Libraries and the Terrorism Bill

From: Guy Daines
Sent: 28 October 2005 12:48
To: CILIP Group Chairs; CILIP Group Hon Secs
Subject: Terrorism Bill

To: CILIP Branch & Group Officers

CILIP Branch & Group officers will be interested in what CILIP is doing regarding the Terrorism Bill. Therefore you will find a message I have put out on LIS-CILIP below. As explained below we are working with a number of library and information organisations to put the case for libraries to Government - Debby Shorley was the CILIP signatory on a joint letter to Charles Clarke sent on Wednesday. I would be especially grateful for the views from Branch & Groups (I understand that they are likely to be individual views rather than formal Branch & Group views) on this subject and any examples you can give of the possible impact of the Terrorism Bill and the known impact of the Obscene Publications Act (the Home Office sees the two as similar) on library and information services.

You may forward this to other lists but, as you will see below, time is very short! I realise I may not get comments today but those over the weekend can still be fed into the Monday meeting and comments after that will still be useful.

Thanks for your help

Guy

Guy Daines
Head of Policy & Governance
CILIP

Message to LIS-CILIP
Many of you will be aware of the Terrorism Bill which is being expedited through parliament at the moment and will be going through its committee stage next week. CILIP is working in partnership with a number of other organisations - the BL, SCONUL, MLA, CURL, National Library of Scotland, SCL, BIALL, SLIC, SCURL - to lobby on behalf of the library and information community about the adverse impact this Bill could have on libraries and their staff. You will find a statement on CILIP's website following a meeting of the Group on Wednesday (other participants have also shared it on some of the lists) at:

http://www.cilip.org.uk/professionalguidance/terrorismbill/terrorismbill.htm
You will find the text of the Terrorism Bill at (sections 2 and 3 are especially relevant):
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmbills/055/2006055.htm

We will be meeting again on Monday morning. One of the things that has emerged in discussions with civil servants is that they are asking for evidence of the problems that libraries might face:

• They would like scenarios of how the provisions in the Bill might impact on libraries - if anyone has thoughts on how the Bill could affect the business of their library or the sector in which they work more generally that would be most useful


• They suggest the provisions are not dissimilar to those found in the Obscene Publications Act and ask what problems libraries have faced from that Act - the last we are aware of was the Mapplethorpe case at the University of Central England. But again other examples would be useful (of course this was the Act that famously saw Penguin in court defending Lady Chatterly's Lover).

Any observations you may have on the Terrorism Bill will be welcome. Ideally I would like any information/views today, but later contributions will still be useful. The timetable is extremely quick - the Bill is likely to be law with a few weeks.

Thanks for any help you can give

Guy Daines
Head of Policy & Governance
CILIP
ps
You may find the legal opinion we commissioned from James Eadie on the rights of police and other security agencies to demand access to library records interesting as well - this was launched at CILIP's Members' Day. You can find it at:

http://www.cilip.org.uk/professionalguidance/rightsofaccess/default.htm