Death Threat Woes

[Filtering Facts]

I would have your library director call your city attorney immediately.  If
you keep records of sign-ins, I would put them in a safe place until your
city attorney tells you what to do with them. I don't know what the law is
in your state, but in many states library records are confidential, and a
court order is needed to view them.


At 07:52 AM 10/25/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Yesterday morning my ISP informed me that someone using one my library's 
>computers used a form on the Whitehouse website to transmit a death 
>threat to the President.  It appears that we're likely to soon hear from 
>a Secret Service agent who may or may not have some sharp questions for 
>us.  
>
>Currently we do not authenticate use of our public Internet 
>workstations.  A patron who wishes to use a machine is simply assigned a 
>machine by a librarian.  If we're busy, the librarian asks for a name 
>which is then written on a waiting list.  There's no way for us to tell 
>who used a particular machine three weeks ago at 10:35 a.m.
>
>How obligated are libraries to keep records of Internet workstation use?  
>Should we be scanning library cards into a spreadsheet and keeping track 
>of times and specific PCs?  How long should such records be kept?  Who's 
>entitled to see them?  
>
>---
>Michael J. Dargan                               office: 319 291 4496
>Technical Systems Administrator                    fax: 319 291 6736
>Waterloo and Cedar Falls Public Libraries         Waterloo, IA 50701
>
>
>

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David Burt, Filtering Facts, HTTP://WWW.FILTERINGFACTS.ORG
David_Burt at filteringfacts.org