Odin Halvorson* "When the Patriot Act was passed, libraries got requests for patrons' borrowing history. We were prohibited from disclosing those requests.
* We deleted and shredded those records and stopped tracking reading history for that reason."
* "We figured, what's the fun in just telling them there's nothing? What the feds always forget is that librarians LOVE weaponizing bureaucracy for a good cause.
* We developed a compliance policy just for the Patriot Act."
2/6
"We added a Patriot Act compliance officer to our org chart. This person was a real employee."
3/6
"Well, WAS. The office of Patriot Act compliance would be assigned to whichever employee had just left our library. And gosh, it's just such a mess around here, you know."
4/6
4/6
Unfortunately nobody can remember the password to the system that has those records. So we have to get IT involved, which means running through more detailed security resets to make sure other systems aren't compromised. It should take a couple weeks.
5/6
5/6
"The library where I worked at the time did not successfully fulfill a single Patriot Act request.
Not that this is relevant to the current situation. I assure you this is a random memory that popped into my head with zero prompting. "
6/6
vruz@indubitablyodin This is all cool and dandy but you've never met Nazis willing to burn down the library.
These stories were cool to deal with something that resembled a government.
That world is gone, the US as a democratic state with a stable system of governance is dead.
The US is being managed by Nazis now.
If the library doesn't comply, the Nazis will burn it down, this is the new reality.
Wake up.
Elaine Coates@vruz @indubitablyodin But they still won’t have anybody’s browsing history.
@elaine1helen @indubitablyodin
Oh great. That's so bright, isn't it.
undead enby of the apocalypse@vruz @indubitablyodin @elaine1helen it prevents them from using that to go after people, which is really important. I don’t get why you’re so cynical about this (assuming the comment I replied to was sarcasm)
Stryder Notavi@vruz @elaine1helen @indubitablyodin
https://catvalente.substack.com/p/keep-calm-and-fing-stop-this-s
It was about the election, but it's still relevant now.
Stop dumping your hopelessness on the people who are working to fix this.
Will what they're doing here be enough? No, but no one thing will solve this and incremental progress is a win. Others will do things on other fronts.
There will be no hero, because no one fixes this alone - it'll be the sum total of a *LOT* of little things that makes the difference.
@vruz @elaine1helen @indubitablyodin Also worth reading - https://www.joanwestenberg.com/we-dont-need-more-cynics-we-need-more-builders/
We Don't Need More Cynics. We Need More Builders.
Cynicism is the cheap seats. It’s the fast food of intellectual positions. Anyone can point at something and say it’s broken, corrupt, or destined to fail. The real challenge? Building something better. The cynic sees a proposal for change and immediately lists why it won’t work. They’
@vruz @elaine1helen @indubitablyodin
And this is what it looks like in practice:
https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/is-somebody-doing-something
shadowwwind@vruz @indubitablyodin Nothing is helped by dumping your failure to cope on others.
Maybe some things they do won't be enough, but better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
Meanwhile, I suggest you stop giving up before you start.
Gabriel Pettier@vruz @indubitablyodin that was a response for the situation at the time, not a tutorial for how to survive a totalitarian state, take the same thinking, and apply it to the current situation.
The general idea, is that sabotage can take many forms, some extremely effective, despite a high degree of plausible deniability, and relatively low risk for the people committing it.
I saw a post sometime ago about a guy painting small rocks in pink and dropping them randomly to keep the stasis on edge.
Ben Aveling@vruz @indubitablyodin If the library does comply, it still gets burnt down. Probably sooner.
Dan Wineman@vruz @indubitablyodin “Wake up” meaning what exactly? That the library should comply out of fear? Do you have any idea how many people owe their lives to small acts of resistance like these during WWII? What is your goal in replying with this smug defeatism?
Alexander The 1st@vruz @indubitablyodin If the Nazis burn down the library, it will be a significant damper to their PR. Make them stomach losing the high ground.
“Are We the Baddies?” — That Mitchell and Webb Look
@vruz @indubitablyodin It's how the RIAA decided to stop sending mass lawsuits in 2008: they realized they were essentially losing PR every time they did so.
[ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_group_efforts_against_file_sharing ]