Amy Goodman and David Goodman (of Democracy Now) have an article in the current Mother Jones magazine about the great Windsor, Connecticut librarians’ defiance of the FBI and the PATRIOT Act and ultimate court victory for all of us on constitutional grounds.
I’ve always been appalled by British libel law as long as I’ve known about it. Basically it puts a strong onus on defendants to prove that what they have said is true, rather than on the accuser to prove that it is false. The result is an excessive real-world limitation on freedom of speech for authors, journalists, and speakers. It has recently resulted in something known as “libel tourism,” where a powerful person or corporation that has been criticized in the press or in a book can take sue the author in British courts to take advantage of their favorable laws.
Now the United Nations has taken a position. They say that British libel law violates human rights. The UK Guardian has a report on the UN’s statement from their Thursday issue.
From IFACTION.
A favorite debate of pessimistic sophomores, or perhaps sophomoric pessimists, is as to whether our society and its future is more like George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It’s such a common juxtaposition and so simple to talk about it that I bring it up at the risk of terribly oversimplifying things. But Orwell and Huxley knew each other (Huxley was the elder), and these are two important satiric novels from the same time period dealing with the same questions. Together they provide an easy framework for talking about two visions of dystopia that relate to social questions of today.
For Orwell, the threat of totalitarianism was of a society controlled by fear, where people knew that they were oppressed but had lost the freedom to stand up against the forces of oppression. He was clearly worried about forces that pull us toward out-and-out fascist or communist totalitarian societies. For Huxley, the threat came from another direction – the narcotic pleasures of an affluent society and people’s susceptibility to the soft propaganda of advertising and group identity. For Huxley, the evil to be worried about was not fascism or communism but something that he saw our own capitalist societies quietly sinking into, like sleep. Huxley would have been at home with some of the basic critiques, if not the language, of the Frankfurt School thinkers’ responses to advanced capitalism (though Huxley was not writing about capitalism per se).
In both novels, society has cut people off from nature and from their own souls, and has taken away their freedom and anything more than a semblance of democratic control. In both novels, society is overtaken by order, but the feel of this order and the manner in which it is maintained are different.
Both novels are also concerned, at certain levels, with the construction of knowledge and the way that truth is communicated or effaced in society. That is to say, they are both concerned with intellectual freedom.
There certainly have been some 1984-like developments in American society since Orwell was writing, and these have accelerated since 9/11/2001. The Federal government has given itself more powers of surveillance and has eroded constitutional protections against tyranny.
Our American Library Association, in keeping with its commitment to intellectual freedom, has spoken up against provisions in the USA PATRIOT ACT and other legislation and executive orders that have eroded our civil liberties during this time. And going further back, ALA and the Freedom to Read Foundation have fought and continue to fight censorship efforts by community members uncomfortable with some ideas present in libraries, and to protect unrestricted access to the internet by opposing the overuse of content filters. ALA’s Intellectual Freedom establishment is working hard to defend our society against a future that is like George Orwell’s 1984.
I will lay my cards on the table and say that I think the greater threat to our freedom, at least at present, is not a 1984 scenario, but is a threat much more like Huxley’s Brave New World. This isn’t to say that ALA shouldn’t fight censorship, or be opposed to filtering, or work against the PATRIOT ACT. It should continue to do those things. But I definitely think that ALA’s Intellectual Freedom establishment should broaden its viewpoint and look at the ways in which information as entertainment gradually works against information literacy and self-government, and the ways in which market forces can limit rather than expand the availability and use of ideas. It has begun to do this, to a certain extent; the report, “Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries,” published a year ago, is a good example of some thinking from ALA’s IF community that is cognizant of the nature of threats to intellectual freedom in a Huxleyan world. The sub-committee that produced it has since been disbanded, but it remains a step in the right direction. More thinking along these lines will require creativity – because the Huxleyan threat is by nature less obvious, more subtle, and more complex – and a certain amount of courage, because people will militate for their next entertainment fix. (”I want my MTV!”)
Unfortunately, ALA is also taking steps in the wrong direction. Just as an example, ALA is presently putting resources into a campaign to help library users prepare for the transition to digital broadcast television. Television is probably the one greatest social development since Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931 that has pleasurably herded us in the direction he described. It is difficult to see what digital broadcast television has to do with libraries, and it seems as though ALA is participating in this campaign as a way of apologizing for being about books, and to try to disassociate libraries from boring, antiquated print media and the discipline of scholarship that goes with it. Aside from that, in a general way, I think that some of the trends that we are seeing in libraries that are based on “feel good” measures may end up short-circuiting and impoverishing independent thought in a narcotic way, rather than supporting democracy as they are advertised as doing. These are not simple questions, and require looking into things more deeply than most people have the time or the inclination to do.
