Netscape & Users Privacy (long)

[Donovan Lambright]

Last week, we had an incident that has caused me some concern.  During the
evening shift, a small scrap of paper reading "bomb in library" was left on
the Reference Desk while the librarian was off in the stacks.  The police
were called and responded quickly.  They told the library staff that they
didn't feel evacuation was necessary.

After the fire department determined that there was no explosive device in
the building, the police begin looking around and soon focused on a couple
of teenagers who were "acting suspiciously" (police officer's words).  These
kids had been well known to library staff for a long time as
troublemakers--the usual internet junkies with little respect for time
limits, etc.  Because of this, most staff members were prepared to accept
the officers' suspicion.  As far as I can tell, though, no library staff
pointed these kids out to the officers--the officers focused on them on
their own.

After looking at the kids' drivers licenses, one of the police officers
casually reached down and hit the little down-arrow button just to the right
of Netscape's location box on the computer one of the kids was using.  Upon
seeing no "bomb-type" site listed, the officers withdrew, saying they would
do the usual investigation, etc.

It's taking me some time to talk to everyone involved and find out exactly
what happened (I was not there), but I feel that one of our patrons' privacy
was violated by the police who had no evidence to do so other than a
feeling.  What disturbs me is that it was done very quickly and
casually--the librarians had no knowledge that this was going to be done and
thus couldn't really step in.  I'm also bothered by the fact that most of
the librarians on the staff do not see this action as questionable and
probably wouldn't have tried to stop the police if they had known what they
were going to do.  The prevailing attitude seems to be that it was a serious
situation and the kids were known troublemakers who have angered just about
everyone on the staff (including myself) at one time or another.

I don't want to blow this incident out of proportion and make it out to be a
bigger deal than it is.  I also don't think that I could have handled it any
better than the staff who were present.  It does bother me, though.


Donovan Lambright			
Computer Services Manager		

Missouri River Regional Library				 
PO Box 89
Jefferson City, MO  65102-0089
(573) 634-2464