Books As Catalysts In A World Where Information And Points of View Are Often Suppressed

We were recently telling our library defenders about film maker activist Michael Moore and the connections he makes between libraries and the political freedoms essential to the underpinnings of Democracy.  One of the stories we told was about how his own censorious publisher was going to suppress and pulp unpublished a book he wrote that was critical of George W. Bush.
   

The happy ending to that story was that Moore’s book, “Stupid White Men: ...And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!,” was rescued by a courageous librarian who mobilized her comrades and the book went on to top the best seller lists and may be helped people start thinking more circumspectly about the George W. Bush off-to-America’s-longest-ever-war administration when it was critical for Americans to do so.  See:  Michael Moore’s Anti-George Bush Book Was Saved From The Censorious 9/11 Tyranny by A Courageous Librarian Mobilizing Comrades, December 4, 2017.

In world where information and points of view get suppressed books can be a catalytic part of the media ecosystem that should never be underestimated . . .  even when it appears they are on the ropes losing the fight to pummeling suppression.

Another book suppressed by its own publisher was “JFK and Vietnam,” by Dr. John Newman, a retired U.S. Army Intelligence Officer and historian.  The book broke ground in documenting how president John F. Kennedy was engaged in significant preparatory steps to withdraw the United States from Vietnam just before he was assassinated.  The book has since been championed by James K. Galbraith, son of economist and writer John Kenneth Galbraith who served Kennedy as Ambassador to India and from whom Kennedy sought help to steer toward withdrawal from that war.  The book received praise from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and former CIA head William Colby.

The National Security Agency didn't have a basis and couldn’t stop publication, but the publisher cooperatively pulled it from the book store shelves anyway.  The public lost access to it for 26 years.  See: National Notice- As The Kochs Acquire Ownership of Time Inc.- More About Where On The Spectrum Of Left/Right Politics That Publishing Organization Was Once To Be Found Plus More About What Once Did and Didn’t Get Said/Published In The U.S. Media, December 31, 2017.

But here’s what is odd to relate about the book’s sort of round about victory as it wended its way around to republication.  According to it’s author, Dr. Newman, the book became the catalyst for much of the content of Oliver Stone’s film “JFK.”  That led to the Congress acting to get documents declassified, which then helped Dr. Newman to be able do his research for his next book and that helped his original book finally get published.

Another example of a book being a catalyst for the publication of suppressed news was described recently by former New York Times reporter James Risen who now works for The Intercept.  He and another Times reporter, Eric Lichtblau, wrote a story about the  secret illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of the American public by the George W. Bush administration that won the New York Times a Pulitzer Prize in 2006.  But that story was published by the New York Times only because Risen was about to publish a book, “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” that would disclose the story (the story that ultimately unfolded even further with the Snowden disclosures).  The Times, even though it didn’t want him to publish the book, wanted even less to be scooped.

Before that, in 2004 in the months running up to the Bush/Kerry presidential election and up until Risen’s move to publish his book, the Times was cooperating with the Bush administration to suppress the story that ultimately won it the Pulitzer Prize.  That cooperative suppression of information no doubt affected the course, if not the final outcome, of the Bush/Kerry election.  The saga of how Risen was threatened with prison by the Obama administration for not revealing his source became the basis for his next book, “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War.”

Risen says that, in the very end the Times actually accelerated the publication of the story because there was word that the Bush administration was considering going to court to seek prior restraint on the story, the first time the government would have been doing so since the Pentagon Papers.

Right now there is a movie about the publication of the Pentagon Papers, “The Post,” that is vigorously contending for Oscars.  That film arguably has its catalytic genesis in a book that was pulped unpublished by its publisher, “Katharine the Great : Katharine Graham and the Washington Post,” a biography of Washington Post publisher written by Deborah Davis for publication in 1979.  The film is not based on that biography, which Graham considered unflattering and had a hand in keeping away from the public when first written.  The film began with a script by Liz Hannah, who “fell in love with” reading Graham’s autobiography “Personal History” that came out in 1997 not long before Graham died in 2001.

It’s easy to argue that one thing that compelled Graham to write the much more flattering official version of her life (and it won a Pulitzer Prize too) was her wanting to overwrite the version of facts in the Deborah Davis book.

