Public i Contact

First, clear-cut (or napalm) one square mile of real estate.
Kill every plant.
Throw trees in chipper.
Next, bring in bulldozers and push the gray dirt flat.
Burn lots of gasoline.
Fell old-growth timber somewhere in Oregon.
Ship to Japan for milling.
Ship to Brazil for treatment with illegal chemicals.
Ship to site.
Import copper.
Import sheetrock.
Import concrete.
Import fiberglass.
Import asphalt.
Import aluminum.
Import polyvinyl chloride.
Undermine builders’ unions.
Lay out curlicue streets and cul-de-sacs.
Install identical garage door openers.
Plant grass and topiary.
Treat plants with poisons.
Import vehicles and their humans.
Add power lines, churches, chain-link fences,
strip malls, and car dealerships, to taste.

As a child, I would often find myself staring at the name on the front of the barn on my family’s farm. At some time, I reasoned, someone must have painted over an E at the end of the name and never bothered to replace it. I repeatedly quizzed my parents, “What
happened to the E?” Their answer was always the same, “There wasn’t one.” I thought they were playing a joke on me.
Years later I learned the joke wasn’t just on me, it was on everyone in East Central Illinois. My family’s farm wasn’t named for distant relatives named Broadmoore, it was named for the land itself, the broad moor. Born from prairie wetlands, East Central Illinois’  relationship with water has rarely been a concern of too little, but rather too much. Those who complain about the area’s lack of forests and hills, would do well to look at what the glaciers left in the bargain. Acres of ancient buried rivers have provided water for generations; rarely does one dig more than six feet to find water. Yes, California and  Colorado have mountains, but they also have the graves of farmers and ranchers who died fighting over water to irrigate their crops and feed their livestock. This legacy continues in Arizona today, where houses are falling into cracks created by aquifers that are being pumped out faster than they can recharge. With lengthy droughts reappearing in parts of the U.S. in the last decade, we have to wonder how long our liquid treasure will last in the face of global warming and population growth. Will there be enough safe water or are we
destined to become a Mitsubishi desert?
Like most of the farmland in East Central Illinois, Broadmoor exists because of an  extensive system of drainage tiles and ditches which shuttle rain to small streams and rivers, and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico. At times, this system is overly efficient and
shuttles not only rain water, but topsoil washed from fields unprotected by crops or mulch. This churning sluice gouges deep ruts through pastures and fields.
The resulting in the sedimentation makes lakes and rivers less navigable and less liveable for the native species of fish whose food sources can’t survive the resulting turbid   conditions. This problem has been exacerbated by the conversion of flood plains to  farmland. Without buffers to catch it, the sediment has no place to go but the rivers. Unfortunately, dredging rivers and lakes to remove wayward topsoil provides a temporary
solution at best.
TOXIC RESIDUES
Field runoff and the shallow groundwater of our area both carry another form of residue – pesticides and fertilizers. For years, debate raged over just how much fertilizer pollution from Illinois agriculture contributed to the destruction of fishing areas in the Gulf of Mexico. Agricultural lobbying organizations and fertilizer industry representatives
maintained that little of the 2 billion pounds of nitrogen annually applied to Illinois farms reached the Gulf. Further, the chief of the Illinois State Water Survey argued in a controversial research paper that historical levels of nitrogen entering our waterways from decaying prairie plants and buffalo feces were underestimated and current nitrate levels were comparatively better than they appeared. However, experiments using fertilizers with tracer elements have proven beyond doubt the culpability of Illinois agriculture in the Gulf ’s “dead zone.” Perhaps as University of Illinois professor of biogeochemistry Mark David contends, Illinois should regulate fertilizer as was proposed by the state’s
pollution control board in 1971. Though state agencies opted not to revisit this issue in the nearly three decades that followed, today they not only have to look at, but implement, ways to reduce Illinois’ contribution to Gulf hypoxia under the mandate of a 1998 federal act.
