i think the article speaks for itself: revenge of the blog people!

are patrons aware of their rights, and do you trust your librarian?

before deciding to become a librarian (when i was following an english lit track), i was aware of just a few intellectual freedom issues, such as the patriot act’s impact on library records and privacy. i’m revealing my ignorance here, but after beginning the u.w. ischool program, i learned for the first time that you could actually view pornography in a library. i realized that i had never even considered the possibility before. probably most people’s ideas of what is acceptable behavior within libraries are shaped by their first experiences in primary school. you get so used to the faculty limiting almost all of your actions (keeping quiet, sitting still, handling books properly) that it is easy to form a conception of libraries as highly regulated. you simply assume that only “proper” behavior is allowed, with “proper” being limited to privately reading controversial material and not displaying it for others to see.

this naturally leads me to wonder how much of the public knows about all of their rights within libraries. when searching an online catalog, how many people bother to browse the policy section to learn whether it is possible to have filters removed? i have never paid enough attention to notice how many clearly display this information within their buildings, though i will now.

i’m also curious if patrons in tightly-knit communities face more societal barriers to full usage of public resources, whether digital or in print. in my hometown, everyone who worked in the public and school libraries were either parents of friends or well-known to my family. the librarians mostly worked part-time, were only trained to perform general day-to-day functions, and several were notorious gossips. so even if i knew i had the right to view potential objectionable material, i wouldn’t. it would take less than half a day before my parents found out, based on past experience with books. if i were to go back as an adult, i still doubt i would do any research on feminism and sexual imagery with my old sunday school teacher behind the counter just a few feet away.

suing a library for distributing personal records without receiving a warrant may be seen as heroic. but alleging malpractice in an open court after a librarian told all of your friends about your past searches for s.t.d. information would certainly cause more embarrassment. a small library may be able to purchase privacy screens to bypass bad professional behavior, but it’s doubtful that it could afford automatic check-out stations to avoid the old-fashioned embarrassment of handing over a book with sex in the title. this raises the question of whether absolute privacy should be valued over personal service. proper training is clearly important in any library, but it is unfortunately much easier to imagine small libraries making a one-time payment towards technology than continual educational courses or professional-level salaries. of course i don’t mean to imply that the majority of librarians in small communities are not well-educated or act unethically, but i do think this issue deserves more attention. we are more likely to face either overt or subvert judgment - or the revealing of our reading habits in casual conversation - from a librarian than a subpoena for records from the federal government. and it is this “chilling effect” that almost everyone is aware of, yet seems to receive little attention in the literature.