Liz Hannah also reportedly read and relied on other sources flattering to the main characters in her film like the autobiography of Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, “A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures.”  Ben Bradlee also worked to prevent the publication of Deborah Davis’ book.  There are quite a few very interesting, not easy to explain, things about things about Bradlee’s life that Davis and others have inquired curiously about that are far less flattering than the Bradlee of Hannah’s script of that of the earlier Washington Post film, “All The President’s Men.”  Fascinatingly, Hannah intends her next script to be a 9/11 story: “Only Plane in the Sky,*” about some of the strangest aspects of the panoply of very strange and bizarre things that happened that day, what was going on with George W. Bush.  Much of the content that would need to be used as her source must be material that is widely considered unflattering.  Hannah is reading “The Pet Goat.”  It’s a children’s book, the famous one.  Hannah says she empathizes with Bush that day.

(* There was a previous 9/11 film made about an airplane, an -accurately?- theorized docudrama?: “United 93.”  “Come From Away” is a Broadway 9/11 airplane musical.)

Hannah says that although she grew up in a household that was worshipful of figures like JFK, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, (all of them assassinated) her script still “calls out John F. Kennedy” for his responsibility for the Vietnam War.  ("Lying is bipartisan," says Hannah.)  If she had been paying attention to Dr. Newman’s book about JFK’s plans to pull out of Vietnam that were overturned by Johnson or the fact that the Pentagon Papers contain a 60 page chapter devoted to those plans maybe her script needn’t have been so hard on JFK.  (Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were all opposed to the war.)

In Hannah’s script Katherine Graham comes across as opposed to the war as the Pentagon Papers came out.  Davis’ book says that is not the case and that government deception of that kind didn't necessarily bother her either.
 
Davis, who reviewed Katherine Graham’s autobiography says that it is “in many ways, a remarkable book—startlingly honest in some places and profoundly dishonest in others” revealing some of the same things that made Graham “furious” when Davis was writing about them.  That includes, among the more difficult, discussion of the strange and odd story of her husband Phil’s mental illness and August 3, 1963 suicide, “which must have been a very difficult thing for her to relive while she worked on the book, is quite thorough in some ways, and takes up a good hundred pages.”  Indeed those hundred pages include out takes from quite a few letters between her husband and others plus lots of long contemporaneous quotes of what Graham says her friends said at the time indicating that Graham, writing well over thirty years later either kept a crushingly detailed diary (or legal notes) or has a prodigious memory.  (Or did she, like Nixon, her one time antagonist, have her environs wired to provide posterity with a recorded history?)

Deborah Davis sued her publisher for shredding her biography of Graham and won an out of court settlement.  In addition to financial compensation it involved reacquiring full rights to her book.  Her book has since been published in two more editions, in 1987 and 1991, each adding to the tales Deborah Davis has to tell with additional events of major consequence transpiring in the ensuing years.

Graham’s book was finally published so that public could read it by National Press, “a small Washington publisher.”  Davis includes an introduction to the version of her 1991 edition titled: “How This Book Was Censored.”  At the end of that introduction she explains that before her 1987 edition went to press Graham and Bradlee were “asked to notify the new publisher of any changes they would like to have made to the original text” and that they “responded by reiterating their general disapproval of the book, and declined the request.”  Davis notes that since publication “neither Bradlee nor Graham made any public comment” about the book and that “no one has ever sued for libel.”

Nevertheless, that introduction tells a harrowing story about how her Graham and Bradlee put pressure on her original publisher successfully blocking publication of her book and disparaging her own reputation in the process.  Much like what happened to Michael Moore, her publisher suspended publicity tour plans intended to make it a major book with hopes it would win or be nominated for the American Book Award.   David writes that her lawyers “thought the CIA might have something to do with the books destruction.”  Documents obtained by Davis in the lawsuit showed how much Bradlee and Graham had to do with the suppression efforts, but did not show any involvement of the CIA, unless you might consider Bradlee or Graham an extension of the secret agency.

Part of Davis’ book, and part of what has been subsequently revealed was about things that Bradlee did for the secret agency.   Bradlee came out of Naval Intelligence as did Bob Woodward, who he hired.  Woodward’s name, also a reporter for the Wall Street Journal was invoked in the tactics to stop publication of her book.  Davis’s lawyers counseled her that so long as Bradlee and Graham were acting as private citizens, not the government, they had protected free speech rights when trying to attack her book.  The personal appeals Bradlee and Graham made to the publisher to achieve their censorship read like coded messages about how the publisher and they are all in the same club.

At the end of the first chapter of her book introducing Katherine Graham Davis writes that, “One who writes about Katherine Graham’s life is led unavoidable to a study of the political uses of  information.”  A big topic for Davis in writing about this subject is the news that Graham, cooperating with high government officials, didn’t want to share with the public.  That was despite her popularized Watergate scandal coverage persona. 

Davis said that one theory of her lawyers was that:

publishing companies control information as a public trust, and so have an implicate First Amendment responsibility to make controversial ideas available to the public.

