IFRT: Intellectual Freedom Round Table

The Pirate Party and Annual Conference

2011-05-20T09:53:00.010-05:00

Save The Date
June 25, 1:30-3:30 PM
Location: Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Room 288-290

IFRT is excited to announce our program from the upcoming ALA Annual Conference, “New Technologies: The Impact on Government Transparency.” Are you Interested in government transparency, its effect on libraries, and how changes in technology affect how we share information? Rick Falkvinge, founder of Sweden's Pirate Party, will be joining us in New Orleans, LA, to speak about how the evolution of information-sharing tools have impacted government transparency.

Who is Rick Falkvinge? He is the founder of the first Pirate Party and a campaigner for next-generation civil liberties and sensible information policy. In particular, he stresses how the copyright industries work in collusion with Big Brother hawks to erode or eliminate the parts of Internet that guarantee our civil liberties. On this platform, one of privacy and digital rights, his party became the largest in the below-30 demographic in the 2009 European Elections. When not doing politics or exploring technical subjects in detail, Mr. Falkvinge can usually be seen cooking, sampling a scotch whisky, or riding a fast motorcycle.

If you care about copyright, civil liberties, and freedom of speech, be sure to include this thought-provoking program on your conference calendar.

For more information on the Pirate Party (http://www.pp-international.net/) and Mr. Falkvinge (http://falkvinge.net/).

Photo Credit: Carl Johan Rehbinder

New Year for the IFRT

2010-11-14T16:02:00.003-06:00

I am very excited to work with the IFRT members during this year continuing to promote access to information, presenting programs about topics of interest, and adding social media to reach out to new and existing members. To this end, I have started a new IFRT Monthly Video Series to promote intellectual freedom among ALA members. I am most grateful to a number of our own OIF and IFRT colleagues which agreed to participate in the videos such as Barbara Jones, Director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, Kent Oliver, President of the Freedom to Read Foundation, Dr. Carrie Gardner, Martin Garnar, Douglas Archer, and Carolyn Caywood. Watch our videos and share with others!

American Constitution Society

2010-06-21T13:09:00.002-05:00

This is a repost from Barbara Jones, Director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom

"I attended the ACS Annual Meeting last week and it was simply wonderful for “constitution geeks” and those legal and public policy professionals looking for an alternative to the “originalism” theory. "

"I urge you, when you have the time, to take a look at their web site, where many of the panels and speeches are posted. This is a young organization and worthy of attention I think."

www.americanconstitutionsociety.org

Indeed!

Metropolis : Burning Man 2010 Theme

2010-06-12T15:52:00.003-05:00

This is part of a blog about this year's theme at Burning Man. It is about a city, ". . .in tandem with this culture, Black Rock City has also spawned a host of public agencies. These address such needs as health and safety, communication, conflict resolution, art and theme camp placement, land use planning, and the construction and maintenance of civic infrastructure. Our Department of Mutant Vehicles (DMV) and Department of Public Works (DPW) are institutions such as one might find in any normal city. The melding of this governmental infrastructure with a deeply rooted ethic of participation makes our city an intriguing model that can be applied to urban planning in the larger world.

I would like to see if IFRT's program can discuss how, or if, intellectual freedom values permeate Black Rock City. How does the theme of Metropolis fit into the larger picture of a civic society and intellectual freedom concepts?
http://blog.burningman.com/metropol/welcome-to-metropol-the-story-of-a-city/

Finally, here's the NPR link I promised

2010-06-01T15:33:00.001-05:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127118179

Youropenbook.org

It's about Facebook, so it may be a bit dated, but the open book link looks kind of interesting.

Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life. Whether you want to or not.

2010-05-25T15:24:00.002-05:00

Youropenbook.org

Just heard about this on NPR. When asked on air some people people REALLY don't care about their privacy. One woman updated her new cell phone number unaware that it went out to everyone. When she asked if it mattered to her, she simply said, "No, not at all."

I'll post the story from NPR in a bit.

National Coalition Against Censorship Newsletter May 2010

2010-05-21T13:05:00.002-05:00

I subscribe to this via email and find it really great.

NCAC's newsletter contains information and discussions about freedom of expression issues, including current school censorship controversies, threats to the free flow of information, and obscenity laws.

Read their roundup of some of the top censorship stories in The Long and the Short of It. http://www.ncac.org/The-Long-and-the-Short-of-It-CN-112

http://www.ncac.org/

Utopia?

2010-05-17T12:33:00.002-05:00

One individual compared privacy to a dodo bird. Extinct. I think this National Conversation on Privacy needs to be an ongoing conversation (. . . into perpetuity?) since the whole idea of privacy is continually growing and adapting to our ever increasing use of technology and overall 21st century environment.

Always fond of a good dictionary! I used this definition after the last session I had, and found that discussion around quite stimulating since it seemed to focus the group into describing how their experiences fit into the various parts of the definition.

Privacy - from the OED
1. The state or condition of being alone, undisturbed, or free from public attention, as a matter of choice or right; seclusion; freedom from interference or intrusion.

full link:
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50188914?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=privacy&first=1&max_to_show=10

Is Privacy a positive, or merely a protection?

2010-05-06T13:33:00.004-05:00

During our privacy deliberation, we talked about identity theft and other safety concerns, e.g. being Googled by a stalker, etc. One person raised the alternative of a caring community where members watch out for each other. We talked about how that kind of community often stifles non-conforming persons and drives them away to the anonymity of the big city. The question we came away with is whether it is possible for a community to be sufficiently tolerant of diversity that individuals do not have to hide what makes them unique.

