Posted on 12/07/2003 10:33:22 PM PST by quidnunc
What has particularly irritated the attorney general is the vigorous dissent of many American librarians to Section 215 of John Ashcroft's Patriot Act, which allows the FBI to match lists of certain books with their borrowers as part of investigations into terrorism. The attorney general finally declared he is not using that provision of the act, but librarians point out that he did not say he will never implement it in the future.
Accordingly, more and more librarians are informing people who come to the libraries about that law, and suggest they urge the attorney general to protect their right to read without being put into a government database.
Meanwhile, however, the American Library Association (ALA), with its more than 64,000 members, is ignoring a much more pressing human rights issue. The organization refuses to condemn Fidel Castro for sending to his gulag, for prison terms of up to 28 years, 10 independent Cuban librarians — who were included among the 75 independent journalists, union organizers, economists, human rights workers and other dissidents who were rounded up. The librarians resist the dictator's censorship of ideas, as do all those captured in the raids.
This crackdown on freedom of speech — and freedom to read — took place last April at summary trials in remote locations that were closed to foreign journalists. Amnesty International considers these 75 dissidents, including the independent librarians, to be "prisoners of conscience."
Yet, at the ALA's annual conference last June in Toronto, Cuban independent librarians were refused a speaking place on the program. Only Mr. Castro's official librarians were accorded the freedom to speak — for nearly three hours. And there was no ALA resolution to demand that Cuba's leader release the independent librarians. Some of them — like a number of other prisoners of conscience in Castro's gulag — badly need and are being denied medical attention.
Declaring "the fundamental rights of all human beings to access information without restriction," the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions in The Hague has condemned this brutal suppression of nonviolent dissent. And Jose Miguel Vivanco — executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch — says "Cuba is flouting fundamental human rights norms."
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
What is it about librarians that make them squeal like little pigs at this, and find nothing wrong with "big brother" watching your banking practices?
You know, like the withdrawing / deposit of cash at or near $10,000.
those knee pads librarians wear are not just for placing books on the lower shelves
How so?
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