Read Any Good Books, Lately?
Hey there, Miss Librarian! What you are checking out at the library just might get someone’s attention! We’ve lost more privacy!! Your checkout list at the library is the government’s business!
In the news, I read that The Patriot Act has made it easier for federal agents to look at library and bookstore records! Well, that doesn’t make ME nervous, except for the fact that we can’t do much of anything anymore without the government sticking their nose into our business. Now, if I stop and think about how my neighbor may be reading books about bomb building, I’m not quite so mad.
It’s just frustrating how much freedom we have to give up to be safe.
A Vermont librarian, Trina Magi, didn’t like the that part of The Patriot Act, either. She feared the law would stymy people’s curiosity as well as take away more of our civil liberties. “We want to nurture a love of inquiry, not squelch it or make people afraid to ask questions.” Magi stated.
Magi led the local protest against this part of the Patriot Act, and librarians with similar opinion have been buying paper shredders, purging borrowing recoreds, and warning patrons that their records are no longer private.
I don’t like to lose privacy, but in the end, I’m thinking “I’m not very upset that someone who wants bomb building information has their name on a list.”
My library list would not interest anyone, so I don’t care, however, I do understand, that what I think is harmless, such as a Perry Mason novel, the federal government might decide differently. None of us want our chances of being rounded up and hauled in for questioning of innocent reading or actions on our part as a piece of our ordinary day. It smacks of Marxism, yes?
Hm. What to do, what to do. Freedom and protection is divided by a fine line, that appears to have thinned even more.
Now, we have to worry about the Library??
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