The deeper question is to what extent is privacy a reaction to intolerance and to what extent would we still want privacy even if our community harbored no prejudices that would include us? Do we want privacy to avoid humiliation, or is it something necessary for our spirits to flourish. Is privacy just protection from the cruelties of the world, or is it something positive in itself? Do those people who proudly say, "I have nothing to hide" really have no private areas in their lives?

Certainly the reason I want privacy for my reading is so others will not leap to conclusions about what kind of person I am. Usually, I want to tell others about books I have enjoyed, but I have read about topics I'm not yet ready to wear on a sandwich board. And, I know that if someone was watching I might skip some titles, because we still have people who think that they can predict your behaviour from what you read.

So, what do you think? In Utopia would we still need privacy?

There's a buzz in the library!

2010-05-06T13:16:00.002-05:00

The Privacy Revolution videos have been a huge draw for students in the library. Impromptu discussions, many different points of view, students were fascinated by the idea of how regularly they give up so much information. Some students did just shrug it off, while others appeared genuinely horrified! I could only smile and nod.

"We know what you read and we're not saying"

2010-05-06T13:00:00.003-05:00

I found this post by Cory Doctorow after watching a video from Privacy Revolution.

He writes, "Just ran into a Norwegian librarian at Internet Librarian International in London wearing this killer tee-shirt, created in protest of the PATRIOT Act's provision to force librarians to reveal which books their patrons were checking out. The Latin translates as "We know what you read, and we're not saying."

http://www.instantattitudes.com/shirts/t052.html

Guild of Radical Militant Librarians - Wow!

How unique is your browser's fingerprint?

2010-05-05T17:29:00.000-05:00

It was back in January that we first blogged about the fingerprint that your browser leaves on every website it touches, but Choose Privacy Week seems like an appropriate time to find out how unique YOUR browser is, with the Panopticlick tool from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The more unique your browser is, the more identifiable you are, even if your IP address changes and don't log into anything.

The browser fingerprint is made up of characteristics that a server can detect, like which browser (and version) you are using, which fonts you have, what plugins are installed, your screen size, and time zone.

This information is legitimately used by webservers to make sure the version of the web page they are showing will work on your system. But, unintentionally, this fingerprint may be provide a unique identifier.

So, try EFF's tool and see how unique your browser is: http://panopticlick.eff.org

Kindle Readers: Amazon is watching!

2010-05-05T13:27:00.001-05:00

Just in time for Choose Privacy Week comes this article in the Christian Science Monitor about a new service from Amazon that shows what passages from Kindle books are most often highlighted.

You can even search to see what is the most highlighted passage on a certain topic.

Since the population of Kindle users is still pretty small, I can't see exactly what the purpose of this service is, except as a really great reminder that whatever you do online, or connected to an Internet device, is being tracked and recorded.

The top two highlighted passages on privacy?
“Never listen to a phone call that isn’t meant for you. Never read a letter that isn’t meant for you. Never pay attention to a comment that isn’t meant for you. Never violate people’s privacy. You will save yourself a great deal of anguish. You might not understand this now, but you will later on.” A quote from Joseph Kennedy to Ted Kennedy published in True Compass, and highlighted by 84 Kindle users,

and, "The only hope for social networking sites from a business point of view is for a magic formula to appear in which some method of violating privacy and dignity becomes acceptable" from You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier, highlighted by 28 Kindle users.

“Snatching Digital Rights” or Protecting Our Culture? Burning Man and the EFF

2010-05-05T11:00:00.000-05:00

In a slightly different take on privacy, we have the ongoing controversy that began last August regarding who owns images taken at Burning Man. The organizers say they do in order to protect participants privacy, while others, namely the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) criticize this policy and are misusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

http://blog.burningman.com/photosvideosmedia/snatching-digital-rights-or-protecting-our-culture-burning-man-and-the-eff/

The link above is in response to the EFF article also linked to within the article. Wrestling with issue of personal rights of privacy, both sides present compelling arguments. The DOI permit for the Burning Man event specifically states that this event is conducted on public lands, and I know that to be true. So, to my knowledge, a permit does not constitute the authority of a private business (Burning Man) to trample/over-step the rights afforded to the people granted by law while on public land. I wonder if the Bureau of Land Management where the event is held agrees with that statement?

Here is the Burning Man terms of agreement over "Use of Images" I UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT THAT NO USE OF IMAGES, FILM, OR VIDEO OBTAINED AT THE EVENT MAY BE MADE WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM BURNING MAN, OTHER THAN PERSONAL USE. I understand that I have no rights to make any non-personal use of any image, film, or video footage obtained at the event, and that I cannot sell, transfer, or give the footage or completed film or video to any other party, except for personal use, and I agree to inform anyone to whom I give any footage, film, or video that it can only be used for personal use.

Burning Man states that they do this in order to "To protect our participants so that images that violate their privacy are not displayed." Others (EFF for one) say that a benevolent censor is still a censor. The controversy continues and neither side has acquiesced, although I do know they willingly and freely continue to engage in the dialogue.

Online privacy can't be evaluated on a human scale.

2010-05-05T07:45:00.000-05:00

We need to stop thinking of privacy in human terms. The constant surveillance that happens online is not like the East German Stasi in the movie Leben der Anderen: hiding upstairs with headphones on. That image of online surveillance misleads us, because it puts the data collection in human terms. While most of us probably realize that the people at Google (which hosts this blog) could be reading this post as I type, even before I submit. While that is kind of freaky, it doesn’t really worry us, because we know that they aren’t wasting their time doing that. (If I’m wrong, Google Interns, say hi in the comments!)

