Captain von Trapp eases the car toward the gates, his new wife and seven children in tow. In the dark, he and Max finally push the car out onto the road, eager to keep as quiet as possible. Two sets of headlights flash on, illuminating the family just as they make to dive into the car. They've been caught. Having already been singled out for not flying a swastica on his home like most of his neighbours, Captain von Trapp is now being coerced to command a ship for Hitler. He is expected to report for duty in the morning and will be escorted to do so against his will. Herr Zeller, representing the Third Reich, reminds the Captain of the telegram that he would have received from the Admiral of the Navy containing this information.
Captain von Trapp responds:
I was under the impression, Herr Zeller. . .
. . .that the contents of telegrams in Austria are private! 
Herr Zeller has very little to say in response, except to reiterate his orders, but Captain von Trapp is right to be outspoken on this point. He has touched on something of enormous significance: an inseparable, fascinating, and apparently innate relationship between privacy and freedom, freedom and privacy.
In 2005, four librarians—George Christian, Barbara Bailey, Peter Chase, and Jan Nocek—went up against the FBI to defend the privacy of library users, and by extension, the human right to intellectual freedom. Even having attended a decidedly Canadian library program, it would have been impossible for me not to have been acquainted with The Connecticut Four during my studies. When there is greatness displayed in any discipline, wherever it may have happened in the big wide world, it is worth paying attention. These librarians could have faced a jail sentence of up to five years, the loss of their livelihoods and personal security, but chose to be archetypes of excellence in the field of librarianship. Why enter the fray? Why is privacy so important?
"In the week before school starts, I have time to pursue my own interests. I board the bus to Borough Park, determined to sneak a few books home. I have not read anything all summer; bringing books to camp with me would have been too dangerous. It feels nice to have time to myself again, and enough privacy that I don't have to be afraid my thoughts are being overheard."
Deborah Feldman, Unorthodox
George Christian reads the letter again, just to let it sink in. He can't believe it. The FBI is not only demanding access to private library usage records, but they have issued a lifetime gag order prohibiting him from telling anyone what is going on, including members of his own family. The two agents are still standing in his office, explaining the expectations of the order:
"Like a children’s librarian during story hour, the agent used his finger to draw Christian’s attention to one line in particular: The recipient of the letter could not disclose “to any person that the FBI has sought or obtained access to information or records.” It was a lifetime gag order; break it, and he could be looking at five years in jail. “I believe this is unconstitutional,” said Christian politely. In response he got a threatening scowl, a business card, and instructions to have his lawyer call the FBI."
Amy and David Goodman, Mother Jones magazine
It would have been easiest to merely comply, but Christian, along with three other library professionals (also handed gag orders) chose the defense of patron privacy over mere capitulation. Of the (estimated) 30,000 such letters to have been issued that year, these humble librarians were among the only to challenge the intrusive law, filing collectively against the attorney general as 'John Doe'.
Sadly, both the National Security Letter and the gag order that went with it were entirely legal under the then-new Patriot Act, hastily passed by Congress in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. But that didn’t mean they were right.
American Libraries, a publication of The American Library Association
Libraries are built largely upon the premise that Intellectual Freedom is a human right. Libraries provide access and opportunity, supporting our freedom to read and the privacy inherent in that freedom. Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is written as follows:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
Privacy is integral to this freedom, and to a broader sense of freedom, for a number of reasons. Have you ever noticed the lengths we Canadians go to to ensure our vote is kept private (if we so choose)? First, squeezed in at a tiny table with a three-sided barrier, we mark our box and fold the paper as instructed to obscure our vote. We then slip the concealed entry into a large box so that it is mixed in with all the other votes and there is no way to tell whose is which. Why is this so important? I believe it is because this kind of privacy ensures that people can vote for whom they really want to; they have total freedom to choose the candidate they most support (if any) without interference. When a person sees a psychologist, what is the reason for doctor-patient confidentiality? What is the reason for keeping those conversations private between the psychologist and the patient? So that the patient is able to speak freely about something difficult: again, privacy intimately relates to freedom. Why are our library records private? Why can't anyone simply walk into the library and demand to know what you borrowed last week and expect us to tell them? Because one of the ways we are free to borrow anything we like is this level of privacy as it relates to the items we select.
As a preteen, and not knowing anything about my library's commitment to patron privacy, I once failed to check out a book that I was sincerely interested in. I would come during open hours and read it in the stacks, ready to hastily shove it back into place if I heard footsteps approaching. It wasn't Fifty Shades of Grey (that wasn't even published back then), I was fascinated with onomatology (to do with the meaning and etymology of names) and the only book I could find that was even remotely related was—mortifyingly, at least to my tween sensibilities—a baby naming book. Ridiculous as it may seem, and even though I certainly wasn't doing anything wrong, I was too uncomfortable to bring the book up to the counter. Had I been able to privately check it out, I would have loved to have taken it home to pour over at my leisure (this is one of the reasons why I actually like the option to use a self-checkout at the library, where available).
Of course, in all of these cases, a person can be as verbose and revealing as they'd like to be, and with whomever they feel comfortable, but having privacy means leaving this up to the individual. One additional real-life example of the interplay between privacy and freedom (and one of the most unlikely things I have ever read in a book) was Elizabeth Gilbert's take on marriage as "quietly and personally revolutionary": marriage as an active state of defiance. She writes about Florence, Italy in the 1600s, when in spite of every effort on the part of social and religious authorities to control people, these powers were stumped when it came to controlling married couples and what they talked about in the privacy of their own bedrooms:
"...the most horrible, frightening and bewildering thing of all [for these authorities] was that the matrimonial bed was so private and therefore so ultimately uncontrollable. Not even the most vigilant of Florentine monks could... control what all those tongues were talking about.
