Of interest perhaps to some, a new book out on the Patriot Act: The Impact of USA Patriot Act on American Society: An Evidence Based Assessment, by Kam C. Wong (Dept. of Criminal Justice, Xavier Univ., Cincinnati, Ohio)
Archive for the ‘PATRIOT Act’
Canadian Universities React to the Patriot Act’s Impact on Database Records
Dozens of Canadian university and college libraries are changing how they arrange for their students and faculty to do online research, in part because of a U.S. law intended to detect possible terrorist activity. (via Toni Samek)
- JH
Canadian Terror Suspects…And Libraries?
Reading about the recent arrests of 17 men who were allegedly plotting terrorist attacks in Southwest Ontario, this brief line by RCMP assistant commissioner Mike McDonell at the end of the article caught my eye:
“They can be inspired through the use of the Internet, though library, through books and through their own proselytizing to each other and recruiting and radicalizing individuals.”
I’m categorizing this under “Patriot Act” because we don’t have a category called “Irresponsible Comments By Canadian RCMP Officials.” I mean, if you’re going to cite libraries as an inspiration for terrorists, you might as well hit the entire list and mention television, music, movies, video games and possibly stage plays.
You might as well complain about cars causing traffic accidents, bowling causing school shootings and barbeques causing food poisoning.
To twist the NRA slogan, “Books don’t kill people. People kill people.”
J.
“Measuring law enforcement activity in libraries”
Travelling the library blogosphere at the speed of light, a study by the ALA showing law enforcement interests in library records:
Based on the survey findings, ALA believes that public anxiety and librarian concern over law enforcement activity in libraries is justified. Survey results indicate a total of at least 137 legally executed requests by federal and state/local law enforcement in both academic and public libraries have taken place since October, 2001-63 legally executed requests for records in public libraries and 74 legally executed requests in academic libraries.
This article has a good overview of the context for the study. Apparently, the data for the ALA study was housed on a Canadian server … “beyond the reach of U.S. authorities”. A big Canadian welcome to all PATRIOT Act dodgers out there…
Congress snubs both the PATRIOT Act (section 215) and ACS
Two great votes in Congress:
- “the House passed Congressman Sanders legislation to amend Section 215 of the Patriot Act in order to keep the federal government from accessing Americans’ reading records without a traditional search warrant. ” (Link to story)
- The American Chemical Society has been putting pressure on Congress to cut funding to the NIH’s freely accessible PubChem database. The “House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee approved the annual NIH budget with only the slightest admonishment that both parties work together.” (Link to story).
Unconstitutional: PATRIOT Act movie
There will be a film screening at the ALA conference (Monday, June 27) of the movie Unconstitutional. The movie
details the shocking way that civil liberties of American citizens and immigrants alike have been infringed upon, curtailed, and rolled back since 9/11 and the USA Patriot Act.
Robert Greenwald, the director, also directed Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election, and Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War.
What’s new over at the CLA
I hadn’t been to the CLA’s site in a while (wish they had RSS!). Here are two new highlights of interest:
- USA PATRIOT Act ~ Implications for Cdn. Libraries. A nice briefing note explaining the dangers of outsourcing library patron data (or any Canadian data) to US companies. That made me think of something even more scary. Apparently the Canadian government is outsourcing its data collection for the 2006 Census to Lockheed Martin! (yes! the weapons manufacturer!). That means that all of the data on Canadian citizens will be in the hands of an american weapons manufacturer! And by extension ALL of that information will be searchable under the PATRIOT Act. Big Brother really is watching now.
- Is the WTO/TRIPS Agreement User Friendly? I haven’t had a chance to read this 46 page analysis of international copyright law in the context of Canadian copyright law, but the executive summary seems to say that nothing in TRIPS can be forced onto Canadian law, but “user groups” should still advocate for acceptable models of copyright law. When the copyright law is tabled (soon?), we’ll see if user groups will have had any influence compared to big business and international pressure.