So by thinking about privacy violations on a human scale, we convince ourselves that even though the capability exists to track us, our privacy is only potentially violated. For our privacy to actually be violated, someone (Google, Facebook, or the FBI) would have to specifically notice us. And our individual activity on the web is not merely a needle in a haystack, it is one needle in the world’s largest pile of needles. Face it, we think to ourselves, we’re just not that interesting.

But this is simply not the case. As we know, information about who we are and what we do drives the advertising-based Web economy. With virtually unlimited and virtually free storage, it doesn’t make economic sense not to collect any piece of information that can be collected. As a recent NYT article showed, retailers and marketers want to know exactly how their marketing campaigns are working. With web coupons, the article states, “a retailer could know that Amy Smith printed a 15 percent-off coupon after searching for appliance discounts at Ebates.com on Friday at 1:30 p.m. and redeemed it later that afternoon at the store.”

Notice how that sentence is written: A retailer could know. This again implies a human retailer looking at the data. Really, if this data has been collected, it is already 'known' in the sense that it will be used in data analysis. And the consequences of our lack of privacy that result from the database sense of knowing are very different than those from having the human retailers and marketers know your behavior.

Rather than a person knowing discrete facts, the database allows your data to be carefully analyzed as part of the aggregate. And when you analyze such a huge pot of data, you start finding odd correlations.

At the risk of sounding like a someone from the tinfoil-hat crowd Let me take two examples that show how real harm can result from data that is, objectively, harmless.

The first example is the case of Maka Mini Mart in South Seattle, a small store serving the local East African immigrant community. In early 2002, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Muslim run businesses were under scrutiny for ties to terrorist organizations, and based on the records of the electronic debit cards that replaced paper food stamps, Maka Mini Mart looked suspicious. According to this Seattle P-I Article, the suspicious transactions included large purchases made minutes apart and transactions for even-dollar amounts, unusual for food purchases. As a result, the USDA ‘permanently disqualified’ the store from the food-stamp program, immediately eliminating virtually the entire revenue of the store.

Eventually, the USDA reversed its decision against this and a few other Somali markets in Seattle. The unusual, even-dollar purchases, it turns out, were a result of the community's practice of buying meat by the dollar, rather than by the pound. (Isn’t it interesting that it is more typical to by meat by the pound but gas by the dollar? I’ve never seen anyone say 5 gallons on pump 3) The multiple large purchases were because people in the community tended to go shopping together, and buy in quantity.

These are all perfectly appropriate behaviors, and wouldn’t raise the suspicions of any human watching, but when computer analysis looked for suspicious anomalies, suddenly this business was practically shut down.

Take a second, more hypothetical example.
A lot of employers, particularly in the public sector, do background checks before hiring someone. Imagine a not too distant future in which a company includes aggregated online history in their background checks. The company won’t tell your employer specifically what you do online (that would be an invasion of privacy that no one would stand for), but they have an automated system that looks for patterns and can generate something like a credit score. Just as a credit score is used to predict how likely you will be to pay back your debts, your background score might predict how likely you are to embezzle, have a drug problem, get into fights etc.
As I said, when you analyze data, you can find strange correlations. Let’s say, a correlation is found between pedophilia and being a Star Trek fan.

Even though, statistically speaking, that correlation doesn’t mean Star Trek fans are likely to be pedophiles, (it means pedophiles are likely to be Star Trek fans) it is easy to imagine that subtle distinction getting missed (or ignored in the name of being extra thorough) in the algorithms that generate these scores.

So, if you spend a lot of time browsing Star Trek forums, your background score might show that there is just some small chance you might be a pedophile. If you were hiring someone for a position working with children, what would you do?

No reasonable person would deny someone a job working with children solely because they like Star Trek, but in this hypothetical situation, no human would see that data in context. Maybe listening to a certain type of music will be found to correlate with posting hate speech in blog comments. Buying spinach on sale with a loyalty card might correlate to some other undesirable behavior.

Tons of individually insignificant pieces of data are being collected, stored, and analyzed. Which bits of data are truly harmless and which wind up having consequences remains to be seen. We don’t know how data being gathered now will be used in two, three, or ten years. What we do know is that it isn’t prying human eyes we need to worry about. Whatever privacy implication there are, they aren’t on a human scale.

Unshelved cartoons on privacy

2010-05-04T10:09:00.000-05:00

If you missed these when they were published April 12-15, enjoy them now! Our favorite cartoonist really captured common, thoughtless Internet behavior.
April 12
April 13
April 14
April 15

great Privacy forum tonight in Virginia Beach

2010-05-03T20:33:00.000-05:00

Privacy is a hot topic -
hard for the recorder to keep up!

It was a small group, but we had no difficulty filling the time. Two of the participants work in law enforcement and brought practical knowledge with their perspectives on privacy. We started by sharing a personal experience with privacy. That ranged from reading Skype's privacy policy to a case of mistaken identity to discovering a need for a gene test.

No one had much faith in the marketplace's intentions, but while conceding that public servants generally do have good intentions, we questioned their capacity to protect privacy. We talked about hacked databases and conflicting regulations on public records. Most of the group felt that no one cares as much about my privacy as I do, but it will mean giving up convenience and making a real effort to protect my information. We could use advice and tips, but also people just take really foolish risks without thinking.

