and the librarians save us again

[sisyphusshrugged]

Can you think of any reason why our current ruling party would be trying to keep americans from having access to information about our laws?

via Susie, the Justice [sic] Department is attempting, unofficially, to have information on the laws surrounding asset forfeiture removed from libraries, but the librarians are trying to fight them off

Gee, wouldn't that force citizens trying to defend their property to go to - um - trial lawyers?

Last week, the American Library Association learned that the Department of Justice asked the Government Printing Office Superintendent of Documents to instruct depository libraries to destroy five publications the Department has deemed not "appropriate for external use." The Department of Justice has called for these five public documents, two of which are texts of federal statutes, to be removed from depository libraries and destroyed, making their content available only to those with access to a law office or law library.

The topics addressed in the named documents include information on how citizens can retrieve items that may have been confiscated by the government during an investigation. The documents to be removed and destroyed include: Civil and Criminal Forfeiture Procedure; Select Criminal Forfeiture Forms; Select Federal Asset Forfeiture Statutes; Asset forfeiture and money laundering resource directory; and Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA).

...

Librarians should note that, according to policy 72, written authorization from the Superintendent of Documents is required to remove any documents. To this date no such written authorization in hard copy has been issued.

Comments

[gannet.livejournal.com]

In my reading on the topic (note, as a librarian, I am highly indignant at the DoJ, and think the whole thing would set a horrible precedent), two things stuck out.

1. The information which is in the pamphlets would still have been freely available in multiple other sources which would not have been affected by the proposed order.

2. Supposedly, the pamphlets were meant for internal training purposes, and might therefore have revealed prosecutorial strategies.

You should also note that the request by the DoJ to the GPO for said destruction has already been rescinded (http://www.ala.org/al_onlineTemplate.cfm?Section=alonline&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=72146), so this is not currently a threat. Hurrah for the ALA!