The costs of fertilizer contamination aren’t being borne solely by far-off fishermen. Closer to home, many Illinois drinking water sources routinely exceed standards for nitrates, such as Bloomington, Danville, Decatur, and Georgetown. All primarily rely on surface  reservoirs susceptible to field runoff. When nitrate levels exceed federal standards, water
suppliers must provide bottled water for infants, as well as pregnant and nursing mothers. To remedy the situation, Decatur is spending $6.7 million to construct a nitrate removal facility for its water supply; Georgetown and Danville spent $3.5 million and $6 million respectively to construct their facilities. Removing pesticides from water comes with a
price for the residents of Springfield as well. Water there must be treated with activated carbon to remove atrazine.
But these measures are not enough, contend organizations like the Environmental Working Group. For water to be considered contaminated, levels of regulated water contaminants must average in excess of federal levels on the basis of four quarterly measurements. A herbicide violation in spring coinciding with farm pesticide applications could get factored out when averaged with several lower readings from the rest of the year when pesticides aren’t applied. Additionally, not all pesticides used to grow food
are federally regulated in drinking water.
Further, the regulatory status of some pesticides and other chemicals previously recognized as carcinogenic has been changing. In 1998, the Illinois Environmental
Protection Agency took a bold step and, in doing so, created a model for the U.S. EPA. Using available scientific literature, IEPA began classifying substances linked to disrupting the endocrine system – the complex system of glands that secrete the hormones that regulate body functions such as reproduction, growth, and digestion, via organs like the kidneys, liver, and pancreas.

Linked substances were ranked as known, probable, and suspected carcinogens.
Since 1998, industry groups from the styrene manufacturers to Monsanto have attempted to get their products off the list or at least downgraded. At the same time, lobbying and lawsuits have interfered with and thwarted the U.S. EPA’s ability to set lower levels for arsenic and surface water chlorination by-products, such as trihalomethanes, respectively.
Although these battles grabbed headlines, one of the biggest blows to area water safety occurred this winter when the agency issued its review of atrazine, a herbicide banned as a carcinogen in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. Atrazine is one of the most commonly-used herbicides in the U.S. and, by no coincidence, one of the cheapest. In a statement issued in February, the U.S. EPA stated that “endocrine disruption, or potential effects on endocrine mediated pathways, cannot be regarded as an
atrazine regulatory endpoint at this time.” The agency further claimed that appropriate testing protocols needed to be established before it could reach a conclusion regarding atrazine’s endocrine effects. In the interim, the EPA is allowing the manufacturer of atrazine, Syngenta, to monitor contamination and implement drinking water limits. If the
level of atrazine in an individual drinking water source exceeds specified levels, the EPA has given Syngenta the responsibility to conduct monitoring and develop a voluntary compliance plan among atrazine users to lower the contamination level.
Cancer is no stranger to Broadmoor.
Nearly every household within one mile of Broadmoor has been affected by cancer. In 1988, Charles Edward Barnes II or “Ed” as friends called him died at the age of 70 from surgical complications resulting from the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Ed was the third generation of his family to till the soils of Broadmoor. He was the first to use atrazine.
In the late 1990s, an elderly woman living less than a mile east of Broadmoor and a woman in her early twenties living less than a mile west of Broadmoor both developed benign tumors ranging from 19 to 20 pounds. The elderly woman had worked as a secretary at a local elementary school in addition to assisting her husband with some of the work on their farm. The woman in her twenties was not involved in farming, nor were her parents who lived at the same address. The only thing these women had in common was that they drank water from wells drilled into the same shallow aquifer.
Since 1984, Ed’s cancer and those of his neighbors have been recorded as part of the  Illinois State Cancer Registry. However they will likely never be officially correlated to the substances that may have caused them. In 1984, the state legislature failed to fund the Illinois Health and Hazardous Substances Registry Act. This act was to “monitor the health effects among the citizens of Illinois related to exposures to hazardous substances in the work place and the environment.”