We expressed a desire to rebuild the kind of community where people look out for each other, but without the stifling conformity that drove people away. While privacy is needful to protect us from criminals, it would be less of an issue if people were more tolerant of diverse views.

database security and humility

2010-05-03T09:43:00.000-05:00

Last year, Virginia’s statewide prescription drug database was hacked, exposing over 35 million prescription records affecting 530,000 people. So much for the arrogance of government database security!
We can hope that one lesson officials draw is not to keep any information that isn't absolutely necessary. "Social Security numbers have since been scrubbed from the system." Another lesson is that no data can ever be guaranteed secure. If you want more details, read the Virginian Pilot article.

Choose Privacy Week open discussion

2010-05-03T08:00:00.001-05:00

Happy Choose Privacy Week!

Use the comments below to share news, links, and your thoughts on all matters relating to privacy or the Choose Privacy Campaign

Congratulations new IFRT officers!

2010-04-30T16:09:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to the newly elected slate of IFRT officers:

Carrie Gardner(Chair Elect)
Jonathan Reynolds (Treasurer)
Pamela Klipsch Director-at-Large
Eric Seuss Director-at-Large

And thanks to everyone who ran and who voted.

Choose Privacy!

2010-04-29T13:37:00.000-05:00

I would like everyone who hasn't already to check out Privacy Revolution's link.

http://www.privacyrevolution.org/index.php/privacy_week/ At my university in Miami, FL, I have organized a book display along with a screen projection of several of the videos posted at the above site. Collaborating with a journalism professor, Student Government Association, and Campus Life Activities, we will host e a forum on campus in our student center at the close of Privacy Week next Friday. I would like to see this week take off much in the same way Banned Books Week has. It would be fantastic to have these kind of discussions with grade-school children and really foster an understanding of privacy issues in the 21st century. Have a great upcoming week!

beware of good intentions

2010-04-28T09:02:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting item from North Carolina that showed up in my local newspaper. It seems that in the state's eagerness to collect more revenue they are pursuing online sales, and the state is asking what books people are buying from Amazon. The Charlotte Observer took a stand for privacy: "Beyond being morally wrong and an invasion of privacy, that could have a dramatic chilling effect on people buying books they want or need"

Library Can't Ban Sex offenders

2010-04-02T15:39:00.000-05:00

Citing 'an unacceptable risk of the suppression of ideas' and the First Amendment rights of sex offenders, Judge Christina Armijo of the Second District Court ruled that Albuquerque’s regulation banning sex offenders from libraries is unconstitutional.

More details in the New Mexico Independent

IFC's Spring Meeting: Report from the Liaison

2010-03-24T14:03:00.000-05:00

submitted by J. Douglas Archer, University of Notre Dame

Action Items:

• The IFC discussed and decided to proceed with a request to COO (Committee on Organization) to increase the size of the IFC from 10 to 15 members.

• The IFC spent considerable time revising the latest draft of a new Interpretation of the Library Bill of rights, The Prisoners Right to Read. The "final" draft was approved unanimously. After copying editing for typos and omissions, it will be distributed to the IFC and then to the usual parties for review prior to Annual Conference. It's our intention to bring it to Council (with any last minute improvements) for approval in DC.

Discussions:

• The proposed Texas educational standards were discussed at length with a decision to investigate further and, in particular, to contact the Texas Library Association.

• Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom: Cost, recruitment, documentation, research, and expansion of the subscriber base were all included in the discussion which will continue. E-publication is certainly seen as the future. The questions are when and how. Carrie and Doug volunteered to work with OIF staff on options.

• Revised Privacy Q&A: It should be ready for final approval in DC.

• Privacy Subcommittee: After discussion of it current and potential future activity, it will continue.

• Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCE): Since no new document was ready for review (in fact, the new ALA Task Force has not yet been appointed), we discussed the general issues surrounding TCEs. My impression of the general consensus is that everyone would be happy if the doc is not revived, especially since the sense of urgency seemed to have passed. On the other hand, if it should reappear after having had time for more substantive input, most folks would expect it to have more explicit guarantees of the priority of intellectual freedom (e.g. open and equitable access to library materials). Barbara Stripling and Trina Magi were affirmed as our representatives to this new Task Force.
• Internet Tool Kit: Five Emerging Leaders have been working with the IFC and OIF to thoroughly revise the Internet Toolkit - by Internet standards a truly ancient document; it's over a decade old. The five brought "born digital" eyes to the project along with great enthusiasm. They all attended the Spring Meeting and worked together with IFC on the next stage of the project -- essentially reinventing the toolkit. They will report on their project on Friday afternoon at Annual Conference in DC and then continue to work with the committee on polishing the kit for distribution.

Reports
• Choose Privacy Week: The Soros Foundation is very pleased with the project and it looks as if additional funding will be forthcoming. Please report (send pictures and accounts)to the OIF your observance of CPW!

• Banned Books Week: There will be a single poster (visually striking and a little more edgy than the last few years - we saw it but it's always hard to describe art so I won't try) for use with all ages this year. In addition, a new edition of the resource guide is being prepared by Bob Doyle. This time it will not be specifically linked to this year's theme so that it will have multi-year appeal and a longer sales life.

• IF Manual: Content is with ALA Editions. Candy continues to work with them and to work on the supplemental materials that will be linked from the OIF website.

• OIF Website: Choose Privacy Week has its own website for easier design and access. OIF is working with the ALA tech folks to do something similar for the IF Manual. One major improvement should be shorter URLs.

• Director's Report: Barb has been networking outside and within ALA with folks concerned with intellectual freedom. She has been traveling regularly to New York and Washington for this purpose and specifically mentioned an extremely helpful event set up by Emily Sheketoff(Washington Office) with free speech and similar advocates in the DC area.

