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--></style><title>From a non-librarian: Attacks on librarians &
free speech</title></head><body>
<div>I am not a librarian but I subscribe because. . . well I don't
know exactly except that I find it exciting to be in potentially close
contact with so many librarians. . . . . . I am not sure this is an
appropriate post under the guidelines if any of this email list, but
here goes. Isn't it interesting? I would be interested to read
responses of subscribers. Here first is a highlight of the
article:</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote>As the guards grabbed Rothe-Kushel, Steve Woolfolk, the
library's director of programming, who had been watching from off
stage, interceded on Rothe-Kushel's behalf and defended his right to
remain in a public building and ask questions at a public forum; in a
cell phone video, Rothe-Kushel can be heard saying, "Ask me to leave
[and] I will leave." The guards led Woolfolk and Rothe-Kushel
through the green room toward the lobby. As Woolfolk rounded a pillar,
several of the guards grabbed Woolfolk from behind. Woolfolk was
kicked in the leg (resulting in a torn knee ligament), slammed against
the pillar, and thrown into a chair. When he bounced out of the chair
onto the floor, the guards forced him back into the chair, and
handcuffed him. Both men were arrested by a uniformed police officer
who had been summoned by Hawkins. Rothe-Kushel was charged with
trespassing and resisting arrest, and Woolfolk with interfering with
an arrest. Meanwhile, in the auditorium, the program continued; Ross
answered a few more questions.</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>Since May, the cases against both men have been pending.
Cellphone and security videos corroborate Rothe-Kushel's and
Woolfolk's version of events.</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div>Walter Miale</div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-2"
color="#000000">www.greenworldcenter.org</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-2"
color="#000000">www.itsyourmovie.org</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-2"
color="#000000">imagesmiale.com</font></div>
<div><b>When Librarians Are Silenced </b></div>
<div>Francine Prose</div>
<div>October 14, 2016<br>
<a
href=
"http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/10/14/kansas-city-librarian-arrest-for-defending-free-speech/"><span
></span>The New York Review of Books</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><i>A librarian in Kansas City, Missouri was arrested for standing
up for a library patron's free speech rights. The right to read, to
think, to discuss and listen to ideas in a public forum is essential
to an open society, as is our individual privacy. One hopes that the
Kansas City case-only the most recent of many-will be resolved, and
that librarians there and everywhere will be able to do their jobs
without taking on the added burden of battling for our
freedom.</i></div>
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<div><img
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<div>Video footage showing Kansas City Public Library staff member
Steve Woolfolk being arrested, May 9, 2016, <a
href=
"http://www.nybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/kasas-city-library-arrest.jpg"><span
></span>www.pitch.com // The New York Review of Books</a>,</div>
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<div><br></div>
<div>Search the Internet for news stories about public libraries in
America and chances are that, sooner or later, the phrase "on the
front lines" will come up. The war that is being referred to, and
that libraries have been quietly waging since the September 11
attacks, is in defense of free speech and privacy-two concepts so
fundamental to our democracy, our society, and our Constitution that
one can't help noting how rarely their importance has been mentioned
during the current election cycle. In fact quite the opposite has been
true: Donald Trump has encouraged the muzzling of reporters
and the suppression of political protest, while arguing that
government agencies aren't doing enough spying on private citizens,
especially Muslims. Hillary Clinton has failed to be
specific about what she would do to limit surveillance, while her
running mate,Tim Kaine, has promised to expand "intelligence
gathering." Meanwhile, public libraries continue to be threatened by
government surveillance-and even police interference.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>In the most recent such incident, a librarian in Kansas City,
Missouri was arrested simply for standing up for a library patron's
free speech rights at a public event featuring a former US diplomat.
Both the librarian and the patron face criminal charges. The incident
took place last May, but went largely unnoticed until several advocacy
groups called attention to the situation at the end of September. In
cooperation with the Truman Presidential Library and the Jewish
Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City, the Kansas City Public
Library had invited Dennis Ross-a former advisor on the Middle
East to Presidents George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama, and to former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and currently a distinguished
fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy-to speak
about Truman and Israel at its Plaza Branch. The library hosts between
twelve and twenty speakers each month, and though some of the topics
and speakers have been controversial, the events have always been
peaceful.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>As a matter of policy, the library declines to hire outside
security guards. But because of a recent, traumatic event in Kansas
City-in April 2014 a lone gunman attacked the Jewish Community
Center and a Jewish retirement home, killing three people-the
library administration agreed that three local off-duty policemen and
Blair Hawkins, a former Seattle police officer now serving as Head of
Security for the Jewish Community Foundation, could be present.
