Minutes of the GPLNE meeting held at Boston College, Friday, December 5, 2003

The first order of business was the election of a Vice-Chair/Chair Elect. Gail Fithian of Boston Public Library (the Massachusetts Regional) was nominated. There was a motion from the floor to close nominations. It was voted upon in the affirmative. The vote was unanimous for Gail.

The minutes were accepted as distributed. They are on the GPLNE website, managed by John Fobert of Roger Williams University.

The treasurer’s report was distributed and accepted. The treasurer, Pam Hays, expressed concern about the dwindling monies in the current expenses account, currently under $300.00. Money was given us by CIS to pay for conference expenses, and since we paid a few hundred dollars for the recent conference on American Factfinder at the University

of Massachusetts from the current expenses account because the CIS money

was invested in a CD, she suggested that we take that amount out of the CD when it

comes due in June to augment the current expenses account.

The move to create a new entity for the group (non- Nelinet) was reported on by Betty Febo. Betty reported that a mission statement was being developed by Len Adams, Pam Hays and herself. This sub-committee will be meeting in Jan and present their findings at the March meeting.

The discussion of the new concept of GPO, the consultant, will be discussed after lunch.

The next meeting will be on March 26 at Wesleyan University in CT.

Carla Miller of MISER will speak on Foreign Trade.

The last meeting of this season will be on May 28^th at Colby College in ME.

Regarding the topic of depository library anniversaries, if any libraries have important

anniversaries coming up, please inform the chair.

* * * * * *

Anniversary celebrations with the Honorable Barney Frank:

Betty Febo gave a brief history of the FDLP at Wellesley College. This is their 60^th anniversary. They started on 3/29/43 when Alton P. Tisdale was the Superintendent of Documents.

Jerome Yavarkovsky, Library Director of the Thomas P. O’Neill Library, Jr. of Boston College, talked about the 40^th anniversary of Boston College as a member of the FDLP. He then introduced the morning’s speaker, the Honorable Barney Frank, Representative of the 4^th Congressional District.

Barney Frank said he has represented the fourth congressional district since 1981, and is serving on a number of committees, including the Financial Services Committee, Homeland Security, and Terrorism.

He discussed information policy as a political fact, saying that there are overwhelming reasons that the government does not want to give out information, most importantly to avoid embarassment and to remain insulated from pressure on the decision-making

process.

An example of this is the illegal immigrants rounded up after Sept. 11, who were

held without the government acknowledging that they were even being held. Their names were not released; Frank speculated that if their names had been released, the absurdity of holding them would have been clear.

By denying the public important information it is then easy for the government to say “How can you be critical, since you don’t have any information.”

He noted that the only good reason for keeping things secret is to protect people and their relatives. He cited the example of Vince Foster and the lawsuit by a lawyer trying to have the post-mortem pictures released.

As far as national security exceptions go, he said that the arguments are usually one-sided; the information withheld is usually being withheld for political reasons.

He suggested a good topic to investigate would be to look into all the requests under

the Freedom of Information Act, to see what was denied and what reasons were given.

More important would be to investigate what information was withheld for national

security reasons, and then later released without any repercussions on national security.

He also said that we should be interested in appropriations for money set aside for Freedom of Information requests. Sometimes items are not released under the Freedom of Information Act because the inquirer is told there is a backlog, and the delay is

because of lack of funding. So he encouraged the FDLP to be an energetic constituency for the FOIA. We should lobby for appropriations from each agency to set aside funds for it, which would force agencies to have money available when required as information is requested under the FOIA.

Regarding the Patriot Act and the restrictions on information which were imposed,

he said that there is an effort to amend the act but those in power will not let it come to a vote, because he says the proponents know they will lose. Most people are against rights

being taken away, so he encouraged the public to continue to resist.

As for the argument made by Ashcroft – that we shouldn’t worry because they haven’t

had to use the sections of the act which permit inquiry into a reader’s circulation records –

he said that using deterrence as an analogy as to how we want to use libraries is a very bad idea, and again urged us to fight hard against this.

In his opinion, the main parts of the Patriot Act are justified. Sept. 11 introduced a new element in law enforcement. Before that, the law was based on deterrence, on a free society, and after Sept. 11 deterrence is “out the window” and law enforcement has to be given new tools. Restictions on freedom, e.g. at airports and federal office buildings, are unavoidable; the problems arise with the tapping of phones and the monitoring of the internet, and he said these kinds of things should go through the legal system. One of the major problems is that if they find information against people they don’t like, they leak the information (e.g. Hoover versus Martin Luther King). This should concern us all because “If you haven’t done anything by the age of 35 which you don’t want other people to know about, then you have my sympathy!”

He said that he has worked to put in the revised Patriot Act a section which states, that if information about you is leaked by a federal department, the burden of proof is on the law enforcement agency to prove that it did not leak it, since “The ship of state is the only ship that leaks from the top.”

Because the Patriot Act has a sunset provision, it will expire in 2005, so in 2004 work

will be done to amend it. He urged us to contemplate changes we would like to see in the act and stressed that “Lobbying is important.” The 2004 elections are also important and they will directly affect what revisions are made to the Patriot Act.

In response to a question he suggested that all be held to the same standard, democrats

as well as republicans, e.g. we should ask that Howard Dean release his gubernatorial papers, which he has sealed.

As to how to influence one’s representative in Washington:

He said that as far as people getting in touch with him, mail is better than telephone; and

congressmen look for a measure of how many people’s voting behavior will be affected. Therefore, a general signature petition has little effect; a pre-printed post card is only slightly better; a letter we have composed ourselves will be taken more seriously. There is a direct correlation between how much effort a constituent puts into an argument and the impact on the representative. We can also see him in his local office, which is preferable to traveling to Washington to see him, since things are very busy there.

He also recommended that if there is any information re. one’s problem that it be sent to him in advance of one’s visit, so he would have time to study the issue.

He cautioned against going to see him if things are going well, but to see him if things

are not going well, e.g. as relates to budgetary matters; if things are being taken away

from depository libraries, he would be happy to see us about this.

Final nugget of wisdom:

Someone once told him, and he considers it some of the best advice he has ever been

given, especially in Washington: “Never write when you can talk; never talk when you can nod; never nod when you can wink.”

(Bette L. Siegel, acting sec. for first half of meeting; Pam Hays and Bette for 2^nd half)