Web surfing even LESS anonymous than we though

2010-01-28T15:29:00.000-06:00

Ars Technica has a piece on EFF's Panopticlick project, looking at browswer 'fingerprints' as a tool for online tracking, even with cookies disabled and a dynamic IP address:

Browsers provide all sorts of details to websites that request them. There's the well-known "user agent string" that specifies the browser and computing platform being used, of course, but my own user agent string was not particularly unique. Much more incriminating were the details of my particular browser plugins (only 1 in 20,830 browsers have an identical plugin load) and the list of my system fonts (1 in 13,886).

Web Filtering and Language

2010-01-26T15:03:00.000-06:00

They New York Times is reporting that Canada's second oldest magazine, The Beaver is changing its name to Canada's History due to Internet filters - both content filters in schools and spam filters in e-mail - blocking access because the word beaver can also refer, to use the phrasing of the not-currently-available-in-schools Merriam-Webster dictionary, to the pudenda of a woman.

While a name change had been discussed as far back as the 70s, the issue finally came to a head because of filtering software.

Obviously, the problem is that our filters can't handle the many-to-many relationships of words and meanings. But, since writers and publishers have greater incentive than the filters to make sure their content is always accessible, they will naturally avoid any word that could trigger the filter.

And, as those who seek to get sexually explicit content past filters extend the range of words with sexual connotations, more and more words will become off limits for non-sexual communication. And our language will become less interesting.

A the title The Beaver for a Canadian history magazine already tells us something important about the role of the Castoridae family of animals in the history of Canada, as well as the history of the magazine, which was founded by the Hudson's Bay Company.

The title Canada's History is merely a bland description of the contents. Bland, of course, being more desirable than blocked.

Dictionaries define sex words, get pulled from school shelves.

2010-01-26T08:51:00.000-06:00

After a parent complained about what she considers too explicit a definition of oral sex, Oak Meadows Elementary School removed all copies of the Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary from the school library pending an investigation by a panel of parents, teachers, and administrators into whether the dictionary supports the curriculum and is age-appropriate.

See the full article at the LA Times.

Who are the pirates?

2009-12-15T12:06:00.000-06:00

Cory Doctorow takes a different look at who the pirates are in today's publishing environment in his talk How to Destroy the Book, transcribed for the Varsity by Jade Colbert.

There is also a nice insight into the symbolic value of books in our culture:
"If you’re making a short film, and you want to illustrate a society that’s falling into tyranny, you can just cut away to a scene of a pile of books burning, and everyone will know exactly what you meant."

Barbara M. Jones named new Director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom

2009-12-02T09:06:00.000-06:00

From the official release:

Please join ALA in welcoming Barbara M. Jones, Director, ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, and Executive Director, Freedom to Read Foundation, effective December 14, 2009. In her letter of application, Barbara noted: “Twenty-first century IF issues are evolving quickly from those of the twentieth, due to the following: globalization of intellectual freedom issues; technology and privacy concerns; and an increasingly contentious civic discourse as witnessed in the recent health care Town Meetings…New intellectual freedom issues will need to be articulated in terms of our unchanging IF ideals – to the ALA membership, the general public, and to the organizations with which ALA collaborates.”

Barbara Jones brings a rich background in library administration, scholarship and intellectual freedom advocacy to this position. From 2003-2009 she was the Caleb T. Winchester University Librarian and Deans’ Council Member at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. She held previous library directorships at Union College, the University of Northern Iowa, and the Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), as well as administrative positions at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), Minnesota Historical Society, New York University and Teachers College Library, Columbia University.

In 1995, Barbara Jones received a Ph.D, in U.S. Legal History, from the University of Minnesota/Twin Cities. She also holds an M.A. in History, Archival Management, and Historical Editing from New York University; an M.L.S. from the Columbia University School of Library Service; an M.A.T. in English from Northwestern University; and, a B.A. in English from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Barbara brings twenty-five years of active engagement on intellectual freedom issues to her new position. She currently serves as Treasurer, Freedom to Read Foundation. She served on the FAIFE (Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression) IFLA Standing Committee, serving as Secretary to FAIFE from 2007-2009. She was a member of the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee (1990-1994, 2001-2003) and currently serves on the IFC Privacy Subcommittee (2009). In 2004-05 (and 1986-87) she served as Chair of the Intellectual Freedom Round Table. She is currently an ACRL Legislative Advocate and has also served on state Intellectual Freedom Committees in Iowa and Minnesota. As a FAIFE trainer and expert advisor, Barbara has developed curricula and training programs, and conducted workshops internationally.

In addition, Barbara has consulted, spoken and written extensively in the area of intellectual freedom. In 2009, she published Intellectual Freedom in Academic Libraries with ALA Editions. Earlier writing includes Libraries, Access, and Intellectual Freedom: Developing Policies for Public and Academic Libraries (ALA Editions, 1999) and a number of articles and chapters, including “Libel Tourism: What Librarians Need to Know,” for American Libraries (2009-2010).

Barbara Jones received the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award from the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science in 2008. She was named to the Freedom to Read Foundation Honor Roll at their 30th anniversary gala in 1999.

Thanks go to the members of the search committee for a successful effort: Kenton L. Oliver, president, Freedom to Read Foundation; Martin L. Garnar, 2009-2010 chair, ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee; Mario Ascencio, 2009-2010 chair, ALA Committee on Legislation; J. Douglas Archer, 2008-2009 chair, ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee; Mary Taylor, executive director, Library and Information Technology Association; Karen O’Brien, director, ALA Office for Accreditation; Cynthia Vivian, director, ALA Human Resources; and, Mary Ghikas, senior associate executive director, ALA.

