
Obama's Librarian Of Congress Nominee Supports Open Access, Fights Surveillance - sinak
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160224/11244433704/president-obama-nominates-new-librarian-congress-who-supports-open-access-fights-against-surveillance.shtml
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minikites
Librarians have been fighting for the right to privacy long before it was
fashionable:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoia_Horn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoia_Horn)

> In January 1971, Horn was contacted by the FBI, seeking evidence involving
> Philip Berrigan. During the trial, they were subpoenaed to testify for the
> prosecution, but Horn refused to testify at the trial on the grounds that
> her forced testimony would threaten intellectual and academic freedom.

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blakesterz
I'm guessing most people don't know much or care much about the Library Of
Congress, glad to see this year. The TechDirt post does a really good job of
explaining why it's an important position, and why librarians are pretty
excited about her.

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pcwalton
Librarians as a whole tend toward a very strong privacy stance. I'm told a
large contingent of people at the major library conferences have high opinions
of Snowden, for example. And the opposition to the PATRIOT Act is also very
common among librarians, out of concern for the privacy of library records.

I've always thought that privacy advocates from the technology sector should
work with libraries more than they do. The ALA is aligned on basically all the
substantive issues and is frankly a lot better at lobbying and legal matters
than most technology groups (which is not too surprising given the positive
popular image that libraries have).

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phaus
The last champion of privacy rights Obama sold us was FBI Director James
Comey. I hope this one is a real privacy advocate.

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mseebach
The character assassination of the outgoing librarian (which is the bulk of
this article) is pretty tasteless. The substance of the criticism is (a) the
WaPo doesn't think that a fundraising programme he ran wasn as successful as
it might have been (but still raised millions), compared to nothing, based
entirely on a listing of scary-sounding expense reports, which includes,
shockingly, _Acela tickets_ , (b) he wasn't great on tech, which is a
legitimate criticism, but hardly unique among senior government figures born
in 1929, and (c) unnamed employee sources, and a single named 10-years retired
employee, were happy he's retiring.

Wikipedia doesn't usually mince words around this, and in the five months
since his retirement, nobody has thought to add a "Criticism" section.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Billington](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Billington)

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Shivetya
The last Librarian, appointed when Ronald Reagan was President did a lot of
good as well regardless of what the article claimed. If he can be faulted it
is in simply not evolving with the times. He did push for no-fee electronic
services but I doubt the privacy issues which exploded in the last few years
were ever on his RADAR.

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ck2
BoingBoing had good coverage about her
[http://boingboing.net/2016/02/24/obamas-new-librarian-of-
con...](http://boingboing.net/2016/02/24/obamas-new-librarian-of-cong.html)

It's horrible she will never be approved by the Senate.

There has to be a better way to get people properly appointed.

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random55643
Damn if only he did.

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dang
Url changed from [http://boingboing.net/2016/02/24/obamas-new-librarian-of-
con...](http://boingboing.net/2016/02/24/obamas-new-librarian-of-cong.html),
which points to this.

~~~
jdoliner
Title seems a bit misleading to me as well.

> President Obama Nominates New Librarian Of Congress Who Supports Open
> Access, Fights Against Surveillance

~~~
dang
It was hard to fit into 80 chars. Suggestions welcome.

~~~
bushido
Obama's Librarian Of Congress Nominee Supports Open Access, Fights
Surveillance

or

Obama's New Librarian Of Congress Nominee Fights Surveillance & Pro Open
Access

or

Obama's New Librarian Of Congress Nominee: Fights Surveillance; Pro Open
Access

~~~
dang
That first one is good and we'll use it. Thanks!

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mulle_nat
Since when is Obama interested in fighting surveillance ?

