Judah Hamer, the current president of the Vermont Library Association, wrote a good opinion piece in the Burlington Free Press responding to a parent’s editorial concerned about Vermont’s new patron privacy laws. I think it’s always a good idea that official-type library people spend the time to outline just why we feel privacy is important and speaking up in order to dispell rumors that spread about what did and did not happen in a given library dispute.
2 thoughts on “protecting privacy in libraries”
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Thanks for the heads up on the piece– i find it very interesting. I think that it’s really scary that the police have the ability to retrieve library computers at all, much less so easily. I believe that the patriot act has made things extremely difficult for libraries all across the country and leaves no privacy for the patrons. It’s not fair that “public access” means “no privacy”.
I’m not a legal expert by any means, but I can’t understand why the police in the Bennett case tried to proceed without a court order. Wouldn’t any evidence obtained without one have been inadmissable?
Anyway, thanks for linking to this. It’s always nice having something like this to refer to.