BREEDING BUGS
Closer to Bloomington, near the growing number of large-scale hog farms, residents must not only contend with pesticide and fertilizer residues in their ground water, but  potentially with antibiotic resistant bacteria based on the findings of a study published in New Scientist in April, 2001. Using DNA testing, University of Illinois microbiologist  Rustam Aminov and his team determined that bacteria from the soil near large-scale hog farms and the ground water reserves below these farms can acquire tetracycline-resistant genes from bacteria originating from pigs given the antibiotic as a growth promoter on these farms. This practice is banned in the European Union.
Back at Broadmoor, the pigs and the pasture are now gone. Like many rural farmsteads,
Broadmoor still has a house built at ground level with a bermed basement – a vestige of the days when builders knew better than to dig basements in swampland.
Other vestiges of the area’s wetland past can be found on the headstones of Stearns cemetery five miles away along Interstate 74 near Fithian. A walk through the old part
of the cemetery reveals that countless people died not during East Central Illinois’ frigid winters, but during its blazing summers. They died not because their drafty farmhouses couldn’t keep out the heat, but because their houses couldn’t keep out the mosquitoes. They died of malaria.
Before it was drained, Central Illinois was second only to Africa in malaria deaths, says University of Illinois medical entomologist Robert Novak.Whether the incidence of malaria will increase or already has increased due to global warming is a source of debate among entomologists. At present, many of the projection models for global warming call for  climate conditions to become warmer and wetter – ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes. Novak, who serves as a World Health Organization Vector Biology and Control expert panelist, studies the effects of global warming on the mosquito populations that carry malaria, dengue fever, and St. Louis encephalitis.
According to Novak, East Central Illinois hasn’t had a case of non-imported malaria since before World War II. However, the mosquitoes that typically carry the disease are still here.Moreover, cases of malaria already appeared in New York and Louisiana. A more immediate concern is West Nile Virus. In 2002, Illinois led the nation with 900 human cases, including 66 deaths. As of mid-August, in the middle of a wide-spread education campaign to remove sources of standing water, no human cases of West Nile had been reported to Illinois health officials.
It is easy to empty bird baths and remove old tires and other sources of standing water which provide habitats for disease-carrying mosquitoes. However, it is more difficult to combat the often unaerated, man-made ponds used to replace wetlands displaced by housing and shopping developments. Despite a grand history in socalled green development a century ago, Illinois has all but abandoned the practice of using large green spaces to provide recreation and temporary water retention in and around urban areas.
PAR BUT NOT PARITY
“Most climate studies project the world’s climate to become warmer and wetter, on average,” says University of Illinois professor of environmental systems Wayland Eheart. “On average is the key to that statement. In between, we are likely to see more droughts and more floods.” More frequent droughts could cause water quality problems for communities that depend on surface sources for their drinking water. EPA-permitted discharges for industrial wastes are based upon average flows. If a drought reduces the water level in a river, then potentially toxic substances in a legal industrial discharge will be at higher concentrations. Dilution levels could be further affected if more of the state’s farmers decide to install irrigation equipment.
While Eheart says he isn’t placing a lot of stock in global warming models just yet, he is a strong advocate of the precautionary principle. “You should do whatever you are going to be satisfied with even if climate change doesn’t occur,” he says. “At present
we have no control over how much water is being withdrawn in Illinois.”
“We need policies that specifically state how much people can take and a legal framework behind it, not just voluntary reporting like we’ve done with other things,” says Eheart. “A shared system needs to be set up to allocate ground water, as well. Relying on lawsuits to allocate is very inefficient and inconsistent,” he says, noting that water battles have already occurred. “A few years ago Danville wanted to access area ground water to dilute nitrates in its drinking water. Area farmers complained that this would harm their water supplies. The farmers won.” How much the fields of Broadmoor share in the blame for this irony is unknown. What is known is that they share the same watershed.