If I’ve piqued your interest in Aldous Huxley, I can recommend a reading for you on the web: Brave New World Revisited, a series of essays that he wrote about modern Western society, looking back on the vision of his novel from the vantage point of 1958. I have found his ideas very useful.
Carol Kreck, a librarian, was arrested and removed from a public campaign event for John McCain in Denver yesterday. She was in front of the Denver Center for Performing Arts, and was charged with trespassing. Can you trespass on public property?
Here’s the video and some more info…
The Los Angeles Times reports that Wendy Gonaver, an American Studies instructor at Cal State Fullerton and a Quaker, was fired from her job for refusing to sign a loyalty oath. She was willing to sign it with an attached statement qualifying her willingness to “defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic” through non-violent means only, but her request was denied. As a pacifist, she felt she couldn’t sign, and she was fired. This is a problem that Quakers and Jehovah’s Witnesses often face, apparently. Definitely seems that something ought to be changed here. In Gonaver’s case, her dismissal is ironic, because she has a passion for teaching about our constitutional rights…
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee is a group founded in November, 2001 that works to protect (and restore) civil rights and liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. They do a good job of tracking legislation that has civil rights implications, and also promote discussions and educational projects on a local level.
The thing I want to share is their People’s Campaign for the Constitution, which is an effort to make the Constitution and the Bill of Rights a central focus for civic activists (and voters) who are responding to threats to civil liberties posed by specific legislation or state actions. They view the election year as an ideal time to focus on the Bill of Rights in order to tackle a range of legislation rather than going at them one at a time. The link above has a nice chart that lays out the specific amendments to the constitution that are violated by recent state actions and anti-terrorism legislation.
Personally, I think our constitution is not ideal and is past time for a major revision; however, the political situation being what it it is, I think we need it badly and would probably like it better than the new one that politics would produce today in this country…
Thanks to Jim Kuhn for sharing information about the People’s Campaign for the Constitution with listservs today.
I have not said anything about the controversy over the Golden Compass, because the issue has seemed too simple and clear cut to warrant comment. But take a look at what appeared in this week’s American Libraries Direct:
The Golden Compass accused of anti-Catholic bias
Several Toronto-area Catholic school boards in Ontario have removed Philip Pullman‚Äôs The Golden Compass fantasy novel from library shelves for review following a complaint in the municipality of Halton in late November. The novel and its two companions in the ‚ÄúHis Dark Materials‚Äù trilogy are receiving heightened scrutiny for their allegedly anti-Catholic content prior to the December 7 U.S. release of The Golden Compass movie (right) starring Nicole Kidman and Donald Craig. ALA President Loriene Roy issued a statement December 4 urging libraries to resist calls for censoring the books or boycotting the film….
I find this way of covering the issue quite interesting. Up to this, I had only seen the book attacked for the author’s “open atheism,” which seems so blatantly forgetful of the fact that we (in the U.S. and Canada) don’t live in a theocracy that the story pretty much spoke for itself. But restating the issue in terms of an “accusation” of “anti-Catholic bias” puts the story in the frame of anti-defamation, hate speech, and multiculturalism, an area where intellectual freedom has some competition from other progressive values.
This kind of pisses me off. Freedom of speech means that we are free to criticize a religion. Here, American Libraries Direct is using the word “accusation” in reference to the book’s anti-religious viewpoint, as though such a viewpoint would be criminal or immoral. The word “bias” suggests that an unfavorable opinion of a religion amounts to prejudice, as though we are talking about a minority ethnic group that has a legitimate interest in countering false stereotypes and misunderstanding. Religions are belief systems and organizations, and should be just as open to criticism as political parties or corporations. We should be able to talk about specific beliefs, including beliefs that form a religious doctrine, as the beliefs that they are, separate from the political baggage of institutional sacredness. If Philip Pullman wants to tell a story that contains an anti-religious viewpoint, “accusation” is not the appropriate word to use regarding what he is doing, any more than saying that C. S. Lewis has been “accused” of incorporating a Christian viewpoint in The Chronicles of Narnia. Some may not like Philip Pullman’s beliefs, but others like them. He is not advocating crime or immorality, as the word “accused” implies. American Libraries Direct should not use phrases like “allegedly anti-Catholic content” when it’s not a crime in Canada (as far as I know) to criticize a religion. If the Church doesn’t like it, too f-ing bad!
