BLS Library Blog

The American Library Association website celebrating this year’s Banned Books Week has this quote: “Imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers across the country did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society.”

The idea of banning books seems like something from the past. Yet, it is very much alive today as shown in this report that, earlier this month, a school board in Stockton, Missouri unanimously banned the book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie. Parents and educators objected to the book’s language and sexual content. The novel, which won the 2007 National Book Award for young people’s literature, depicts a boy who leaves his school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white high school.

Also this month, Judge James C. Turk of the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia wrote an opinion in Couch v. Jabe declaring Virginia’s prison policy excluding Ulysses and Lady Chatterly’s Love from the prison library unconstitutional. Judge Turk concluded that the prison book policy was not reasonable but an “exaggerated response” to prison conditions.

This year, Alaska enacted a new statute known as SB 222 which prompted the filing of a complaint in the US District Court for the District of Alaska by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Alaska Library Association, the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska and other. The suit challenged Alaska’s new censorship statute, which criminalizes books “harmful to minors”, and seeks to block provisions that ban constitutionally protected speech on the Internet on topics including contraception and pregnancy, sexual health, literature, and art and also threatens retailers of books, magazines, movies and other media. More information on the Alaska challenge is available here.

The Brooklyn Law School Library has in its collection several items on the subject of censorship including Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds by Dawn B. Sova (Call #PN56.E7 S68 2006) which discusses some 400 works censored, banned, or condemned because of their political, social, religious, or sexual content. 
 

Another item in the collection is Banned in the U.S.A.: a Reference Guide to Book Censorship in Schools and Public Libraries by Herbert N. Foerstel (Call #Z658.U5 F64 2002). It is a valuable reference tool for librarians and teachers dealing with censorship as well as patrons who want to get a better understanding of the threats to their First Amendment rights.

This video from “Don’t Know Much About…” author Kennis Davis is timely during this year’s Banned Books Week.

The New York Law Journal article by Noeleen G. Walder, Judge Grants Discovery of Postings on Social Media, reports that Suffolk County Supreme Court Acting Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Arlen Spinner has granted a defendant’s motion for an Order to access the plaintiff’s current and historical Facebook and MySpace pages and accounts. Granting the Order in Romano v Steelcase Inc., Justice Spinner held that precluding defendant Steelcase Inc. from accessing plaintiff Romano’s private postings on Facebook and MySpace “not only would go against the liberal discovery policies of New York favoring pretrial disclosure, but would condone Plaintiff’s attempt to hide relevant information behind self-regulated privacy settings.” 

The judge continued: “In light of the fact that the public portions of Plaintiff’s social networking sites contain material that is contrary to her claims and deposition testimony, there is a reasonable likelihood that the private portions of her sites may contain further evidence such as information with regard to her activities and enjoyment of life, all of which are material and relevant to the defense of this action.” Saying that social networking sites are not private places for storing intimate secrets but rather fact public spaces, he said: “Indeed, as neither Facebook nor MySpace guarantee complete privacy, Plaintiff has no legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy. In this regard, MySpace warns users not to forget that their profiles and MySpace forums are public spaces, and Facebook’s privacy policy set forth, inter alia, that: ‘You post User Content . . . on the Site at your own risk. Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable.’ “ 

Plaintiff sued for damages for personal injuries sustained after she fell off an allegedly defective desk chair while working at Stony Brook University naming the manufacturer of the chair as one of the defendants. Steelcase, the manufacture claimed it had reason to believe that the Plaintiff posted pictures and information that showed she was not suffering from a loss of enjoyment of life. Not only did the Defendant want to access the private portions of the Plaintiff’s account, but they also wanted access to any deleted information. The lesson in this ruling is simple: expect all content posted on Facebook or MySpace to be considered public information by the courts, and do not expect that self-imposed privacy settings provide protection in a court proceeding.

A post on 3 Geeks and a Law Blog tells of Ethics Opinion 843 by the New York State Bar Association on the question of accessing Facebook and MySpace Information for use in trial, The Committee concluded:
 

A lawyer who represents a client in a pending litigation, and who has access to the Facebook or MySpace network used by another party in litigation, may access and review the public social network pages of that party to search for potential impeachment material. As long as the lawyer does not “friend” the other party or direct a third person to do so, accessing the social network pages of the party will not violate Rule 8.4 (prohibiting deceptive or misleading conduct), Rule 4.1 (prohibiting false statements of fact or law), or Rule 5.3(b)(1) (imposing responsibility on lawyers for unethical conduct by nonlawyers acting at their direction).

Listen to this episode on BrooklynWorks.

Brooklyn Law School’s Temporary Librarian Kristine Kreilick, fondly known as Kit, discusses her career as an academic librarian and as a law firm librarian in this podcast. Before coming to the BLS Library, Kit was a law librarian at Saint Louis University, Cornell University, and Fordham University. She also worked at Sullivan and Cromwell. In this conversation, Kit discusses projects on which she has worked including developing a First Year Law Student CALI lesson, Finding Statutes (registration required) for which she received an Excellence in Service Award from the American Association of Law Libraries. Kit is also active in the Law Library Association of Greater New York, the local chapter of AALL, where she serves as webmaster for the LLAGNY website.

