(obDisclaimer: I am not a lawyer, or a librarian (yet.) I am just a know-it-all student and information scientist with an opinion. This is a rant-in-time post, of an opinion that may change over time or be supplanted by something even dumber in the future. I welcome any discussions that move that along.)

There was a story floating around the blogspace this month about a student at Umass / Dartmouth University who ordered a special version of “The Little Red Book,” a communist text, via a university inter-library loan (ILL in the lingo.) Allegedly, (anytime I use/hear that word, I think of the movie “Primal Fear”) the student was approached by federal officers who questioned him at his home about the loan. This was proof to the academic and librarian circles that library requests are being monitored by the PATRIOT act, and everyone’s been buzzing about it. (I’ll post-edit this later with backstory links. If you know of any good ones, please let me know.)

Turns out, this was all a hoax. The student made up the claims about the federal interrogations. This was not proof of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) monitoring ILLs. The student didn’t seem to have a good justification for why he made up the elaborate story, but he did note it made him more popular. It’s also worth noting that if he wouldn’t have kept making the story grander and grander each time he told it, his ruse (cunning attempt to trick me) would never have been discovered.

That doesn’t mean PATRIOT sponsored government monitoring doesn’t happen, but it shows two important things: The interested folks (information scientists, some librarians, some well connected bloggers; some are both,) go crazy when they get tangible information about the information monitoring/smothering effects of the PATRIOT act, even if it’s not true. And, because of the stealthy nature of the PATRIOT act it’s completely possible for people to get wrong and bad information and run with it. National Security Letters (NSLs, the enforcement instruments of the PATRIOT act,) are worded to gag the information providers (librarians or ISPs or the like,) who receive them from informing the being-monitored persons of the request. The information providers are prohibited from talking about the NSL at all, in any form.

This kind of cloak-and-dagger enforcement works against the open trial, habeas corpus, full disclosure rights and protections of the rest of our legal system. It’s the reason the public has no trust or reliance in the PATRIOT act – we all agree we’d like to stop terrorism, but there’s no proof monitoring student’s library usage, especially without any notice or justifiable evidence or court/judge/jury/DA approval. We further our society by publicizing our legal system, which allows us to examine current cases and precedence and get a better feeling for the just-ness of our society. This eventually leads to social reform, but it has to happen in an open, questionable environment. PATRIOT blocks this, in the name of stopping terrorism.

I hope that PATRIOT has been effective, and that the post-9/11 is safer because of it, but I’m also glad that the bill has serious bipartisan opposition in Congress, and it was not blindly renewed. Smarter people than me will continue to review the law (thanks, in part, to Michael Moore film – whether you agree with it or not,) and hopefully rewrite it so that the world can be kept safe and free without suffering freedom or personal liberty.

Next semester, I’m taking a class focusing on libraries and society, and things like personal liberties and law enforcement in information societies will certainly be discussed. I’m looking forward to that.