...Even in that most repressive age, once the doors were closed... people could make their own choices."
Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed
Let's talk about dystopian fiction. If you ever wanted to get a sense of the interplay between privacy and freedom beyond the many real-life examples (dare I say at an elevated, artistic level?), this is the place. The occurrences are too plentiful to be exhaustive about, but here are a few.
In Lois Lowry's The Giver, Jonas lives in a highly controlled, cult-like environment where not even dreams are kept private. "Dream-sharing" is a daily morning ritual where family members must describe any dreams they've had the previous night. One morning, when Jonas shares a dream which indicates to his parents that he is approaching puberty, they put him on the customary treatment (daily pills) meant to suppress 'the stirrings' of biological desire entirely (reproduction is allocated to 'birth-mothers' and the babies are distributed to 'family units'). Jonas is not free to allow his body to function naturally and it began with a lack of privacy relating to his dream life.
Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games experiences an utter lack of privacy in the arena, where her every move is televised for the whole of Panem to watch from home. In the days prior to the games themselves, she is paraded in front of crowds and interviewed for the entertainment of the masses. Things are done to her physical body without her consent; her body is divested of unwanted hair and her appearance is made suitable for television. Crucial to the point, Katniss is captive the entire time and once again, a lack of privacy and a lack of freedom seem to go hand in hand (interestingly, it is the daring freedom of expression of her fashion designer—punished in due time—that serves as a means of resisting Capitol control even within the confines of her situation).
"As J.R.R. Tolkien reminded us, the only people who inveigh against escape are jailers"
Neil Gaiman, 2013
In Unorthodox, the 2020 Netflix series, Esty Shapiro suffers from a severe lack of privacy, including in some fairly intimate matters (the Williamsburg portion of the show is based on the real-life story of Deborah Feldman, who grew up and was married in Williamsburg, New York). Her new husband tells his relatives everything, however private, and there is a good deal of gossip about Esty's personal conjugal issues in the community at large. The opening line of the series goes like this:
"You escaped, didn't you?"
"You make it sound like I was in prison"
"Weren't you?"
Once more, I noticed that a lack of privacy accompanied a lack of freedom, compounded with a general sense of unhappiness and even a physical unwellness: all of these things inextricably tumbling forth from the same knotted mess.
The thought-provoking and perhaps most practical observation is that a limitation of one freedom, often along with a limitation of some measure of privacy, will often lead to more. Unless resisted, in other words (Gretchen Rubin's to be precise, paraphrasing), things tend to continue in the direction they are headed.
I was once in New York, and I listened to a talk about the building of private prisons—a huge growth industry in America. The prison industry needs to plan its future growth—how many cells are they going to need? How many prisoners are there going to be 15 years from now? And they found they could predict it very easily, using a pretty simple algorithm, based on asking what percentage of 10 and 11-year-olds couldn’t read. And certainly couldn’t read for pleasure.
It’s not one-to-one: you can’t say that a literate society has no criminality. But there are very real correlations.
And I think some of those correlations, the simplest, come from something very simple. Literate people read fiction.
Neil Gaiman, 2013
Obviously, I'm not suggesting that government authorities having access to library records is going to result in increased rates of incarceration necessarily, but the linkage between lack-of-literacy and imprisonment is verifiable. Libraries matter—and protecting patron privacy is one of the ways that libraries defend a society's freedom to read. I personally like to have at least one work of fiction and one work of non-fiction in progress at all times because each contributes something of genuine value to my reading life. There is more to fiction than mere fiction. Reading fiction develops empathy and an awareness that everyone else is a 'me' as well. Fiction allows us to imagine what is possible and not merely to steep in the current state of affairs. It allows us to reach beyond our limitations and to explore possibilities outside of our own personal scope of experience. Reading fiction "improves brain function on a variety of levels" and, ultimately (as Amy Tan would say) there is truth to be found in fiction. Whatever the correlation between literacy rates and rates of incarceration, when people are imprisoned, privacy is one of the first things to be stripped from them: in itself another illustration of the inseparability between privacy and freedom.
“My eyes never get tired of looking at you, for you are their light; but if destiny ruled that I should walk the rough path of life loaded with shackles, would I be satisfied if your fate should be like mine?" … I am feeling that the house I live in and the path I walk on are all eyes watching me, and fingers pointing at me, and ears listening to the whisper of my thoughts.”
Kahlil Gibrán, The Broken Wings
It took almost a year in court, but The Connecticut Four eventually emerged victoriously and the nondisclosure order was lifted. They received the Paul Howard Award for Courage from the American Library Association in 2007. They were later referenced in the 2018 major motion picture, The Public (starring Emilio Estevez and Alec Baldwin), and still today are role models for excellence in librarianship.
“I'm John Doe, and if I had told you before today that the FBI was requesting library records, I could have gone to jail... As a librarian, I believe it is my duty and responsibility to speak out about any infringement to the intellectual freedom of library patrons.”
Peter Chase of The Connecticut Four
They say that one person can make a difference. In this case, there were four, but of the tens of thousands who could have taken a stand, The Connecticut Four were unusual in their willingness to fight for an ideal that they weren't seeing enacted in real life. These brave librarians are worth learning about for anybody who is interested in knowing more about libraries and what they stand for.
"To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
Nelson Mandela
If you'd like to learn more about The Connecticut Four, try the articles:
[From left to right in the picture above: George Christian, Barbara Bailey, Peter Chase, and Jan Nocek of The Connecticut Four]
Wishing you boundless peace and very good books,
Victoria Murgante
Kommentare