Local author and librarian Matthew Lyons was among the speakers at a forum on civil liberties after 9/11 hosted by the Philadelphia Ethical Society Monday night. As the co-author of Right Wing Populism in America, Lyons put the restrictions on civil liberties in historical perspective. As a librarian, he explained how the USA Patriot Act legalizes secret surveillance of Americans’ reading habits.

According to the act, Lyons explained, not only can librarians be required to turn over borrowing records to the FBI, but they are barred from talking about it. Faced with an attack on patron confidentiality and a gag rule, Lyons said, some librarians are considering open noncompliance.

So far the American Library Association (ALA) has not gone to that extreme in its opposition to the new law. At its January membership meeting, held in Philadelphia, the group passed a resolution expressing concerns about the Patriot Act, but is advising its members to comply with the law anyway. On its website the ALA has posted a guide for compliance with the act. The guide is strictly by the books, advising librarians to make sure law enforcement officials have proper warrants and to notify legal counsel immediately if law enforcement contacts them. "The gag order does not change a library’s right to legal representation during the search," the guidelines read. For those institutions not yet visited by law enforcement, the ALA recommends keeping as few records on hand as possible. "Avoid creating unnecessary records [and] avoid retaining records that are not needed for efficient operation of the library," the guidelines advise.

Linda Vizi, the FBI’s Philadelphia spokesperson, says there is no cause for alarm. "There are about 5,000 libraries in the U.S.," she says. "Since 9/11, we’ve probably made about 80 visits and many of those were on the recommendation of librarians." Vizi insists the FBI is "not on a fishing expedition [nor is it trying] to get the general public’s reading list." The feds only investigate those with a suspected link to terrorism and, she says, the FBI is primarily interested in Internet use, not book borrowing.

But such reassurances have not kept the ALA from advising its members to keep those paper shredders running.

For nearly a decade, the Brandywine Peace Community has been holding civil disobedience actions at Lockheed Martin’s King of Prussia facility on Good Friday. This year the driveway-blocking protest was a little more urgent. The Montgomery County plant produces the guidance systems for Tomahawk missiles, some 500 of which were used in the recent Iraq invasion. Each missile costs U.S. taxpayers $2 million. By the end of the protest, 21 activists had been arrested and one, Farah Mokhtareizadeh, a University of Louisville student spending a year off in Philadelphia, was claiming she had been threatened with physical violence by an officer in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility.

According to veteran activist Theresa Camerota, Mokhtareizadeh -- an American whose father is Iranian -- "withheld [her name] in solidarity with all the nameless victims in Iraq" while the 20 others gave names and addresses when they were booked.

Separated from the rest of the group for processing, Mokhtareizadeh says a female guard threatened her. "She said if it was the last breath I took on this earth I would give my name or else she would strangle me to death."

Montgomery County spokesman John Corcoran denies that Mokhtareizadeh was threatened. "She came in as a "Jane Doe.’ She was asked her name and she would not provide it. The officer who was processing her said if she did not answer she would be charged with misconduct and put in administrative segregation. If the misconduct charge were upheld, she would receive five to 10 days of confinement in administrative segregation. She became very upset. She cried and then she provided the information. She was not threatened beyond [being informed that she would be charged with] misconduct and [undergo] the subsequent confinement."

Bob Smith, a staffer with the Brandywine Peace Community, believes Mokhtareizadeh and says the threat was unacceptable, but he suspects it was done with good intentions. Smith says he figures the officer’s "motivation is, "I want you out of here. I do not want to worry about you being in here,’ because Farah’s young and looks even younger."

Smith believes, "It would have been better, if that was the motivation, to say "Please sweetie, you don’t want to be here. Give me your name.’"