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COSELL's Patriot Act Roundtable Summary of Meeting
The discussion centered on developing policies to deal with Patriot Act-inspired government requests and demands for information. It was noted that the Patriot Act doesn't impose new obligations, since most states' patron confidentiality statutes have exceptions for court orders; however, the Patriot Act increases the likelihood that libraries will be requested or required to produce confidential patron information. Also, because the Patriot Act prohibits any person from disclosing to any other person that a Patriot Act request has been made, it is important to ensure that front-line public contact employees, such as receptionists and student circulation desk workers, are aware of their legal obligations. We discussed the importance of designating a contact person in the university administration (e.g. university attorney's or chancellor's office), both to assist in the processing of Patriot Act requests and if necessary to test the legal sufficiency of the request. It was also noted that, when developing a policy, careful consideration should be given to what types of information are kept by individual libraries about patrons' reading and research; examples of information which may be maintained by libraries are circulation records, visited-website histories of computers connected to the internet, and user records in network printing systems. Reported by Scott Deleve sdeleve@olemiss.edu
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The
Patriot Act roundtable met at 3 p.m. on Friday, April 11, 2003. Thirteen
people attended the session. We began with participant introductions.