First, Jeffrey Chester’s Google and Data-Seizure, about the significance of Google’s acquisition of Doubleclick, the internet marketing and company whose business is based on showing banner ads and tracking users’ web surfing. The article is primarily about privacy and what Google’s continuing acquisition of websites means for it (as the data is conglomerated).
Second, Tom Englehardt’s The Draconian Becomes the Norm, which is also about privacy, but in terms of how we are discarding it in the interest of post9/11 “safety.” Our loss of privacy is partly driven, the article asserts, by the clout of the surveillance industry, which is big business.
A creative MIT student made a thing out of a circuit board and some LEDs and wore it on her shirt. She’s young, 19, so it’s understandable that she didn’t quite understand how things are in airports these days, and when she walked into Logan Airport she was surrounded at gunpoint by security men who suspected her of carrying an explosive device.
Her self-description: “In a sentence, I’m an inventor, artist, engineer, and student, I love to build things and I love crazy ideas.”
The head of security: “I‚Äôm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport.”
Lots of comments on blogs saying that she is an idiot. She’s a college sophomore. Not many comments about what a loss it is to our culture that simple creativity generates such paranoia.
Note that Boston’s police were the same ones who freaked out about the Aqua Teen Hunger Force ad campaign and arrested the artists there.
The New York Tims has a story dated yesterday about a change dictated from the top in the libraries of U.S. Federal Prisons, called the “Standardized Chapel Library Project.” With the rationale of preventing violent religious extremism among prisoners, religious books in Federal prison libraries will now be a standardized collection – 150 books for each library, following a list of approved titles selected by “religious experts.”
According to a range of religious scholars interviewed by the Times, the list of 150 titles is odd. Among its ideosyncracies are that where Christianity is concerned it is heavy on Calvinism and Evangelicalism, leaving out liberal theologians and writings representing major Protestant denominations (no books by Karl Barth or Reinhold Niebuhr); where Judaism is concerned it is mostly books published by a single Orthodox publishing house, and three-quarters of the Jewish books at a prison in Otisville, NY were removed from the shelves based on the new list. Several inmates at Otisville have filed a class action lawsuit alleging that the Standardized Chapel Library Project violates their first amendment rights.
Some people are thinking: “It’s prison, people are supposed to lose their rights.” I have two responses. First, it is easy to think this way until you are put in prison yourself, which I am afraid can happen all too easily in a country that puts a higher percentage of its people in prison than any other, and where social policies become progressively more punitive and more and more based on irrational fear with each decade. Second, prisoners are entitled to basic human rights, even if there are legal rights that they can be expected to lose. The freedom to read is a basic human right. And at the risk of offending some of my atheist colleagues, I think that theological study, while I wouldn’t say it deserves special protection in prison libraries versus other literature, is something that for many prisoners represents an essential tool for coping with imprisonment and for dealing with a violent past. Many prisoners become serious students of theology. Cutting them off from the literature they need for these studies seems more like sadism than a reasonable kind of punishment, especially since it goes against rehabilitation. And given what is on and what is off of the list, the government’s rationale of preventing terrorism can’t be taken very seriously.
For Immediate Release
July 11, 2007
CHICAGO – The American Library Association’s governing body has unanimously passed a resolution condemning the use of National Security Letters (NSLs) to obtain library records and urging Congress to pursue immediate reforms of NSL procedures.
The resolution, adopted at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., arose out of the ALA’s concerns over the misuse and abuse of National Security Letters detailed in the March, 2007 report submitted to Congress by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General. The report describes how the FBI engaged in widespread and serious abuses of its authority to use NSLs, including significantly understating the number of NSLs used by the FBI in the classified reports given to Congress; using NSLs to collect consumer information, a practice prohibited by statute; and circumventing the requirements of the NSL statute to obtain information in the absence of any duly authorized investigation.
