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I hate the
feeling of someone reading over my shoulder. Not only is it superficially
distracting, but it often affects how I respond to the text. Being conscious
of being watched inhibits my thinking because I find myself reading through
my watcher's eyes. It makes me suddenly self-conscious, wondering if the
observer is making faulty suppositions about me based on the material I'm
reading. The bored businessperson next to me on the train isn't a big deal,
but the thought of the FBI peering over my shoulder in the public library
definitely puts me on edge.
Ever since
the U.S.A. PATRIOT
Act was passed by Congress in October 2001, the FBI has been
reading over our shoulders by visiting libraries across the country to demand
library patrons' reading records and other files. Under the PATRIOT
Act, the FBI doesn't have to demonstrate "probable
cause" of criminal activity to request records; in fact, the so-called
search warrant is issued by a secret court. Once granted, it entitles the FBI
to procure any library records pertaining to book circulation, Internet use,
or patron registration. Librarians can even be compelled to cooperate with
the FBI in monitoring Internet usage.
This sort of
secrecy is not only chilling, it is ripe for potential abuse. A similar Cold War
version of library monitoring was called the Library Awareness Program,
through which FBI agents specifically targeted Soviet and eastern European
nationals. The American Library Association (ALA) effectively fought the LAP
then and is now standing up to the PATRIOT Act
searches. ALA policy on
governmental intimidation, established in 1981, unequivocally opposes
"the use of any governmental prerogative which leads to the intimidation
of the individual or the citizenry from the exercise of free expression."
The ALA sees the new FBI
policy for what it is: blatant intimidation of patrons.
But beyond
FBI intimidation tactics, the new library surveillance program is bound to
backfire. What one reads does say something about one's interests--but it may
say different things to different people. If one only sees a few details
about someone else's life, their actions can easily be contorted to fit the
observer's version of reality.
This is a
classic sitcom plot line: an observer misconstrues a sequence of unrelated
details and then has a skewed perception of the protagonist. Perhaps the
observer reads a personal letter that is lying on a coffee table but doesn't
realize it is part of a novel-in-progress. Based on this bit of information,
the observer constructs conclusions, with a succession of trivial actions
seemingly reinforcing the observer's misperceptions, all to the delight of
the omniscient audience.
By seeking to
discover what books certain people are reading, the FBI falls right into the
role of the ill-informed observer in a similar plot line being played out in
libraries across the country. Only it's not so delightful when the FBI
concludes you're a terrorist because you're doing research at your local
library for an article on suicide bombings and have amassed a circulation
record it deems suspicious. A person who reads a book intending to make a
bomb could be a suspect--as could anyone researching terrorist bombings in
order to prevent them.
The same
knowledge can be used for "good" or "evil." The fateful
tree in the Garden of Eden represented the knowledge of good and
evil--opposing values intertwined on one tree. The FBI can't possibly know
the intent of knowledge harvested from books, and affording the agency the
opportunity to pretend it can is incredibly dangerous. Just as a person
wearing rose-colored glasses sees everything rosy, so the FBI is predisposed
to find suspicious facts. If the FBI wants to scour libraries looking for
"suspicious" reading records, it's going to find them--but its
perception is inherently skewed by its intent.
I view
reading as access to information; the FBI views it as an indictment.
Government suddenly fears domestic suicide bombings, so reading lists are
examined and suddenly an innocent researcher is a suspect. In the worst case
scenario, details could be dragged from one's past which
seemingly support such suspicions. In the best case scenario, the FBI
has wasted a lot of time and tax dollars on tracking a nonexistent threat.
Meanwhile, all of us feel the presence of Big Brother reading over our
shoulders.
Yes, we want
protection from terrorists and we want our government to root out those who
intend to harm us. But surveillance always spreads beyond its original
purpose, justified each step of the way by manufactured fear and
better-safe-than-sorry rationales.
We saw last
winter how the War on Drugs was deftly tied to the tail of the War on
Terrorism. Today the FBI is looking for records of people who check out books
on bomb-making; tomorrow it may question why you've checked out books about
the Colombian drug war.
While the FBI
may never visit your library--not that you'll know if they do, as librarians
are barred by law from disclosing the FBI's presence--this program of
surveillance still has a chilling effect on cognitive liberty. The feeling of
being monitored inhibits freedom of thought.
Take for
instance Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984. When Winston gets up the
nerve to hide from the omnipresent telescreen to indulge in writing with pen
and paper--an act not expressly forbidden but punishable
nonetheless--he "seemed not merely to have lost the power of expressing
himself, but even to have forgotten what it was he originally intended to
say." Excessive surveillance trained him to self-censor, thereby stifling
his creative and cognitive abilities. Likewise, the FBI's surveillance is
bound to have a chilling effect on seekers of knowledge who rely on the
public library system. It's implied that you'd better watch what you read
because the FBI will be watching too. Intimidating readers in such a manner
is, in effect, controlling what we read and how we think.
Freedom of
thought and the freedom to read are intertwined. And while monitoring library
records isn't as direct as banning books, it is bound to cause self-censorship
among readers--which may be the intended result anyway. The government may
not be able to ban a book, so instead it will make it suspect to read that
book. Thus, the FBI circumvents the First Amendment by threatening readers
rather than prohibiting what they read.
We may not
always like what people do with some of the information they glean, but their
right to do so is what ensures everybody's right of access to information. As
Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy recently observed in the majority
opinion in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition:
The mere
tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not sufficient
reason for banning it.... First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when
the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that
impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech
must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of
thought.
Under the
guise of protecting us from terrorism, these surveillance activities intimidate
library patrons by spying over their shoulders, collecting reading lists, and
tracking Internet usage. The FBI is policing our minds by purporting to read
them. Of course we want to be kept safe--but not to the extent that we are
patrolled and treated as suspects. Giving up privacy rights can't guarantee
physical safety, but it will almost certainly inhibit intellectual freedom
and limit cognitive liberty. We Americans who cherish our freedoms should
seriously consider whether or not this is a compromise we are willing to
make.
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By Zara
Gelsey
Zara Gelsey
is director of communications for the Center for Cognitive Liberty and
Ethics.
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