Comments on: Those Poor LC Librarians are Restricted

By: anonymous

anonymous — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:30:49 +0000

AL is the Julian Assange of the library world.

By: ElderLibrarian

ElderLibrarian — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:01:45 +0000

My coffee highed self can’t help but think that the young man who gave this stuff to Wikileaks didn’t read most of it either, but he is in deep dodo- why did he have so much access to begin with?
Also, dear AL, it drives me batty to hear dumb talk about censorship from librarians. Do they not know what it actually means?

By: Sig

Sig — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 04:05:04 +0000

Even if you have a TS clearance, such information is generally compartmentalized, meaning that you must have not only the clearance but the “need to know” in order to do your job. Having a clearance doesn’t automatically grant you access to everything classified at that level or below.

Restricting the network seems kind of silly, but you could look at it as doing due diligence–whether the stuff is in the wild or not, the law requires that you protect it to the extent of your ability, which could reasonably be interpreted to include preventing unauthorized persons within your sphere of control from accessing it. DoD and the Army issued a bunch of reminder directives about not attempting to access the material a few months ago; the tone was generally, “Yeah, we know, but we still have an obligation to do our best, no matter how futile.”

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:20:31 +0000

If you’re a federal employee it doesn’t matter if you find classified documents in your laundry, car, wherever, you still can’t read them. Seems to me that I would be grateful to have the site blocked.

By: Raynor

Raynor — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 18:05:44 +0000

“probably no people would be more easily able to find and read the Wikileaks documents than librarians”

What? Half the profession hates technology and the other half is too busy playing video games.

By: ItGirl

ItGirl — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 17:17:35 +0000

It’s not just LC, but all government employees. As my husband explained to me, he does not have clearance to read top secret documents. It doesn’t matter if those documents are readily accessible – he still can’t read it.

It’s like if someone left the car keys in a brand new convertible. Just because the keys are there doesn’t mean it’s still not against the law to steal it.

If the LC librarians don’t have clearance to read it, then they can’t. They can do what my husband is doing: wait for CNN to tell us all about it.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:29:17 +0000

Annoyed Librarian,

I don’t often agree with you, but in this case, I believe that you hit the jackpot. The LOC is not a regular sort of library. Because they are part of the federal government, they have requirements that take precedence over supposed censorship. I also agree with you in that I don’t really think this is a case of censorship at all. Thanks.