According to the library, as part of the agreement nobody was to be
prevented from asking a controversial question and the security team
would consult with library officials before ejecting any nonviolent
patrons. At the Dennis Ross event, audience members had
their bags searched as they entered the library.<br>
</div>
<div>During the question-and-answer session after Ross's address, a
local writer and activist named Jeremy Rothe-Kushel asked about US
support for what he called Israel's "state-sponsored terrorism."
Ross answered, and when Rothe-Kushel followed up with a more
aggressive question, Hawkins and one of the other guards approached
him and immediately tried to eject him from the building-despite the
fact that Rothe-Kushel posed no danger to the speaker or audience
members. One of the guards, Brent Parsons,
shouted-incorrectly-that Rothe-Kushel was at a private event. Later
Parsons added, "This is private property." It is revealing that a
policeman should have imagined, even in a heated moment, that a public
library was private property.<br>
</div>
<div>As the guards grabbed Rothe-Kushel, Steve Woolfolk, the
library's director of programming, who had been watching from off
stage, interceded on Rothe-Kushel's behalf and defended his right to
remain in a public building and ask questions at a public forum; in a
cell phone video, Rothe-Kushel can be heard saying, "Ask me to leave
[and] I will leave." The guards led Woolfolk and Rothe-Kushel
through the green room toward the lobby. As Woolfolk rounded a pillar,
several of the guards grabbed Woolfolk from behind. Woolfolk was
kicked in the leg (resulting in a torn knee ligament), slammed against
the pillar, and thrown into a chair. When he bounced out of the chair
onto the floor, the guards forced him back into the chair, and
handcuffed him. Both men were arrested by a uniformed police officer
who had been summoned by Hawkins. Rothe-Kushel was charged with
trespassing and resisting arrest, and Woolfolk with interfering with
an arrest. Meanwhile, in the auditorium, the program continued; Ross
answered a few more questions.<br>
</div>
<div>Since May, the cases against both men have been pending.
Cellphone and security videos corroborate Rothe-Kushel's and
Woolfolk's version of events. Whether or not one agrees with the
implications of Rothe-Kushel's question, he posed no physical threat
to either Ross or the audience, and was simply trying to speak.
Woolfolk remained reasonable and polite. The guards' rapid recourse
to shouting and to physical violence to detain Rothe-Kushel and
Woolfolk did not seem to have a basis other than that the guards were
nervous in the presence of a former top US official and that
Rothe-Kushel was a local activist who was well-known for asking
confrontational questions at public events. On entering the library,
Rothe-Kushel had been identified by Hawkins and subjected to a more
thorough search than had the other patrons. The off-duty police acting
as guards seem to have been confused about the exact nature of their
duties-and about where they were.<br>
</div>
<div>The arrests went unmentioned in the national press, in part
because of the library officials' hope that the incident-which
Library Director Crosby Kemper III has described as an
"overreaction"-would simply blow over and the charges against
Woolfolk and Rothe-Kushel dropped. The case gained new attention,
however, in late September, when the library drew support from the
American Library Association and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.