A press release by the Law Librarian Association of Greater New York (LLAGNY) states that LLAGNY and the Practising Law Institute (PLI) are creating Research Training Audio Briefings for librarians. The sessions will take the place of the annual PLI program: The Law Library: Skills, Strategies & Solutions. The first briefing, An Introduction to Tax Research in the Library: The Crossroad Between Information and Practice, is scheduled for Wednesday, September 29th, from 1:00 pm-2:00 pm (EDT). The session will be free of charge. The audio webcast will cover the kinds of research requests librarians, research specialists, and attorneys might be expected to answer. Expert faculty including law librarians Jennifer A. Lawton, Tax Librarian, Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP; Russell Switzer, Tax Librarian, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; and tax attorney, Erin M. Collins, Manager, Tax, KPMG. will lead the event. The briefings will be chaired by Janice E. Henderson, Gitelle Seer, and Patricia Barbone. Registration for the audio is at the PLI website.

This week, the New Jersey Supreme Court heard arguments in G.D. v. Bernard Kenny and the Hudson County Democratic Organization on whether a criminal conviction expunged pursuant to state law still exists for purposes of establishing a defense to a defamation claim. While the issue sounds highly theoretical, the facts leading to the civil action are an interesting study in hardball politics. An article at Law.com, Case Tests Whether Circulating News About an Expunged Conviction Is Libel , lays out the arguments before the court and summarized the alleged defamation:

G.D. worked as an aide to Sen. Brian Stack, D-Hudson, during the 2007 Senate primary. The Hudson County Democratic Organization had supported West New York Mayor Silverio Vega and retained Neighborhood Research Group Corp., a political consulting firm headed by conservative activist Richard Shaftan. He learned that in 1993, G.D. had been convicted of second-degree possession of drugs with intent to distribute and sentenced to five years in prison.

The HCDO, believing that G.D. was assisting in Stack’s campaign, sent out two flyers based on that information.

The first flyer ran, “It’s the company you keep. And the sleazy crowd Brian Stack surrounds himself with says a lot about who Stack is. Coke dealers and ex-cons. [G.D.] is also a drug dealer who went to jail for five years for selling coke near a public school.”

The second flyer said, “We all know the threat that drugs and illegal guns have in our communities. But not Brian Stack. He continues to surround himself with one shady character after another — not one but two convicted drug dealers and ex-cons.”

The flyers were sent out to about 8,000 households.

The trial court addressed claims of defamation, negligent or intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and civil conspiracy when the parties filed cross-motions. The HCDO and Kenny filed a motion to dismiss, the remaining defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, and plaintiff filed a motion to bar defendants from relying on the defense of truth. It denied all these motions, and the matter was heard in the Appellate Division. In a well-written and throrough opinion, the Appellate Division reversed and remanded the case to the trial court for entry of an order dismissing plaintiff’s complaint.

The NJ Supreme Court will also consider arguments by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), an organization that works on issues involving privacy, civil liberties, and database errors. EPIC’s amicus brief urges the Court to preserve the value of expungement and allow a privacy case to go forward arguing that “data mining companies ignore judicial determinations and attempt to make conviction records live forever,” however, “after someone has been rehabilitated, having paid the prescribed debt to society, he or she should not be penalized in perpetuity.” 

EPIC has a web page on the topic of expungement which describes the four key common elements of expungement among State statutes and has sections titled “Expungement Simplified” and “State Statutes, Federal Courts, and Availability of Expungement”. For more information see Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction: Five-State Resource Guide compiled by Alice King for the Justice Action Center at New York Law School. In her paper, she cites an October 2006 NY Times article Expanded Criminal Records Live to Tell Tales by Adam Liptak and notes:

Expungement is becoming significantly harder to accomplish in the electronic age. Records once held only in paper form by law enforcement agencies, courts and corrections departments are now routinely digitized and sold in bulk to the private sector. Some commercial databases now contain more than 100 million criminal records. Because these databases are updated only sporadically, “expunged” records often turn up in criminal background checks ordered by employers and landlords. For the individual affected, this likely means that they will be forced to reveal at least some of the information to an inquiring party.

This Sunday, September 12, the Brooklyn Book Festival, one of the top book festivals in the country, will hold its fifth annual event. The Festival offers an all-star literary lineup of authors in contemporary literature such as Salman Rushdie, Naomi Klein, Paul Auster, Venus Williams, Nelson George, Sarah Silverman,Gary Shteyngart, Mary Gaitskill, John Ashbery, Rosanne Cash, Paul Krugman, Colson Whitehead, Francine Prose, Dennis Lehane, Per Petterson, Esmeralda Santiago, Pete Hamill, Jennifer Egan, Russell Banks, Michael Connelly, John Hodgman, Kristen Schaal, Sam Lipsyte, Sloane Crosley, Maaza Mengiste, Paul Harding, Amy Goodman, Marlon James, Sarah MacLean, Jean Valentine, Elizabeth Nunez and many more, as well as children’s and young adult lit stars like Rebecca Stead, Sara Shepard, Jacqueline Woodson, Jon Scieszka, Jenny Han, Nina Crews, Mac Barnett, Tad Hills, Chris Raschka, MichaelRex, Matthew Reinhart and Francisco X. Stork.

You can watch Salman Rushdie and young novelist Tishani Doshi discuss Pakistani/Indian literature and culture. Hear what Paul Krugman has to say about the economy. Listen to the masterminds of modern crime fiction Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane and Alafair Burke, meditate on the insights of yoga-convert and humorist Neal Pollack, get cooking tips from the founders of Frankies Sputino and hear Sarah Silverman, John Hodgman and Kristen Schaal opine on life and comedy. Locations include Brooklyn Borough Hall/Columbus Park, St. Francis College and the Brooklyn Historical Society. by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn Literary Council and Brooklyn Tourism sponsor the Brooklyn Book Festival. The full program is available at Brooklyn Book Festival website. 

This video offers more information on who will be at the event.