By Mark David Blum, Esq.

"According to Gestapo records ... they had little need to engage in direct spying on the citizens since the citizens themselves were more than willing to do their spying for them. Some informants spied on their neighbors because they actually believed the propaganda … Some denounced their enemies in order to settle personal grudges. Some were driven by their own fears to attempt to deflect attention away from them-selves … Some were motivated by the sense of power turning in their neighbors gave them." (Kort E. Patterson)

Last week here in Upstate New York, local Syracuse news stations broke in one evening and blared about an arrest at a local library. A convicted sex offender on parole was nabbed viewing porn on library computers; in violation of the terms and conditions of his release. Apparently, a man came into the Solvay library and asked to use a computer away from other people. That request made the librarian “suspicious” such that, “she ran his name through the state's computerized sex-offender registry”. His name came up and the librarian immediately called police. Police then searched the computer and determined the man was viewing pornography.

Nothing more epitomizes and sets the gold standard as the sina qua non for the true meaning of liberty than a local public library. From Thomas Jefferson through Edward R. Murrow, cognition of the role the library plays in American society is how the library is very precious, special, and reserved for a place amongst our most hallowed institutions.

Librarians are supposed to be the gatekeepers and guardians of the rights of expression, access to reading materials, free speech, and endless learning. The American Library Association considers it to be chief amongst a Librarian’s ethical responsibilities to protect “the privacy of library users”; including the confidentiality of information sought or received, and materials consulted, borrowed, acquired." In 2000, the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress passed through the Child’s Internet Protection Act which predicated federal library funding upon local libraries blocking minor’s access to deemed offensive materials. The American Library Association fought the government all the way to the United States Supreme Court. In the end, the government prevailed but only because the Supreme Court found that adults would not be in any way burdened by the blocking software and indeed could unblock the block.

Unfortunately librarians here in Upstate New York do not even attempt for themselves the same ethical guidelines and standards to which their national counterparts strive. Instead, our libraries have censorship policies and go out of their way to arrange public computers so that monitors can be monitored by library staff. The Manlius public library was specifically designed to give librarians direct viewing of patron’s viewing. To all their credit, few libraries have blocking software installed. They do not need such software when the Library Marm is standing over you tapping her ruler and judging the content of your reading material. How miserable a place that library must be when the lunchlady librarian is reading along over your shoulder.

Which brings us back to the Solvay library: The librarian involved should be fired and banned from ever being again in a position of public trust. She should go to work for the DEA where snitches are a mainstay. In a public library, we the People look to our librarians as our guardians and protectors from excessive government intrusion. They stand the wall so we can rest easy and consume their product.

Consider what that woman did. A patron walks into the library and asks to use a computer with a monitor not facing the public. That single act made the librarian “suspicious” such that she went investigating this patron. He still has committed no crime or improper act. But when the librarian finds out he is a convicted sex offender, she takes it upon herself to call local police. If his parole required him to stay away from computers or porn, fine – that is between him and the Parole Board. But there is no way that librarian knew the patron was on parole and was limited as to where he could be and what he could read. Yet, sua sponte, she called police and reported him and only did so because he wanted to read in privacy.

Then, despite there not having been a crime committed, police continued to hunt for information and searched the patron’s computer (with the library’s consent) and found the man had been allegedly viewing porn. Again, whether this violates his parole is not the issue. Librarians who invite in police and encourage them to investigate a patron’s reading history, without warrant or due process or even probable cause, is a vile offense to their duty to society. Solvay librarians should be ashamed of themselves. Citizens of Solvay should be wary about using their library.

The attacks on our freedoms and violations of our rights since the 2000 election have reached a level unprecedented in history. Our mail, our telephone calls, our internet chatter, our financial transactions, our medical records, our travel records, and every other aspect of our personal sphere of private life is now invaded and monitored by the police and government. It is the responsibility of every American to defend what little privacy he can and protect the few remaining liberties available. One assumes that our librarians are standing with us in defense of our fundamental rights. If the current trend holds true and Onondaga County librarians are the new National standard of library ethics, then none of us is safe.

Sadly too is that it will be the poor and the weak who suffer from this new library policy. Affluent folks and most adults have their own computers and internet access. Only the poor, the weary traveler, the maturing young adult, and the lonely will seek out the solace of a library. Eventually, as technology expands, more and more books are coming online and are in formats easier to consume. Taken to its logical conclusion, librarians nowadays are the next generation of blacksmiths. With the rise of the automobile, an entire industry disappeared. It will not be long before libraries too disappear into the ether.

So query how this dying dusty industry is going to keep itself relevant. We need to be able to trust libraries and librarians to stand behind their most fundamental duties and be guardians of our free right to access and uncensored information. Unfortunately in Solvay, librarians there are snitches and agents of the government. None of us is safe.