(Over the years the American Library Association's position has been
that freedom of speech-and our right to information-is absolute
and indivisible, regardless of the nature of that speech and the
content of that information. In 2003, the ALA went to the Supreme
Court in an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the Children's Internet
Protection Act, which requires that publically funded libraries
install filters to screen out material that might be considered
obscene or unsuitable for children.) On October 5, the Forward
published an <a
href=
"http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/351309/jewish-man-arrested-for-questioning-israeli-state-sponsored-terrorism-at-ka/"><span
></span>article</a> criticizing the security guards' behavior,
and this week, a local newspaper, <i>The Pitch</i>, has <a
href=
"http://www.pitch.com/news/feature-story/article/20836631/arrests-at-a-kansas-city-public-library-event-show-how-the-lines-blur-when-offduty-police-work-private-security"><span
></span>raised</a>questions about the off-duty police officers
involved in the case.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>For a while, library officials hoped that an accord might be
reached between the library and the prosecutor's office; if the
defendants agree to refrain from filing a civil suit, the charges
against them will most likely be dropped. But the prosecutor's
office has announced that it (in co-operation with Hawkins's
employer, the Jewish Community Foundation) will go forward with the
cases against the both the librarian and the patron.<br>
</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div><img
src=
"https://portside.org/sites/default/files/images/Kansas_City_Public_Library.jpg"></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>Kansas
City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri</div>
<div><x-tab>
</x-tab><i>Photo credit: Jonathan Moreau via Flickr // The New York
Review of Books</i></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab><br>
</div>
<div>Whatever the outcome, the case adds to a growing history of
attacks on libraries-simply for upholding the bedrock values that
have historically made them so important. Originally passed in 2001
and since reauthorized and amended, the USA PATRIOT Act-in
particular its section 215-has given the FBI the power to request
library borrowing records, patron lists, computer hard drives and
Internet logs. In a speech in 2003, then Attorney General John
Ashcroft claimed that the understandably concerned librarians were
suffering from a "baseless hysteria," repeating the word
"hysteria" several times.<br>
</div>
<div>Two years later a group of Connecticut librarians (who came to be
known as "the Connecticut Four") resisted a government request to
turn over the names and online activity of everyone who had used a
certain library computer; the librarians were served with a gag order
forbidding them to discuss the case. After their situation attracted
the attention of the ACLU, the gag order was rescinded by the FBI in
2006; the following year, the Connecticut Four received the Paul
Howard Award for Courage.<br>
</div>
<div>In 2005, Joan Airoldi, a librarian in rural Washington State,
received the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award for defying an
FBI demand for a list of patrons who had borrowed a biography of Osama
bin Laden. And just two weeks ago, four off-duty policeman
from the Grandview Police Department (working part-time as security
guards at another Kansas City library, the Mid-Continent Library)
objected to that library's decision to put up a display case
entitled "Black Lives Matter- Books About African American
Experiences" and featuring novels by Toni Morrison and others. Even
after the library agreed to adjust the exhibit sign's language to
read "Books about Black Lives-The African American Experience,"
two of the four officers resigned in protest. <br>
</div>
<div>Part of what's disturbing about both Kansas City incidents is
the extent to which they illustrate the gap that has opened between
police and the communities in which they work-a divide that, with
horrifying regularity, produces far more disastrous and violent
results in our inner cities. In fact, public libraries are among the
very few remaining places where all Americans can meet to exchange
ideas and listen to opposing viewpoints for free.<br>
</div>
<div>According to the <a
href="http://www.librariesforreallife.org/">Libraries for Real Life
Project</a>, an organization founded within Wisconsin's South
Central Library System, 68 percent of Americans have library cards.
Americans borrow more than two billion items from libraries every
year. Anyone can go to a public library (again, for free) to learn
computer skills and apply for jobs. Immigrants can receive help in
obtaining green cards and passing citizenship tests, and can learn and
practice English. Senior citizens can find out how to take advantage
of their social security benefits, and children can attend story hours
and early-reading classes. And at least partly because of their own
experience with government surveillance, libraries all over the
country have begun to conduct workshops designed to teach patrons how
to protect their privacy online.<br>
</div>
<div>I spent some of the happiest times of my childhood in
Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza Library, which now, like many libraries,
has expanded its services in response to the needs of the communities
it serves. Along with eleven other Brooklyn libraries, it has created
rooms in which the families of prisoners (especially those who cannot
afford to visit their incarcerated relatives) can chat with them via
video conferencing; in the same rooms with the monitors and cameras
are children's books, and during these "televisits," prisoners
are encouraged to read books with their kids. On October 29, again at
the Grand Army Plaza library, a group of actors will <a
href=
"http://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/theater-war-hercules-broo-central-library-102916"><span
></span>perform</a> a little known and especially violent
Euripides play, <i>The</i> <i>Madness of Hercules</i>, and
use it as the jumping-off point for a discussion of gun violence; the
audience of several hundred will include local schoolchildren and
members of the New York City police department.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The right to read, to think, to discuss and listen to ideas in a
public forum is essential to an open society, as is our individual
privacy. One hopes that the Kansas City case-only the most recent of
many-will be resolved without further cost, trouble and damage, and
that librarians there and everywhere will be able to do their jobs
without taking on the added burden of battling for our freedom.<br>
</div>
<div>[<i>Francine Prose is a Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bard.
Her new novel,</i> Mister Monkey<i>, will be published later this
month. (October 2016)</i>]</div>
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