Computers and warrants

There's that mythical question that bounces around our library once in a while - if the FBI came and wanted to take a computer, would we ask for a warrant? This started with the Patriot Act. But for me it hit home when I happened to pick up a Connecticut newspaper on a ferry ride to Port Jefferson that had an article in it about a librarian in Connecticut who had to give information to the FBI and then had to follow a gag order and not say anything had ever happened. (I can't remember why he was then allowed to go public. I also don't remember why the FBI wanted information from this particular library.)

At a Massachusetts Library Association conference not that long after, I went to a panel where I was able to hear this librarian speak. One thing I remember that he said was how hard it was for him to keep quiet about what had happened in his library while John Ashcroft, US Attorney General, was going around the country promoting the Patriot Act and saying that there had never been an actual incident of a library having to give up information and why was everyone in such a snit about this anyway.

Recently I noticed an article in Library Journal, September 1, 2008, p 14 that brought that little niggling question up again. The article is titled "Maryland PL Gives Up Computers." Subtitle is: "Afterward, in anthrax case, FBI gets judge's permission for search."

The article reported that the library's usual response would be to request a court order. But in this case the director was persuaded by the FBI agent to give over two computers without a court order. A statement later said that the Frederick County Public Libraries do not have a policy about confidentiality of computer use. The FBI told the library director that they needed the computers in an investigation of Bruce Ivins, the anthrax scientist they suspected in the anthrax cases.

Later, after the fact, when the FBI agent petitioned for court warrants, the FBI said that agents watched Ivins for 90 minutes while he used two computers at the C. Burr Artz Public Library and this is why they wanted to look at the computers. Ivins had been checking email accounts and looking at a website about the anthrax investigation. Why the FBI waited a week to come and take the computers and another week before getting search warrants is not clear.

Another interesting part of the Frederick Country Public Libraries statement about this incident is this: "While several media reports have linked the interaction [between the FBI and the library] with the reported suicide of Bruce E. Ivins, FCPL has no information or indication of such a linkage."

Okay. I'm thinking I need to take another look at our computer policy with our director. Do we have any statement about confidentiality of computer use? Do we want to put that in if we don't? I'll also ask our director what he thinks about asking for a court order when facing a big, or maybe two big, FBI agents who don't have one. And another question is, what were the librarians thinking in that library when two FBI agents were watching Ivins for 90 minutes? I know in our small library, that would be pretty obvious. Or are those agents that good?