Congratulations, Barbara! All of us in the IFRT look forward to working with you!

Yale Press Muhammad cartoon incident Inspires anti-censorship call to action

2009-12-01T15:50:00.000-06:00

In response to incidents such as Yale University Press' decision to remove all cartoons of Muhammad from a book about those cartoons, the National Coalition Against Censorship, the American Association of University Professors, and numerous other groups have issued a statement of principle and call to action that concludes

The incident at Yale provides an opportunity to re-examine our commitment to free expression. When an academic institution of such standing asserts the need to suppress scholarly work because of a theoretical possibility of violence “somewhere in the world,” it grants legitimacy to censorship and casts serious doubt on their, and our, commitment to freedom of expression in general, and academic freedom in particular.

The failure to stand up for free expression emboldens those who would attack and undermine it. It is time for colleges and universities in particular to exercise moral and intellectual leadership. It is incumbent on those responsible for the education of the next generation of leaders to stand up for certain basic principles: that the free exchange of ideas is essential to liberal democracy; that each person is entitled to hold and express his or her own views without fear of bodily harm; and that the suppression of ideas is a form of repression used by authoritarian regimes around the world to control and dehumanize their citizens and squelch opposition.

To paraphrase Ben Franklin, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, will get neither liberty nor safety.

The full statement is available here.

December 1st Deadline for IFRT Awards

2009-11-25T16:48:00.000-06:00

There is still a little time left to nominate someone for one of the IFRT awards:

John Phillip Immroth Memorial Award
Established in 1979, upon the death of John Phillip Immroth, this award honors the courage, dedication, and contribution of a living individual or group who has set the finest kind of example for the defense and furtherance of the principles of intellectual freedom. The award consists of a citation and a $500 prize.

John Phillip Immroth was a teacher, author, scholar, advocate, and defender of First Amendment rights. He was the founder and first Chair of the Intellectual Freedom Round Table in 1976. His impact on the ideal of intellectual freedom and its practice was great.
Nomination Form

Eli M. Oboler Award
In the words of the ALA Memorial Resolution for Eli Oboler, passed at the 1983 Annual Conference, Eli "served the library profession with the highest distinction, as University Librarian at Idaho State University for over three decades, as member of ALA Council from 1951 to 1959 and again from 1977 to 1981, as president of the Pacific Northwest Library Association,... as president of the Idaho Library Association," and, most significantly, as "one of the profession's most eloquent champions of intellectual freedom... as a member of the Intellectual Freedom Committee, as chair of the Intellectual Freedom Round Table, and as a founder and vice-president of the Freedom to Read Foundation." He was our "loyal gadfly," who "constantly and impatiently demanded the dismantling of all barriers to freedom expression."

His principal means of pursuing this noble task was his writing; he was prolific and eloquent author of hundreds of articles, reviews, and books, many of which have been and are destined to remain widely influential. In the spirit of this achievement, this award is to be granted to what the selection committee judges to be the best published work in the area of intellectual freedom to appear in the two-year period ending in the December prior to the Annual Conference at which the award is granted. The award consists of a citation and a $500 prize.
Nomination Form

SIRS/ProQuest Award
The IFRT State and Regional Achievement Award is presented to the state intellectual freedom committee, state educational media association intellectual freedom committee, state or regional intellectual freedom coalition, legal defense fund or other such group, that has implemented the most successful and creative intellectual freedom project during the calendar year. The award may also be presented for on-going or multi-year projects. It consists of a citation and a $1000 prize.
Nomination Form

Midwinter Schedule

2009-11-24T15:25:00.000-06:00

Coming to Midwinter? Here's the schedule for IFRT events:

IFRT I
Saturday, 1/16, 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Boston Convention and Exhibition Center - Room 254 A/B

IFRT Program Committee Meeting
Sunday, 1/17, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm
Boston Convention and Exhibition Center - Room 254 A/B

IFRT II
Monday, 1/18, 8:00 am -10:00 am
Boston Convention and Exhibition Center - Room 104C

If you haven't been to IFRT Midwinter meetings before, these are business meetings to discuss the operation of the Roundtable. They are a great way to meet people in the IFRT and find opportunities to get more involved with the organization.

See you there!

Valparaiso University celebrates Banned Books Week

2009-10-13T10:40:00.000-05:00

Valparaiso University’s Christopher Center for Library and Information Resources held its second annual Banned Books Readout in celebration and support of ALA’s Banned Books Week.

Four members of the Valparaiso University community – including Dean of Libraries Richard AmRhein – read from books that had been banned or challenged in the previous year.

In commenting on the importance of ALA’s recognition of books that have been banned or otherwise challenged, Dean AmRhein, who read an excerpt from And Tango Makes Three, said, “In this country, it is one of our most basic rights to freely access all points of view on any topic. The Banned Books Readout event is a reminder to all that while not everyone will agree the ideas presented, the author has the right to express them and the reader has the right to hear and consider them.”

Congratulations to the new Slate of IFRT officers!

2009-06-15T12:22:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to the newly elected slate of IFRT officers!

