[CPProt.net] Attorney Outlines Police Powers in British Library Investigations

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Attorney Outlines Police Powers in British Library Investigations
October 29, 2005

Police investigating serious crimes or acts of terrorism in England and
Wales have the right to demand circulation and internet-use records from
public, academic, and government libraries, according to an attorney
commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information
Professionals. The CILIP Executive Board sought the opinion of barrister
James Eadie in August on the advice of the association's ethics panel, which
was alerted to some recent cases involving police demands for patron
information. 
Two statutes, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984 and the Terrorism
Act of 2000, allow law enforcement to apply to a circuit judge for approval
to obtain access to library records if a serious offense has been committed
or if the material uncovered is likely to prove valuable in a terrorist
investigation.

The opinion, delivered September 27, also suggests that senior police
officers and members of British security services have the authority to
launch surveillance operations in libraries on their own, without court
approval, if they believe national security is at risk or "for the purpose
of preventing or detecting crime."

CILIP President Deborah Shorley said in an October 28 release, "As
librarians and information professionals we must do all we can to help
protect our society against terrorism. We need to be vigilant, but we must
not overreact. We have a duty of client confidentiality and so we cannot
collude with fishing expeditions by the authorities. We expect our members
to respect the law of the land, and this advice tells us just where we
stand."

http://www.ala.org/