The resolution also supports George Christian’s appeal to Congress to reconsider the NSL authorities that allow the FBI to subject innocent people to fishing expeditions of their personal information with no judicial review. Christian, executive director of the Library Connection in Windsor, Connecticut, testified before Congress on behalf of himself and his colleagues, librarians Janet Nocek, Barbara Bailey, and Peter Chase, about their experience in being served with an NSL to obtain library users’ records and being gagged from discussing it. In his testimony, Christian asked the Senators “to take special note of the uses and abuses of NSLs in libraries and bookstores and other places where higher First Amendment standards should be considered.” The four – known as the “Connecticut John Does”- were presented with the ALA Paul Howard Award for Courage at the conference.
Among the legislative reforms ALA urges are:
* Judicial oversight of National Security Letters (NSLs) requiring a showing of individualized suspicion and demonstrating a factual connection between the individual whose records are sought by the FBI and an actual investigation;
* Elimination of the automatic and permanent imposition of a nondisclosure or “gag” order whenever an NSL is served on an individual or institution;
* Allowing recipients of NSLs to receive meaningful judicial review of a challenge to their NSL without deferring to the government’s claims;
* Increased oversight by Congress and the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice over NSLs and FBI activities that implicate the First Amendment; and
* Providing for the management, handling, dissemination and destruction of personally identifiable information obtained through NSLs
ALA has sent letters communicating the resolution to the Offices of the President and Vice President as well as to every member of Congress. ALA further asked its members, state chapters, and all library advocates to ask Congress to restore civil liberties and correct the abuse and misuse of National Security Letters.
The “Resolution on the Use and Abuse of National Security Letters” is online.
The American Library Association is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 65,000 members.
Elaine Harger, outgoing coordinator of the ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table, compiled a list of resolutions by ALA Council on the War on Terror, for distribution to congressional offices on Tuesday, which was a day of lobbying during the ALA Conference in Washington, DC. The list is online in PDF form, and also here:
American Library Association statements re: the “War on Terror”
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States government has implemented policies, practices and legislation that have compromised the democratic ideals of our country. These include activities that violate the constitutional rights of American citizens, promote a war based on a campaign of disinformation, and continue to bring about widespread destruction and loss of life abroad. The American Library Association has passed numerous resolutions addressing these concerns, excerpts of which appear below.
Brought to your attention by the Social Responsibilities Round Table of ALA
Washington DC, June 26, 2007
2003 – ON CIVIL LIBERTIES & USA PATRIOT Act
Resolution on the USA PATRIOT Act and Related Measures that Infringe on the Rights of
Library Users
“RESOLVED, that the American Library Association considers sections of the USA PATRIOT Act are a present danger to the constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users…”
Adopted by the Council of ALA, January 29, 2003
2003 – ON DESTRUCTION OF CULTURAL RESOURCES IN IRAQ
Resolution on Libraries and Cultural Resources in Iraq
“RESOLVED, that the American Library Association (ALA) deplores the inaction of the U.S. and British authorities to secure cultural institutions to prevent the loss of precious cultural resources in Iraq; and be it further…
RESOLVED, that ALA urges the U.S. government to provide funding for the reconstruction and rebuilding of libraries and other cultural institutions in Iraq and to collaborate with UNESCO and other international and national bodies working to remedy this loss to the cultural record of humanity….”
Adopted by the Council of ALA, June 25, 2003
2004 – ON TORTURE
Resolution Against the Use of Torture as a Violation of the American Library Association’s Basic Values
“RESOLVED, that ALA condemns the use or threat of use of torture by the U.S. government as a barbarous violation of human rights, intellectual freedom and the rule of law.”
Adopted by the Council of ALA, June 30, 2004
2005 – ON GOVERNMENT DISTORTION & DESTRUCTION OF INFORMATION
Resolution on Disinformation, Media Manipulation & the Destruction of Public Information
“RESOLVED, that the American Library Association goes on record as being opposed to the use by government of disinformation, media manipulation, the destruction and excision of public information, and other such tactics;…”
Adopted by the Council of ALA, June 29, 2005
2005 – ON U.S. TROOP WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ
Resolution on the Connection Between the Iraq War and Libraries
“RESOLVED, that the American Library Association calls for the withdrawal from Iraq of all U.S. military forces, and the return of full sovereignty to the people of Iraq….”
