Scary (6/7/2005)

Who’s scarier—someone with a book or someone with a gun? Our U.S.government considers a person reading a book scarier than one toting a gun. Here’s the background.

Terror suspects have a right to bear arms. According to a March 9 New York Times editorial, the national resolve to catch terrorists conflicts with the privacy rights of citizens bearing arms. “…58 potential gun buyers were flagged in a 9-month period last year as positive matches on a federal watch list of terrorism suspects…47 of them were cleared to go ahead anyway and buy assault rifles, ammunition or whatever else was on their firearms list.” Thus, suspects were able to stock up for their personal needs or for group armories. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft seemed to view gun owner rights as more important than national security. New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg had proposed that gun-purchase records of terror suspects be kept for at least 10 years. Congress, however, enacted legislation providing for the destruction of gun purchase records within 24 hours.

States also continue to pass legislation that requires destruction of gun purchase records. For example, the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill to destroy state records on gun purchases after 90 days. The Chicago Tribune calls it “Gangbanger Day in Springfield” because it will be difficult to trace large purchases of guns. Illinois currently keeps a database of gun transactions by retailers so that a gun found at a crime scene can be traced, and authorities then can ask Illinois retailers if the person who purchased the gun has also stockpiled other weapons. The “pro-gangbanger” legislation will allow gangbangers to use so-called “straw” purchasers (those who have clean records) to buy street weapons at Illinois gun shops. The Illinois Governor has promised to veto the bill. Florida recently passed a law allowing people to carry a concealed weapon and shoot anyone deemed threatening.

On the other hand, our legislators and Congress seem to think that people who use the library are the true threat. The Naperville, Illinois library, citing security concerns, is going to make patrons prove their identities with fingerprinting before using computers. Fingerprint scanners will be installed on 130 computers. Given the proposed expansion of the U.S. Patriot Act, privacy advocates are concerned about misuse of the data.

And just in case you don’t believe that library data are misused, here’s a story from Joan Airoldi, a librarian and the director of the library district in Whatcom County in northwest Washington, quoted in the May 18 issue of USA Today. In June of last year, an FBI agent requested a list of people who had borrowed a biography of Osama bin Laden from Whatcom County’s Deming library branch. The library refused and told the FBI to follow legal channels. The FBI then served a subpoena on the library, demanding a list of all who had borrowed the book since November 2001. The library staff and board struggled with the difficult decision of whether it was their job to protect peoples’ rights to obtain books. After all, who would want to check out a book about bin Laden when this might attract the FBI’s attention? Ms. Airoldi said that in the 1980s the FBI had (quote) “engaged in a secret library awareness program to track the books borrowed by patrons who had emigrated from communist countries.” The Whatcom trustees voted to go to court to quash the subpoena, and fifteen days later the FBI withdrew its request. Ms. Airoldi adds that the Patriot Act empowers the FBI to go to a secret court to request library and bookstore records considered relevant to a national security investigation, and to do that without showing that the people whose records are sought are suspected of any crime or explaining why they are being investigated. Furthermore, librarians and booksellers are forbidden to reveal that they have received an order to surrender customer data.

So there you have it. You can buy guns and assault weapons and your purchase record will be destroyed. But take out a book? You could be investigated. So in 2005, shooting is ok, but reading is suspect.

- Judith Kohler

Commentaries Home