And that her lawyer planned to argue:

the publisher must publish it “in its full sense,” which involved “placing and keeping the book before the public” and letting it enjoy its full life.”

We at Citizens Defending Libraries would like to think that essentially that same “public trust” and “implicate First Amendment responsibility” applies to libraries too, and that just as librarians came forward to rescue Michael Moore’s book from suppression, librarians will stand as guardians to our access to controversial ideas, especially those that make the powerful in government (and their handmaidens) uncomfortable.

We thought it would be a good time to spot check the relative availability in our New York City Libraries of some books that present such ideas.

Here is the result of some spot checking:

•    “Katharine the Great : Katharine Graham and the Washington Post,” by Deborah Davis is available as follows: The NYPL has a copy of the 1987 edition and a copy of the 1991 edition in its 42nd Street Central Reference Library.  It has no circulating copies available and neither do the other two NYC library systems.  The Brooklyn Public Library has one non-circulating copy indicated to be the 1979 suppressed edition as does the Queens Library.

•    “Personal History,” the flattering Katherine Graham autobiography, albeit a Pulitzer-Prize winner, is amply available.   The 42nd Street Central Reference Library has two copes and the NYPL has 29 circulating print copies.  The BPL has two print copies and 5 ebook copies.  The Queens Library has 7 print copies.  Which is to say that if you wander into the stacks of a city library looking for a biography of Katherine Graham you may well find a copy of “Personal History,” but don’t expect any serendipitous discoveries of   Deborah Davis’s biography of Ms. Graham sitting beside it.

•    “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” by James Risen, that got he Times moving to publish his article and collect their Pulitzer has one copy in the 42nd Street Central Reference Library.  The NYPL has another three circulating print copies.  It has about 20 ebook copies that practically nobody seems interested in reading, perhaps with good reason given that this book is about secret surveillance and the reading of electronic books is not a private affair.  The BPL has one circulating copy.  The Queens library has 17.

•     “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and the Endless War,” James Risen’s follow-up book has one copy in the 42nd Street Central Reference Library and the NYPL has another sixteen circulating copies.  The BPL has twelve.  The Queens Library has twelve.

•    “JFK and Vietnam,” by Dr. John Newman is pretty scarce.  There is one copy in the 42nd Street Central Reference Library and the NYPL has no circulating copies.  The BPL and the Queens Library have one copy apiece.

•    “Stupid White Men: ...And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!,” Michael Moore’s almost suppressed nest seller fares only a little better.  There is one copy in the 42nd Street Central Reference Library and the NYPL has no circulating copies, but the BPL and the Queens Library have two copies each.

•    “Understanding Power : the Indispensable Chomsky,” by Noam Chomsky is the book that Aaron Swartz  wrote was “The Book That Changed My Life.”  He said it was “completely shocking, at odds with everything you know, turning the way you see things upside-down.”  Swartz was a proponent of libraries who died while being persecuted for his efforts to get information out more broadly and shared with the public.  He said he read this book when he picked it up “at the library.”  There is no copy of the book in the 42nd Street Central Reference Library, but the NYPL has seven circulating copies.  The BPL has no copy of it at all (apparently it's not "indispensable" to them).  The Queens Library has two.

•    “Timber Wars,” by Judi Bari is a book very important to the activist history of the northern California yet it was inexplicably part of a massive book purge from the California's Berkley Public Library (along with other books on social issues and activism).   Judi Bari was an environmental activist importantly active in that Northern California region who paid a price when Bari, apparently under federal surveillance, was severely disabled by a suspicious, unsolved car bombing that was probably inadequately investigated by the FBI.  There is one copy in the 42nd Street Central Reference Library and, other than that there are no circulating copies at the NYPL, BPL or the Queens Library.

•    “Red Alert” aka “Two Hours To Doom” by Peter Bryant (a pseudonym for Peter George) is the book from which Stanley Kubrick made “Dr. Strangelove.”  It was published in 1958 in the United Kingdom and preceded the more popular “Fail-Safe” published in the United States.  Terry Southern, screenwriter for “Strangelove,” asserts that because “national security regulations in England, concerning what could and could not be published, were extremely lax by American standards” George was able to “reveal details concerning the `fail-safe’ aspect of nuclear deterrence . . . that, in the spy-crazy U.S.A. of the Cold War era, would have been downright treasonous” and thus give all the “complicated technology of nuclear deterrence in Dr Strangelove” a base “on a bedrock of authenticity” that gave the satirical film the strength of credibility.  This one is interesting: The only copies available in the New York City libraries are ebook copies (if you want to risk reading them), 2 at the NYPL and one at the BPL.  Those copies may evanesce when the libraries’ lease of them expires.

