MEDIA RELEASE
Monday, 2 December 2002
For immediate release (Please copy to online discussion lists)

"EXTREME DISQUIET" AT U.S. PROPOSALS TO MONITOR BORROWED LIBRARY BOOKS 

CILIP supports American Library Association opposition to Total Information Awareness system 

Proposals to monitor borrowed library books, under the Bush Administration's Total Information Awareness System, should give cause for extreme disquiet, says CILIP's Chief Executive Bob McKee.  "Uniquely among public services, libraries are trusted as places where people can pursue their interests and their quest for knowledge free from interference and in complete privacy," Dr McKee says.  "There is no place there for Big Brother."

Under the proposals, reported in both the US and UK media, the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency would fund the development of technologies that would eventually allow the Government to track large numbers of online transactions - including book borrowing - and provide data that could identify possible terrorist activity.  The American Library Association has joined some 50 other organisations urging US Senators to stop the development of this "unconstitutional system of public surveillance".  

"We in the UK should also make our voices heard against the US proposal, Dr McKee says.  "And we should certainly voice our opposition were there any move to introduce a similar system here."

At the recent CILIP Awards Gala Ceremony in London, guest speaker Martin Bell, the former MP and journalist, said that if the NHS was the guardian of the nation's health, then libraries were the guardians of its sanity.  To compromise the privacy that libraries offer all citizens is to risk the destruction of that unique role.

Not even the serious threat of terrorism is sufficient justification for making libraries an instrument of indiscriminate state scrutiny, CILIP affirms.  The Chair of CILIP's Ethics Panel, Bernard Naylor, says: "The courts should protect libraries from 'fishing expeditions' mounted by the police or security services, which should be required to justify their actions in the rare cases when the evidence is sufficiently compelling as to justify an exception."

Contact:        Tim Owen, Head of External Relations
                        Tel: 020 7255 0652.     Email: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>


Notes to Editors

CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals is the leading professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers, with around 23,000 members working in all sectors, including business and industry, science and technology, further and higher education, schools, local and central government, the health service, the voluntary sector, national and public libraries.

CILIP's goals are to: position the profession at the heart of the information revolution; develop and enhance the role and skills of all its Members; present and champion those skills, together with new ones which will be acquired through continuing professional development; and ensure that individuals, enterprises and not for profit organisations have ready and timely access to the information they need.

- Ends -
 <<021202TIA.DOC>>