VICE-CHAIR/CHAIR-ELECT:LOIDA GARCIA-FEBO

TREASURER:PAUL BEAVERS

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE: ROSEANNE M. CORDELL & SHARON MCCASLIN

COUNCILOR:JOHN A. MOORMAN

Fahrenheit 451 as a graphic Novel

2009-04-29T14:39:00.000-05:00

Publishers Weekly is reporting "a graphic translation” of Ray Bradbury's classic. The new book will be "created by artist Tim Hamilton, overseen by Ray Bradbury himself and supported by an elaborate marketing campaign that will peg the book to the American Library Association's Banned Books Week in September as well as a host of educational, book trade and comics industry events and promotions."

Freedom to Read Foundation Gala

2009-04-24T09:23:00.000-05:00

Freedom to Read Foundation celebrates 40 years with a gala dinner and celebration Sunday, July 12th, in Chicago. Buy tickets now by calling (800) 545-2433 x4226.

Social Networking Safety Act

2009-04-24T09:07:00.000-05:00

Proposed New Jersey Social Networking Safety Act, designed to protect children from cyber bullying and sexually explicit content, raises IF and many other issues.

Essentially, the act would require sites such as Facebook and MySpace to provide prominent links for users to report offensive content, and to investigate and report to law enforcement where appropriate.

The site itself is entitled to $1000 in damages from anyone posting a 'sexually offensive communication' to or about a minor in New Jersey.

Traditional Cultural Expression

2009-04-24T09:04:00.000-05:00

ALA Office for Information Technology Policy released a draft statement on Traditional Cultural Expressions that has raised some concerns among IFRT members:

Librarianship and Traditional Cultural Expressions: Nurturing Understanding and Respect

Google Book Settlement

2009-04-24T08:58:00.000-05:00

Google Book settlement “may compromise fundamental library values, such as privacy and intellectual freedom,” according to Dr. Alan Inouye of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Technology Policy.

Read the American Libraries Article about some of the objections.

There is also an overview of the settlement from ALA and ARL: A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement, by Jonathan Band, JD.

The text of the proposed settlement is available here.

#AmazonFail: Amazon gets burned on filtering; lesson learned?

2009-04-24T01:15:00.002-05:00

Amazon got a quick lesson in the problems that accompany filtering recently, as their attempt to make search results inoffensive offended and outraged thousands of people. Amazon hasn’t yet made it clear whether they intend to abandon filtering altogether, or simply try to fix their process.

In case you missed it, Amazon has been classifying certain books as ‘adult products.’ An Amazon customer service rep explained via email to author Mark R. Probst that “[i]n consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude ‘adult’ material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using
sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.”

In February, Craig Seymour noticed that his memoir of being a stripper in gay clubs in Washington, D.C. was no longer showing up in searches, and had its sales rank removed. While his title was eventually restored, by April 12th over 50, 000 books had been impacted, including Brokeback Mountain, Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, Heather Has Two Mommies, and False Colors The fact that books of Playboy centerfolds and memoirs of straight sex workers were not impacted led many to conclude that gay and lesbian titles were specifically targeted. In fact, the top results for searches on the keyword ‘homosexuality’ were titles on preventing and curing homosexuality. News spread like wildfire around the Internet over the weekend, most notably via hundreds of twitter messages a minute tagged #AmazonFail – now a synonym for the whole incident.

In a statement that was not at all reassuring for people concerned with filtering, Amazon spokesperson Drew Herdener asserted that it was not just homosexuality that was targeted, but also material in categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. Indeed books like The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability were also reportedly affected.

Ultimately, Amazon faulted employee error in conflating the concepts of ‘adult,’ ‘erotic, and ‘sexuality’ causing books to inappropriately be removed from rankings and search results.

While this explanation satisfies some who were worried about an anti-gay agenda at Amazon (and doesn’t satisfy others who see many unanswered questions), it still leaves open the idea that some books that Amazon sells are appropriately filtered from sales ranks and recommendation features.

Libraries learned long ago that attempts to narrowly filter a category of material that someone finds offensive quickly winds up blocking access to materials that virtually everyone agrees should not be filtered. Obviously, Amazon does not have the ethical responsibilities of a library. That’s why libraries remain more interesting and more integral to democratic society than bookstores. But while Amazon certainly has the right to limit its selection, search results, and recommendations by any criteria it wishes, much of its appeal is that Amazon can carry everything, unlike a physical bookstore that is limited by space concerns. If Amazon sabotages its own search and recommendation systems, it looses much of that appeal.

It is unclear why Amazon would need to filter ‘adult’ products. Customers are required to be adults, and it seems that a truly explicit thumbnail image of product description would be rare enough to be handled on a case by case basis.

Amazon should, in consideration of their entire customer base, offer full search and discovery options for all the products they sell. -David Hurley

Sir John Clifford Mortimer, CBE, QC (21 April 1923 – 16 January 2009

2009-04-24T01:15:00.001-05:00

Though best known in the US for the PBS TV program Rumpole of the Bailey, John Mortimer was much more than a witty author of British crime stories. As a English barrister, Mortimer provided the defense in several major British free speech trials, cases that he said were “alleged to be testing the frontiers of tolerance.” Both his parallel careers as author and as barrister served Mortimer's belief in law as protector of individual liberties.

Called to the Bar in 1948, Mortimer was made a Queen's Counsel in 1966, and retired in 1984. On “taking silk” (as becoming a Queen’s Counsel in known, referring to the silk robes the QCs wear in court) he began defending criminal cases, including obscenity charges. In 1968, he successfully defended John Calder and Marion Boyars on appeal of their conviction under the Obscene Publications Act for publishing Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby. This case is considered a turning point in British censorship law.