PS (Added December 3, 2018):  “The C.I.A. and the Cult of Intelligence” by Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks.  This book published in 1974 is another one the C.I.A. worked to suppress, reportedly the first the agency worked to suppress.  If New Yorkers want to read Mr. Marchetti’s groundbreaking book, the NYPL has one copy in its research collection that cannot be borrowed (or discovered by browsing the shelves) and it keeps it off-site so that it must be requested in advance; the two other public library systems in New York City, the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Library do not have any copy of the book.

Articles About Library Privacy and Surveillance In Libraries

As the articles mount up we thought it would be good to set up this page, which we can further update in time, with a collection of links about articles on the subject of library privacy and surveillance in libraries.

•    National Notice:  Snowden Revelations Considered: Is Your Library, Once Intended To Be A Protected Haven of Privacy, Spying on You? by Michael D. D. White, March 8, 2015

During the McCarthy era there was also concern about what books were available in the libraries, how readily available certain books were and concern about the political leanings of librarians working in the libraries.

* * *

. . .  the surveillance state is interested in something else: The surveillance state wants to know what you think and for that reason the surveillance state believes that libraries should tell the government what you read.

Librarians in Connecticut were the first to successfully challenge the PATRIOT Act when the FBI, along with an accompanying perpetual gag order to keep its actions secret, demanded broadly that the Connecticut librarians turn over to the bureau library records concerning what their patrons were reading and their computer use.

* * *

Now consider this: Changes are being implemented at libraries, and the changes are particularly apparent in New York City, that would make the heroism of these librarians wanting to protect their patrons' privacy virtually meaningless except for its symbolism.

•    Noticing New York:  Snowden, Booz and the Dismantling of Libraries As We Know Them: Why Was A Private Government Spy Agency Hired to Take Apart New York's Most Important Libraries And Turn Them Into Something Else? by Michael D. D. White, October 30, 2016

Essentially, although technically a private publicly traded company, Booz Allen is virtually indistinguishable from our government itself when it comes to surveillance, with as Bloomberg Businessweek said, the "federal government as practically its sole client."  The government's surveillance work is now carried out predominantly through `private' spy organizations like Booz: "About 70 percent of the 2013 U.S. intelligence budget is contracted out, according to a Bloomberg Industries analysis."

* * *

in 2007 the New York Public Library hired Booz Allen Hamilton to advise and help oversee a "radical overhaul at the NYPL involving real estate sales, consolidation and fund-raising." Sherman says that "in consultation with with Booz Allen" the NYPL made the decision to sell three major libraries, the Mid-Manhattan Library, the Donnell Library and the Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL).   In addition, the plan involved gutting the research stacks of the NYPL's 42nd Street Central Reference Library which held three million books, most of, and what was once the core of, its research collection.

The four libraries thus being dismantled were the four most important central destination libraries in Manhattan. SIBL was a state of the art library just completed in 1996 and the Central Reference Library has last been expanded in 2002.

* * * *

If librarians were the first to successfully stand up and oppose the intelligence overreaching and if Booz Allen Hamilton "is really an arm of the intelligence community" involved with the federal government's "most controversial federal surveillance programs in recent years" then why was Booz Allen Hamilton hired to help reorganize the New York Public Library's most important libraries?

* * * *

Why was a top U.S. intelligence spy agency engaged for radical overhaul of libraries as we have traditionally known them?

•    Noticing New York:  American Library Association Issues "Advocacy Alert" About “Massive Privacy Threat" of U.S. Government Remotely Hacking Library Computers and NYPL Issues “Privacy Policy”- Is “Privacy” At Libraries Actually Protected? by Michael D. D. White, December 6, 2016

. .  the NYPL hired Booz Allen not very long after its board was advised of the expectation that CALEA might "require" the NYPL and "to reengineer their Internet service facilities to enhance law enforcement's ability to monitor and intercept communications."

•    Noticing New York:   Too Close For Comfort? Real Estate Addresses- Blackstone, Booz Allen Hamilton, The Libraries & Bryant Park Wednesday, by Michael D. D. White, November 16, 2016

. . .  the U.S. contracts out the huge preponderance of its surveillance to private firms, and mainly to just a few firms with  Booz Allen Hamilton regarded as the “colossus” of those few.

* * * *

The potential possible connections between Booz and Blackstone were myriad, but not necessarily easy to find out about or discern if they were there.  Frankly, it hadn't yet occurred to me that I should do some simple address checking.  Now that the landlord/tenant real estate connection is identified, what does it mean?  It could actually mean a lot of things. . . .

