LIBRARY WORKERS at the Seattle Public Library are united in their opposition to provisions of the USA Patriot Act that give government agents the right to check their computers and files to find out what patrons have been reading.

“We regard it as a serious compromise to people who use the library facilities,” says John Sheets, vice president for librarians in Local 2083. “What you read and what Internet sites you visit are your own business.

“Library workers all over the country are concerned about the new legislation.”

The library workers expressed their concern in a resolution approved at Council 2’s biennial convention held in Tacoma in June. The resolution reads, “That we as library workers, public employees, union members and concerned citizens affirm our opposition to the USA Patriot Act as destructive of libraries; and that information on this resolution be widely distributed to inspire similar action by our fellow union members and citizens.”
Librarians see a major part of their professional responsibility as allowing patrons to obtain any information they wish without records being kept of their activities.

Yet the new antiterrorism law gives government agencies broad access to the records of library patrons who are not suspected of any crime.

“There is always a balance between the need for privacy and government’s need to know what is going on,” Sheets says. “But in this legislation we see the balance being tipped against the rights of citizens to freely obtain information.

“If someone suspects you are an agent of a foreign power the government can conduct surveillance. And the law prevents the library staff from telling individuals they are being watched,” he adds.

“The new law makes people think twice about whether they want to use the library.

“American democracy cannot operate unless there is freedom to obtain information — and the library is one of the places people obtain that information,” Sheets says.