Re: Escrowing Viewing and Reading Habits with the Governmen

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 8:12 PM 1/29/96, Alan Horowitz wrote:
>> > Do you really think that the FBI foreign counter-intelligence squad has
>> > nothing better to do than keep a database of who is reading Che Guevara
>> > memoirs?
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>> Heck, I remember this was a big issue about 15 years ago. Try asking
>> someone who was active in library science in the late 70's, early 80's.
>
>
>    I did. They said you're wrong. Shall we start a CP flame-war of
>unattributed allegations from librarians who will recall what *they
>thought* the FBI is interested in?

I'm not interested in a flame war about librarians and the FBI, but will
tell you what I know: the "Library Awareness Program" was very real. It
reached public awareness in the mid- to late-80s, and was the subject of
numerous news reports.

The various librarian unions blew the whistle on this. As I recall, new
stantards about access to materials by patrons, and privacy expectations,
were issued.

Ah! Once again I thank Alta Vista. A simple search on "Library Awareness
Program" revealed 20 hits on the Web. Here is an excerpt from one of the
hits:

------

WHAT'S NEW, Friday, 3 June 1988 Washington, DC

1. THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE FILED SUIT AGAINST THE FBI

yesterday to force the release of documents relevant to the FBI's "Library
Awareness Program" (WN 9 Oct 87). The documents were requested under
the Freedom of Information Act eleven months ago. The FBI at first denied
the existence of the program, and now contends it is confined to the New
York area, but librarians from all over the country report FBI visits.
Meanwhile, the FBI has not provided a single document either to the
National
Security Archive, or to the American Library Association, which filed a
similar FOIA request. People for the American Way is assisting the National
Security Archive in its lawsuit.

2. THE FBI'S "LIBRARY AWARENESS PROGRAM"

is not an effort to raise the literacy of its agents. Even as President
Reagan was lecturing to students at the University of Moscow on the virtues
of a
free society, his new FBI chief, William Sessions, before a Senate
Committee, was defending the FBI's attempts to recruit library employees as
snitches. Sessions released an unclassified version of a top-secret FBI
report that must have been ghost written by Art Buchwald. Entitled "The KGB
and the Library Target: 1962 - Present," it includes examples of suspicious
behavior, such as an individual who "is observed departing the library
after having placed microfiche or various documents in a briefcase without
properly checking them out of the library."
....

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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
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