•    The Nation: The Nation: The Hidden History of New York City's Central Library Plan, Why did one of the world's greatest libraries adopt a $300 million transformation without any real public debate? By Scott Sherman, August 28, 2013

. .  what was the role of Booz Allen Hamilton . .   hired by the NYPL in 2007 to formulate what became known inside the trustee meetings as "the strategy"?

* * * *

In January 2007, Booz Allen Hamilton was hired to assist the trustees with "the strategy." On February 7, the trustees went into executive session (the substance of which is never covered in the minutes)
* * * *

Were Booz Allen's fingerprints on the sale of the Donnell Library and other "non-core assets" owned by the NYPL? In a recent interview, [NYPL Chief Operating Officer David] Offensend was tight-lipped about the NYPL's association with Booz Allen . . .  “The primary reason that Booz Allen was retained was to help the library develop a broad strategic direction on a lot of different fronts." (NYPL spokesman Ken Weine won't release the documents that emerged from the NYPL's partnership with Booz Allen, for which Booz received $2.7 million

•    Citizens Defending Libraries: Physical Books vs. Digital Books, March 1, 2015

•    On The Media: Librarians Vs. The Patriot Act, June 5, 2015

. . . in the post 9/11 environment, America is like that. They are watching, taking books out of the library, and they are watching our library behavior. Under Attorney general Ashcroft. Things have changed.

* * * *

only six weeks after 9/11. At the time, 67% of Americans said they'd be willing to forfeit civil liberties if it helped keep America safe. Ten years later, only 27% would say the same. So, if the ALA poked holes in the Patriot Act - they risked public backlash.

* * * *
. . . mostly, librarians figured the best way to protect their patrons' privacy was to have nothing to protect. So after a book was returned, the record of its borrower was deleted, and they started shredding paper records daily.

•    The Nation: Librarians Versus the NSA- Your local library is on the front lines against government surveillance, by Zoë Carpenter, May 6, 2015

Under the Patriot Act, the government can demand library records via a secret court order and without probable cause that the information is related to a suspected terrorist plot. It can also block the librarian from revealing that request to anyone. Nor does the term "records" cover only the books you check out; it also includes search histories and hard drives from library computers. The Muslim-American who uses a library computer to correspond with family abroad, or the activist planning a demonstration against police brutality-those digital trails are vulnerable to surveillance, along with everyone else's.
* * *

[Alison] Macrina wants librarians and library users to be less complicit.

* * *

Librarians have frequently been involved in the fight against government surveillance. The first librarian to be locked up for defending privacy and intellectual freedom was Zoia Horn, who spent three week in jail in 1972 for refusing to testify against anti-Vietnam War activists.

* * *

Section 215 allows the FBI to request "any tangible thing" relevant to a terrorism investigation, without having to show probable cause that the "thing" is actually connected to a terrorism suspect. The provision applied to library circulation records, patron lists, Internet records, and hard drives, and it prohibited any library worker who received such a request from discussing it with anyone.

* * *

"The FBI is poised to intrude once more on library confidentiality, this time with an arsenal of surveillance that even our library confidentiality laws may not be able to prevent," a retired librarian named Herbert Foerstel, who'd helped to raise the alarm about the bureau's Library Awareness Program in the 1980s, warned in a Baltimore Sun op-ed in the spring of 2002.

* * * *

The rebellion eventually attracted enough attention that in a September 2003 speech, Attorney General John Ashcroft attacked the librarians directly, accusing them of "baseless hysteria." . . . .  Ashcroft used the word "hysteria" five other times throughout the speech, and then again a few days later during a speech in Memphis.

* * *

 Because of the gag orders, it is impossible to know how many other libraries have received similar requests. At the very least, the case of the Connecticut Four, like the Snowden leaks, validated those who refused to take the government's assertions regarding Section 215 at face value. Adam Eisgrau, the managing director for the ALA's Office of Government Relations, told me that as a result, we know now that librarians "were not hysterical, but absolutely prescient."

* * *

. . The digital shift has increased the privacy challenges. . .

•    American Libraries: Toward the Post-Privacy Library? Public policy and technical pragmatics of tracking and marketing, by Eric Hellman, June 16, 2015

Libraries have a strong tradition of protecting user privacy. Once all the threat models associated with the digital environment are considered, practices will certainly change.

•    The Guardian:  You are not what you read: librarians purge user data to protect privacy- US libraries are doing something even the most security-conscious private firm would never dream of: deleting sensitive information in order to protect users,  Sam Thielman, Wednesday 13 January 2016

Perhaps that sounds like harmless information, but Polly Thistlethwaite, chief librarian at the Graduate Center, said that guilt by association with controversial books has a long history and that librarians have a duty to protect readers of “heretical texts”.

