The American Library Association's code of ethics for librarians says: http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/ethics.html >We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all >efforts to censor library resources. -Declan ----- Forwarded message from Eric Cordian <emcat_private> ----- From: Eric Cordian <emcat_private> Subject: Libraries Cull Collections to Make Feds Happy To: cypherpunksat_private Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 16:38:35 -0800 (PST) Here's an interesting little story. The Feds are rethinking the idea of continuing to make documents which detail information about vulnerable infrastructure available to the public. Indeed, many such documents are no longer on government Web pages. But what to do about the documents already out there? No problemo. :) The Feds recently sent out a letter to 1300 libraries across the country, asking them to destroy a particular document about water supplies. The libraries cheerfully complied. One wonders if the libraries would have rolled over so easily had the government requested the destruction of "The Turner Diaries," "Why Buildings Fall Down," or "Heather Has Two Mommies." Maybe we need a program to certify people as "Trusted Citizens" in order to enable their access to forbidden technologies like chemistry and encryption. ----- CASTLETON, Vt. -- Under federal orders, two Vermont schools destroyed copies of a document about water supplies that had raised security concerns after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The University of Vermont and Castleton College got letters last fall from the U.S. Government Printing Office instructing them to destroy the little-known document, "Source Area Characteristics of Large Public Surface Water Supplies." "It's pretty unusual, really," said Ruth Parlin, Castleton's library director. "I've never really heard of the government asking libraries to destroy something that's already been made available." The letter was sent to all 1,300 libraries that serve as federal depositories across the country. In Vermont, only Castleton and the University of Vermont had the document. Both stored it on a CD-ROM. "We had someone fold it and it shattered," said Nancy Luzer, who is in charge of government documents at Castleton's library. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law" ----- End forwarded message ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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