Adopted by the Council of ALA on June 29, 2005
2006 – ON GENOCIDE
Resolution on the Darfur Genocide
“WHEREAS, over the past three years between 180,000 and 400,000 civilians have been killed in the Darfur region of Sudan, 2,000,000 people have been displaced, 2,000 villages have been burned and their wells poisoned, and women of all ages have been raped by government-supported Janjaweed militias;…
RESOLVED, that the American Library Association Council urges all the relevant ALA units and the profession-at-large to highlight and explain the Darfur genocide through collections, programs, displays, resource guides, and other suitable means….”
Adopted by the Council of ALA on June 27, 2006
From Al Kagan:
One of my colleagues here has encouraged me to distribute this letter more widely, so here it is. It appears in the latest issue of the IFLA Journal 33, 1 (2007): 5-6.
Letter to the Editor
Freedom of the Press, Social Responsibility and the Danish Cartoons
I would like to comment on the IFLA FAIFE program concerning the Danish cartoons and the recent follow-up article in the IFLA Journal.1 The program and article are a welcome and timely overview of the theoretical issues, history, and legal framework regarding freedom of expression and free access to information. They help us understand our role as librarians in a general way when confronted with tricky collection development and access issues. They do not, however, delve into the even thornier issues of social responsibility around the context of this particular case.
Library science students are usually taught and our literature is full of the misconception that our work should be “neutral.” This usually means that we must treat all library users equally, take care to balance our collections with materials on all points-of-view, and refrain from taking social and political stands. Advocates of progressive and explicitly socially responsible library organizations2 generally debunk this myth of neutrality. They argue that while we should of course treat all library users with equal respect, we often fail in balancing our collections and our actions are certainly not neutral. These advocates note that library collections often pay little attention to alternative viewpoints outside the mainstream discourse and that we often self-censor ourselves when considering the purchase of materials that may offend some library users for whatever reasons. Even so, many librarians who self-censor themselves will probably agree with the theory even if they find it difficult or impossible to carry it out.
However the point of real controversy is often the idea that librarians and their associations must remain politically neutral. But even a glance at what we do disproves this assertion. We regularly oppose censorship and support freedom of expression. We advocate for empowering our library users through access to information, provide literacy training, sponsor interesting programs and exhibits on controversial issues, advocate privacy for our users, and even challenge national security legislation like the USA PATRIOT Act. In all of these areas we advance our social responsibility agenda.
Coming back to the Danish cartoons, one should ask why they were published at this time, what the publisher hoped to gain, and why there was such a strong reaction. The answers to these questions are political. The Middle East is in flames because the current U.S. Administration is crusading to remake those countries into nominally democratic client states while grabbing control of the oil. Given that the US Government has overthrown the secular government of Iraq, the religious extremists have filled a power vacuum. All Muslims have been demonized in the West for the brutal actions of the groups that have used horrific tactics against the US Occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. The backlash against the large number of immigrant Muslim workers in Europe is part of this picture. The Danish newspaper that published these cartoons has been drawn into this nightmare political situation. Whether or not the editors of Jyllands Posten understood the likely reaction to their publication of the cartoons, the seeds of this reaction were firmly in place.
We need to address the collection development and access issues around this affair, but we also need to reflect on what else we might do as actors in civil society. The American Library Association Council has passed resolutions to lobby against torture and for withdrawing troops from Iraq. If we take our social responsibility seriously, we must act in civil society to try to counter the situations that give rise to events such as the Danish cartoons affair. Our commitment to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has little meaning for the people who have been killed, maimed, or exiled by the US war against Iraq. I would like to challenge IFLA to follow ALA in taking a stand. Furthermore other national library associations can act in the same way as ALA to lobby for peace in their respective countries. The UK is the United States’ junior partner in the occupation of Iraq. It would therefore be most appropriate and helpful for CILIP3 to get involved.
The access and collection issues around the Danish cartoons are only part of the story. We need to lobby for peace as the basic foundation for all the rest of our work.
Al Kagan
IFLA FAIFE Member
ALA Councilor representing the ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table
The justice department has been abusing a provision in the PATRIOT Act allowing them to issue “national security letters” to obtain information on citizens (140,000 so far) without a court order and with the famous gag order imposed.
The Washington Post has published a revealing article by one of these recipients of a National Security Letter (identity withhheld).
In Seattle last week ALA passed this Resolution in Support of Immigrants Rights:
Resolved, that ALA strongly supports the protection of each person’s civil liberties regardless of that individual’s nationality, residency, or status; and be it further resolved that ALA opposes any legislation that infringes on the rights of anyone in the USA (citizen or otherwise) to use library resources on national, state, and local levels.”