•    The Washington Post: Librarians won't stay quiet about government surveillance, by Andrea Peterson, October 3, 2014

In the case of government surveillance, they [librarians] are not shushing. They've been among the loudest voices urging freedom of information and privacy protections.

Edward Snowden's campaign against the National Security Agency's data collection program has energized this group once again. And a new call to action from the ALA's president means their voices could be louder and more coordinated than ever.

American Libraries Magazine: Advocate. Today. One hour a day makes a difference- American Library Association President’s Message, by Courtney L. Young

We are passionately dedicated to our profession and to fundamental human rights like education, privacy, and intellectual freedom.

Slate: Long Before Snowden, Librarians Were Anti-Surveillance Heroes, by April Glaser,  June 3 2015

. .  Before there was Snowden, there were librarians.

Librarians were among the first to raise concerns about the Patriot Act while it was being debated in Congress. The American Library Association was a signatory on the earliest coalition-led opposition to what became the Patriot Act, which passed in October 2001. Within a few months, a University of Illinois survey found that 85 libraries had been contacted with government requests-and that's likely a low figure, considering that Patriot Act requests came with a gag order.

•    Waging Nonviolance- People Powered News and Analytics: How your local library can help you resist the surveillance state, by Melissa Morrone July 8, 2014

The third principle in the American Library Association's Code of Ethics is, "We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted."

* * *
Google, Facebook and other major Internet corporations, by contrast, may be calling on the U.S. government to curb surveillance, but they have their own plans for how to turn our data that they collect and retain into shareholder value.

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Like any other institution, of course, libraries are beholden to interests, which can inhibit their potential. Library staff as well as patrons are heavy users of Google and other big-data platforms, and in some cases these companies are looking to partner with libraries. E-books and digital rights management present privacy issues within library collections.  Library trustees often come from the business sector or other layers of municipal power structures and may bring correspondingly conservative outlooks to library operations.

* * *
Librarianship may be shaped by the broader society, but it is also marked by opposition to a dominant commercial culture. Librarian Barbara Fister reminds us that libraries do something Google and Amazon don't do: "We serve communities, not just customers, and our goal is the common good, not profits."

•    Brooklyn Daily Eagle: DHS head Johnson asks Brooklyn groups for help fighting home-grown terrorism- Concerns about lone-wolf terrorists `lurking in our communities', by Mary Frost, May 8, 2015

Johnson and Johnson: Brooklyn Public Library president Linda Johnson (left) hosts Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson's (center) event event at Brooklyn's central Grand Army Plaza Library.  Event was held as platform for Johnson (Mr.) to ask community groups to assist in surveillance because of concern for possible "lone wolf" terrorist attacks.

Saying that the global terrorist threat has evolved to become more decentralized and complex, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson met with community and religious leaders in Brooklyn . . .   at the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza.
* * *
“We are concerned about . .  the so-called lone wolf who could be lurking in our own communities . .”
* * *
Brooklyn Public Library President Linda Johnson hosted the event.

Johnson with Johnson again: Brooklyn Public Library president Linda Johnson as host stands with Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson's (podium).

•    Citizens Defending Libraries: Testimony in connection with the NY City Council Hearing Re NYPL's 42nd Street Central Reference Library and Midtown Campus Plans Opposing Proposed Sale of SIBL, the Elimination of Books and the Surveillance of Library Patrons, December 14, 2016.

Last night at the Mid-Manhattan Library the NYPL . .  the NYPL [at the presentation of their plans for the libraries future] said they would answer the public's questions, but the NYPL refused to answer critical basic questions about their plan.

Asked how many books SIBL used to hold, not just the other day, but before concoction of the Central Library Plan when we know that there were well over one million books in SIBL, and, similarly, asked how many books the Mid-Manhattan Library used to hold the NYPL refused to answer.  

* * *
NYPL Won’t Answer The Question: . . why, in connection with its library reorganization plans banishing books, the NYPL hired Booz Allen Hamilton, a top private surveillance firm with the U.S. government as its main client, shortly after the NYPL's board (according to its minutes) was advised that it was expected that the federal government was going to "require" the NYPL "to reengineer their Internet service facilities to enhance law enforcement's ability to monitor and intercept communications."

* * *
The City Council is hereby advised that these questions have been asked and the NYPL has refused to answer them.. .  You as City Council can ask these absolutely essential questions and insist on answers.

