Library readers’ records seized in Scottsdale

The U.S. Department of Justice used court orders three times in early 2004 to obtain documents from the Scottsdale Public Library containing reader account information, according to records released by the city.

The federal grand jury subpoenas arrived during March and April of last year. Records provided to the Tribune do not detail exactly what documents federal investigators obtained, making it impossible to determine how many people were targeted in the probe and what information was sought.

The orders do, however, include information suggesting they are connected to the investigation of a mail bomb attack against Scottsdale Diversity director Don Logan. Attached to the subpoenas were letters from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix requesting city officials keep the orders a secret.

Laura Thomas Sullivan, Arizona Library Association president, said she does not know of any other libraries in the state being served subpoenas. It is unknown whether that is because there have been none, or whether they have been kept under wraps.

Arizona law protects library records from being released unless the institutions are presented with a court order, making it impossible for taxpayer-funded libraries to fight a subpoena.

Sullivan, director of the Tucson-Pima Public Library, said libraries do not object to the state law, but are worried over the expanded discretion the federal government is giving law enforcement.

"It’s the (USA) Patriot Act that has generated the concern," she said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not use the Patriot Act in the subpoenas presented to Scottsdale’s library, records show.

But Scottsdale’s disclosure of the subpoenas comes against the backdrop of library organizations and American civil liberties advocates campaigning for increased oversight of a federal government they deem too quick to step on citizens’ right to read without being watched over.

"It seems to me a fairly fundamental American freedom to read what the hell you please without the government putting its fingers into it," said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association.

Federal law enforcement officials defend their practices, arguing they have shown restraint and never used a provision in the USA Patriot Act granting law enforcement easier access to information on reading habits and purchases from libraries and book stores.

"Look, we know they already used (libraries)," Kim Smith, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said of terrorists. "Then why on earth would we carve it out for it to be a safe haven for them. Why would we want to support an amendment that says the government cannot seek library records, period, end of discussion?"

In Scottsdale’s case, a letter from U.S. Attorney for Arizona Paul Charlton and assistant U.S. attorney for Arizona Ann Scheel accompanied each subpoena, calling on Scottsdale Library director Rita Hamilton to produce certain documents.

Hamilton said she turned over the documents, as state law mandates.

The city’s disclosure of the subpoenas marks a rare instance in which federal investigators’ acquisition of reading histories becomes public, library advocates said.

Scottsdale declined to release to the Tribune what information it turned over to the grand jury.

To do so might disrupt an investigation, said Jay Osborn, a senior lawyer in the city attorney’s office.

Scheel, who applied for the subpoenas according to records, asked Hamilton to keep even the orders themselves secret. In a March 3, 2004, letter, Scheel stated that: "Any such disclosure could impede the investigation being conducted and thereby interfere with the enforcement of the law."

Osborn said the city has released them now because there is no law barring it from doing so.

The Justice Department, Smith said, does not require that grand jury subpoenas ask that the orders remain secret. That is a decision made by the local U.S. attorney, she said.

Charlton and Scheel did not return calls for comment. Sandy Raynor, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s Phoenix office, said the agency does not comment on open investigations.

On February 26, 2004, Scottsdale diversity director Don Logan opened a package bomb at his desk. The resulting explosion shredded Logan’s hands, driving shrapnel into his body as well as the wall, ceiling and floor of his office. Shrapnel also injured two other employees.

The subpoenas contain information indicating they are tied to an investigation of the Logan bombing.

The court orders are dated March 3, March 19 and April 6 of 2004. The orders also show that a special agent with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the federal mail agency’s investigative arm, was to receive the subpoenaed documents.

The U.S. Postal Service transported the package, investigators said last year. The Postal Service has been the lead agency investigating the Logan bombing.

Hamilton said the subpoenas are tied to a single "incident."

Jose Obando, the postal inspection’s special agent named in the subpoenas, confirmed he was involved in the bombing investigation. There have been no arrests in the in the 16-month-old case.

Last year’s subpoenas are the only such court orders that Scottsdale has received, Hamilton said.

The only other requests for patron information have been informal inquiries by Scottsdale Police Department beat officers and detectives, Hamilton said. Library employees have been instructed not to turn over any information to police and to direct officers to Hamilton.

"There have been occasions, times a police officer will ask who was using a computer at ‘X’ time of day. We always have to tell them we don’t keep those records, or you have to get a subpoena," Hamilton said. "And that dissolves it."

Besides the Justice Department, no other law enforcement agency has ever subpoenaed documents from the library, Osborn said.

Scottsdale Police Chief Alan Rodbell said he has never been informed that one of his officers had asked the library for information. Due to the chain of command, Rodbell said those details do not usually make their way to his desk.

And there is no department policy regarding acquiring information from the library, he said.

"I don’t know if we’ve ever done that. We may have gotten subpoenas 20 times. The bottom line is, officers can ask for things," Rodbell said. "We try to get things . . . lawfully."

Earlier this year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment that would strip the Patriot Act of a provision giving federal investigators easier access to library records. In turn, President Bush has threatened to veto any bill that weakens authority granted to law enforcement under the act.

Federal investigators have long had access to library records through grand jury subpoenas, such as those issued to Scottsdale.

The Patriot Act allows the FBI to sidestep that and apply for an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in cases where the agency is investigating international terrorism.

If Hamilton had received subpoenas from the intelligence court, she said no one could know about it. People know about them now only because the city rebuffed the Justice Department’s request and made the records public.

The key, she said, is that there is appropriate oversight to ensure law enforcement has good cause before forcing libraries to hand over information.

"It has to be a major investigation with an evidence trail leading to us that a judge can see," Hamilton said. Before turning over patrons’ private information, "we like to know that there is a bona fide reason."