Michael Froomkin links (via Proof Through the Night) to this story from a Seattle TV station about a local library that has fought off an FBI subpoena for a list of names and addresses of who took out a book on Osama bin Laden.
According to the story, a patron of the library reported to the FBI that someone had scrawled an allegedly pro-bin Laden comment into the margin of one of the pages of the book. Although the facts aren’t entirely clear, it seems that the patron gave the book to the FBI, and investigators found the matter serious enough to obtain a subpoena ordering the library to disclose the names and addresses of the patrons who had checked out the book. (Note that this was a traditional criminal grand jury subpoena, not a Section 215 order or anything related to the Patriot Act.) I assume the FBI intended to interview at least some of the patrons to find out who had made the comment, but it’s not altogether clear. In any event, the library objected to the subpoena in court. It argued that the subpoena could not be enforced because the FBI had no right to know who had checked out the book. As far as I know this legal argument has never been recognized as valid; nonetheless, the library’s opposition was enough to pressure the FBI into withdrawing the subpoena.
That’s the story, at least as we know it so far. I find it hard to know what to make of it. As reported, the story is troubling; it’s not clear why the FBI saw the comment scrawled in the margin as something serious enough to merit the time and resources that would go into contacting and interviewing the people who had checked out the book. At the same time, the fact that it is not clear from the story does not mean no such explanation exists. Stay tuned.
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