* * * *

Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer [in response]:  "As you know. .  I am very familiar with the PATRIOT Act. . .we are the place where everyone comes to feel safe.  The New York Public Library, like the Queens and Brooklyn Library, have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of undocumented folks. . . .  You’ve stated your position, your concern: I understand it; I disagree with it."

 •    Washington Examiner: Trump likely to have Kobach, Kelly run DHS, by Gabby Morrongiello, December 6, 2016.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and retired Marine Gen. John Kelly are likely to be tapped for secretary and deputy secretary of homeland security, according to a top transition official familiar with the president-elect's current thinking, but the source would not reveal which of the two men is favored for the top post and which is likely to be deputy secretary.

 •    McClatchyDC: Reports: Immigration hardliner Kobach misses out on top Homeland Security job,  By Lindsay Wise and Dave Helling,  December 7, 2016.

President-elect Donald Trump has passed over Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach for the top job at the Department of Homeland Security. . .

Kobach, an immigration hardliner, was thought to be under consideration for the post. . .

. . . It's possible that Trump might still offer Kobach a role at DHS or the Justice Department.

 •    Daily Kos: Be afraid, very afraid: Kobach plan as Secry of Homeland Security, by VaallBlue, November 21, 2016.

Suddenly there is a lot less guesswork in figuring out what Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach  would do as a member of Trump's Cabinet . . .

For those not familiar with Kris Kobach, he has a proven record of conceiving and implementing racist laws on immigration and voter suppression. . .

On Sunday, Kobach made no effort to hide what he proposed to Trump if he becomes the new head of the DHS.

* * *

Item #5:  Disenfranchising voters. . .   it is clearly a plan to issue regulations about voter rolls along with amending the National Voter Registration Act.

Given what Kobach did in Kansas, it's not hard to guess that this is about. As Secretary of State, Kobach suspended or cancelled more than 30,000 would-be voters' registrations . . .

* * *
Kobach's plan refers to some use of the Patriot Act with some action taken to "forestall future lawsuits."  That sounds ominous.

 •    Esquire: This Is the Man Spearheading the Newest Voter Suppression Effort- Kris Kobach has quite a track record,  By Charles P. Pierce, August 31, 2016.

Kobach has been the guy that John Ashcroft tasked [when Kobach was at Homeland Security engaged in surveillance/profiling programs] with weeding out foreign travelers in the wake of 9/11-and Kobach's program was so deeply involved in racial profiling that it was shut down. 

 •    LJWorld: Democrats accuse GOP of vote `caging'- Republicans deny making list of voters to challenge, by Scott Rothschild, December 27, 2007.

In an e-mail message sent to state Republicans, Kansas Republican Party Chairman Kris Kobach reviewed the party's accomplishments this year.

In the message, he states: "To date, the Kansas GOP has identified and caged more voters in the last 11 months than the previous two years."

Mike Gaughan, executive director of the Kansas Democratic Party, said, "Vote caging is a pretty direct form of voter suppression."

 . .  In the past, there have been reported incidents of caging lists targeting predominantly minority districts that tend to vote for Democrats.

* * * *

But Christian Morgan, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, denied the party was doing what Gaughan described.

"It's just a term of art," Morgan said of caging voters.

He said what the party has done is try to identify voters and their views on certain issues.

"We cage that person's information," he said.

Then when the election comes around, the GOP will . . .

  •    Project Censored: Ralph Nader, in October Berkeley CA address (recorded) about his latest book, "Breaking Through Power," December 30, 2016.

If you start out with 1% or less surrounding a particular issue that reflects what Abraham Lincoln called the public sentiment, that is public opinion, you're almost unstoppable. And if you connect on the left/right issues. . . . . Civil liberties, the PATRIOT Act, left/right with a vengeance. They don't want the government to search your home and not have to tell you for 72 hours or get into your medical, financial records without probable cause, or your library records without probable cause.

. . . You want to see a legislator or a lawmaker go pale and have the knees shake?: Walk into their office with conservatives and liberals and say "We are a left/right coalition." They don't know how to game you.. . They don't know how to game a union of both.  [Audio of this quote is used in our CDL YouTube video]

For an overview of how consistently government surveillance effect thread through the history of libraries in the United States see this article:

 •    First Monday (Peer reviewed journal): Libraries and National Security: An Historical Review, By Joan Starr, December 6, 2004.

The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks launched the United States into a new era of defensive preparedness. The U.S. federal government’s first legislative action in October 2001 was the passage of the . . . USA PATRIOT Act introduc[ing] a greatly heightened level of government intrusion into many aspects of ordinary life, including library use.

* * *
 An inquiry into the similarities and differences with the past may aid in suggesting a response . .