In the early 1970s, the Obscene Publications Squad, with covert blessing from conservative elements in government, went after radical underground publications to divert attention from the real pornography they'd been bribed to ignore. Mortimer was one of the few barristers willing to defend in such cases. He defended Richard Handyside who published an English edition of the Danish Little Red Schoolbook guide for students to sex, drugs and rebellion. Handyside lost and eventually appealed to the European Court of Human Rights which helped to define how free speech would be handled across national boundaries.

Oz, an underground magazine, produced one issue (#28) written and illustrated by students, but the crude humor of “Schoolkids Oz” provoked prosecution under an archaic law, “conspiracy to corrupt the public morals,” that had no limit on the possible sentence. Mortimer defended the publishers in the 1971 “Oz conspiracy” trial, the longest obscenity trial in British legal history, and the harsh sentence was quashed on appeal. In his summing up for the jury, Mortimer said, "The case stands at the very cross roads of our liberties, at the boundaries of our freedom to think and draw and write about what we please."

In 1977, Mortimer defended Gay News editor Denis Lemon who was charged with Blasphemous libel in Whitehouse v. Lemon for publishing James Kirkup's poem "The Love that Dares to Speak its Name." The poem uses homoerotic imagery about Jesus to reconcile faith and same-sex love. The magazine was convicted and fined but Lemon's sentence was quashed on appeal.

The title of the 1977 Sex Pistols album Never Mind The Bollocks, uses a British vulgarity that brought Virgin Records and one of its' shops' window displays into court charged under the 1899 Indecent Advertising Act. Mortimer's defense included a professor of English who observed that “bollocks” appeared in englsh placenames without stirring any sensual desires in the residents. In his summing up, Mortimer asked, “do we live in a country where we are proud of our Anglo Saxon language? Do we wish our language to be verile and strong or watered down and weak?” The album title was acquitted of indecency.

Mortimer also used his character Horace Rumpole and the people he defends in London's Old Bailey, to illustrate his beliefs and promote his causes. He was against the death penalty as well as censorship, and a strong advocate for the right of all accused to a fair trial. Particularly in his second full length novel, Rumpole and the Reign of Terror published in 2006, Mortimer challenged the erosion of liberty in the name of national security. Despite criticism from his colleagues and his wife Hilda, Rumpole defends a Pakistani doctor accused of being an al Qaeda terrorist. The barrister condemns Britain's Anti-Terror Act as an assault on Magna Carta, aiding terrorism by undermining the rule of law. The fictional case also examines Britain's struggle with its new diversity.

After Labour's victory in 1997, Mortimer had been rewarded with a knighthood, but he became a persistent critic of the government's disregard of individual liberty. In both careers, he helped make criminal defense work respectable and police procedures more trustworthy. He always asserted that defense of individual liberties was the only justification for the profession of law, and its highest calling.

-Carolyn Caywood

Talking Privacy

2009-04-24T01:13:00.001-05:00

Librarians met with diverse focus groups across the US to ask what concerns people have about privacy. We heard that privacy is a right necessary to human dignity and individual integrity, but it is personal and individual. Many folks commented on the gossip that pervades media and affects our concept of privacy.

People fear that partial and mis-information will result in them being misjudged. At the same time, people use new technology to learn more about others to protect themselves. New technology has heightened awareness of privacy implications. Privacy within a family and especially between a parent and child is judged differently.

Some say privacy is lost because we no longer know how to protect it. Others question “what are you trying to hide?” Many would trade privacy for convenience and convenience for security. Still others make a connection from privacy to financial security, health care, and employment prospects. The people who want government protection of privacy don’t trust the government’s intentions or ability to foil hackers. Though public safety and national security are invoked in opposition to privacy, people recognize that security is necessary to protect privacy.

The outcome of these focus group discussions is an ‘issue map’ that presents three alternatives for who or what could be in charge of protecting privacy: the marketplace, the government, or the individual (“my self”).

The full Privacy Issue Map is available here.

Privacy Issue Map

2009-04-24T01:02:00.000-05:00

Who do I trust to protect my privacy?

the marketplace

the government

my self

Actions to Implement

Purchase security measures

Use spending to reward business that respects privacy

Use public opinion, boycott against intrusive businesses.

Set up an office like Canada

Use courts to enforce checks/balances

Enact legislation that protects privacy

Monitor credit, stay informed

Demand transparent processes

Pay cash, avoid EZpass

Supporters would say

Innovates to protect privacy

Keeps up with new threats

Is motivated to please customers

ID theft threatens profits

HIPAA, Libraries are good examples

Privacy implied in First Amendment

Protecting rights is government role

Clarifies public value for public servants

“Who will watch the watchers?”

What should be private is individual

Individual carelessness is main threat

Only one who can detect/correct errors/theft

Opponents would say

Targeted marketing is invasive

Data mining is profitable

Susceptible to government pressure

Public has limited leverage

No universal definition of what’s private

Susceptible to demagoguery

Cannot keep up with changing threats

Always tempted by secrecy

Too hard, too much work

Public is lazy, won’t demand privacy

Individuals don’t have the power

Can never be sure you’re safe

Tradeoffs

Savings through targeted sales

Escalating security expenses

Public safety & National security

Complex bureaucratic rules

Time & effort & inconvenience

No one to blame but self

Welcome!

2007-06-11T14:39:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Intellectual Freedom Round Table Blog! I am looking forward to seeing everyone in Washington D.C for the ALA Annual Meeting. Please come to our meetings, reception, and award ceremony. Check the calendar for schedule of events. It is sure to be an exciting time!