The FBI\u2019s purpose, according to Herbert N. Foerstel in his book \u201cSurveillance in the Stacks,\u201d was to demand details about library use by people from countries \u201chostile to the United States, such as the Soviet Union.\u201d Agents tended to approach whoever was at the reference desk \u2014 often a student assistant or paraprofessional \u2014 and ask for names and other details of people who used the library to locate technical and scientific materials, such as engineering journals and publications of the National Technical Information Service. At the University of Wisconsin, according to Foerstel, agents watched a Soviet national reading the Russian newspaper \u201cPravda\u201d and then asked a librarian if that copy \u201chad been marked up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rise in book bans, explained
\nThe public was largely ignorant of these encounters until the case of Gennady Zakharov, a Russian-born United Nations aide who was indicted in 1986 for trying to transmit \u201cunclassified information about [American] robotics and computer technology\u201d to the Soviets. His source turned out to be a Guyanese college student who stole publicly available microfiche from several New York-area libraries and sold it to Zakharov.<\/p>\n
The next year, the New York Times reported for the first time on the existence of the Library Awareness Program, calling it part of a national counterintelligence effort.<\/p>\n
The FBI immediately tried to downplay the program\u2019s significance. \u201cHostile intelligence has had some success working the campuses and libraries,\u201d said James Fox, deputy assistant director of the New York FBI office, \u201cand we\u2019re just going around telling people what to be alert for.\u201d<\/p>\n
This explanation didn\u2019t satisfy librarians. \u201cWe\u2019re extremely concerned,\u201d said Betsy Pinover, public relations director of the New York Public Library, \u201cabout intellectual freedom and the reader\u2019s right to privacy, and are committed to protecting the privacy of our readers.\u201d The New York Library Association and American Library Association issued similar statements. Rep. Major R. Owens (D-N.Y.), a former librarian, called it \u201ca new low for the anti-intellectualism of the Reagan administration.\u201d Cartoonists took aim; humorists made hay. <\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n When the FBI Was Secretly Spying on People's Library Habits | @washingtonpost<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/0jLhLJEkO9<\/a><\/p>\n — Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) January 24, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n