* * *

World War I . . . also brought with it increasingly restrictive information controls and a nearly complete stifling of dissent. Beginning in 1917, Congress passed several pieces of legislation designed to regulate information content and transmission. . .  declaring that any materials containing treasonous or revolutionary content would not be allowed in the mail. . .

. .   authorizing the establishment of an official censorship board . . the Sedition Act, substantially limiting free speech by making it illegal to speak, write, print, or publish anything critical of the U.S. government. Penalties for breaking this law included steep fines and incarceration. Throughout this period, the library community voiced no public or private objections . .

In addition to information restriction, military authorities also requested librarians’ assistance in patron surveillance. In the spring of 1918, military intelligence issued an order to remove from libraries any materials on explosives, as well as to report the names of requestors to the Army. Libraries readily complied, some developing innovative methods for reducing and monitoring access to the materials.

Indeed, librarians responded with extreme initiative, complying with both the letter and spirit of these laws and regulations. . . The pressure to conform suppressed nearly all dissent. The library community completely abandoned the very few librarians brave enough to hold opposing views>

* * *

World War II. . . came the 1942 War Department order for libraries to remove materials on munitions and cryptology, as well as to report to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) the names of individuals requesting the materials. . . .

. . . In addition, the Office of Facts and Figures (OFF), an early World War II propaganda agency, asked individual libraries to collect intelligence on public perceptions. Librarians were eager to participate . .  providing an "entrance of American librarians into the world of trenchcoats and the coeval emergence of information science and military intelligence in the United States."

 . . . librarians apparently considered privacy a peacetime luxury . . .

* * *

The Early Cold War and McCarthyism. . . What began as strictly an anti–Soviet book purge soon spread to any materials viewed as anti–American. Working librarians had to decide how best to respond to powerful citizen groups, and they debated the merits of book removal, reshelving, and labeling.

The [American Library Association] Council issued two groundbreaking resolutions during this time that provided the profession’s first substantial national support for intellectual freedom. . . intellectual freedom was a major topic, and "general sessions exhorted librarians to uphold democratic values of free inquiry and to combat censorship." The Council adopted the new Bill of Rights, asserting, "Censorship of books … must be challenged by libraries . . .

 . . . The second major document to come from the ALA was the 1953 Freedom to Read statement . .  a product of a large coalition of librarians, publishers, and educators. The statement asserted the value of "diversity of views and expressions," as well as denounced the practice of selecting books based on "the personal history or political affiliations of the author" . .   and clearly articulated the professional responsibility of librarians and publishers to defend intellectual freedom.

* * *

The Late Cold War and the Library Awareness Program. .  June 4, 1987, two FBI agents entered Columbia University’s Mathematics and Science Library and asked a clerk about foreign library users . .  the reference librarian overhead the request and referred the agents to the Acting University Librarian . . . who refused to cooperate with the FBI. . . . she reported the incident . . .

The story of this encounter broke in the national media with a front–page article in the New York Times . . .  The national media picked up the story, and it spread to "all parts of the country and abroad."

The following year. .  the disturbing information that the FBI had conducted over 100 background searches on librarians or their associates, many of whom were presumably "those who had criticized the [Library Awareness] program"

. . .     “documents show that librarians have continued to be contacted after 1987, that people who opposed the program have been investigated, and we are not as secure as we thought."

The year ended with ALA filing appeal with the Justice Department for a full disclosure of the FBI program . .  "We feel we have been grossly misled about the nature, scope, and continuation of the FBI Library Awareness Program"

* * *

. . .  in a parallel study of the public by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (Rainie, et al., 2002). By so doing, they were able to show that librarians are far more likely (67 percent) than the public (35.3 percent) to object to the federal government removing information from its Internet Web sites.  

For more on the related issue of physical vs. digital books see out other Citizens Defending Libraries page:

  •    Citizens Defending Libraries: Physical Books vs. Digital Books

Our Social Media Campaign- Some Thoughts And Our Fervent Hope It Will Work As Well As It Ought

For more about converging interests adverse to the tradition of libraries see:  Why Nonprofit Boards May Stray From Their Core Missions And Obligations To the Public- Considered Generally And Particularly With Respect To Libraries

Citizens Defending Libraries relies on and utilizes social media: Our Facebook page, our Twittering (@DefendLibraries), our YouTube Channel.  We hope that you follow and share what we offer.

We also have another hope: Now that we are thinking about and passing along information on the topic of surveillance in libraries, information about the engagement of spy firm Booz Allen to reorganize and dismantle NYC libraries, we hope that our all social media campaigns get the traction they ought.  Apparently, this is something that should not just be outrightly presumed and is something that sometimes deserves consideration.