MITSUBISHI DESERT?
Surface water and ground water are intrinsically connected. The giant Mahomet aquifer, which spans all or portions of Champaign, DeWitt, Ford, Iroquois, Logan, Macon, McLean, Piatt, Sangamon, Tazewell, and Vermilion counties, charges with rainfall in northern Champaign County, as well as, the Sangamon River near Allerton Park in Piatt County. As such, the cities of Champaign and Urbana supply their residents some of the youngest water in the aquifer — water only a few thousand years old.Water in other areas of the aquifer is 5,000 to 7,000 years older.
Though smaller, shallower aquifers supply water to many individuals and communities, at 4 trillion gallons, the Mahomet is regarded as the most vast and productive. Just how productive, however, isn’t fully known, explains Samuel Panno, a geochemist with the Illinois Geological Survey (ISGS), “Aquifers are renewable resources in that they can be recharged. Water that is pumped can be replaced by precipitation at a given rate.” But the Mahomet’s recharge rate is still unknown. “I think most people who know anything about the aquifer and groundwater hydrology feel it is foolhardy  to continue to develop the Mahomet aquifer without knowing its approximate recharge rate,” says Panno.
According to Panno, if the aquifer is pumped too heavily in some areas, it could bring down the water level in others, possibly below the level of some communities’ pumps. This could result in water being unavailable to communities with shallower wells for  extended periods of time. Just how much water can be pumped safely has yet to be determined and funding to study it is still being sought. In the meantime,  development  plans, such as the one in Bloomington to add another manufacturer like Mitsubishi, worry some residents in other communities.
In 1999, Panno, and ISGS researchers Keith Hackley, David Larson, and Edward Mehnert published a study of the water level of the Mahomet aquifer west of Champaign.  According to Mehnert who led the study and heads ISGS’ ground water geology section, the water level in this area dropped over 40 feet between 1953 and 1995. At the same time, water use in Champaign-Urbana increased from 7 million gallons a day to an  average of 21 million gallons a day,with peak usage as high as 34 million  gallons.
Since 1995, the water level has stabilized, though the reasons for this are unclear, says Mehnert. “We don’t know whether we’ll be looking at additional decline in the long-term, or whether the level will remain static,” he says. The Mahomet’s water quality also may be threatened long-term. Buried 100 to 200 feet down in most areas, the Mahomet is largely protected from external pollutants.
However, it is being contaminated from within in some areas. West of the Piatt-Champaign County line, arsenic is leaching from the iron sulfide deposits in concentrations from 20 to 70 parts per billion. Commercial-scale water-treatment systems can remove arsenic from community water supplies.However, arsenic also is showing up in shallower rural wells in Piatt County, where removal comes with a considerably  higher cost for individual residents. While pitcher and faucet filters can remove nitrates and some pesticides, they don’t remove arsenic. Removing arsenic, which has been linked to skin cancers, involves whole-house filtration systems that can cost thousands of dollars and must be frequently monitored by homeowners.
LASTING IMPRINTS
At 20 to 70 ppb the Mahomet’s arsenic levels near Monticello exceed new federal standards. Amidst public outcry, lawsuits from environmental organizations, and a National Academy of Sciences finding that the U.S. EPA had substantially underestimated cancer risks from arsenic, the Bush administration reversed its previous course and allowed a 10 ppb standard to stand in June. Never mind that the 10 ppb standard was originally proposed in 1962.Whether similar intervention will cause the agency to reassess its policies regarding atrazine remains to be seen. As of June 18, the EPA’s inspector general began investigating whether the agency is deliberately misleading the public by overstating the purity of U.S. drinking water.
In the meantime, I fear for the man who now tills the soils of Broadmoor.With the death of my mother in 2000, my family’s ties to the farm were legally severed. Yet by any damage or benefit we imparted to the land, our legacy remains.We can never be truly separated from the land any more than the land can be separated from the water. This is the nature of the moor.

Anna Barnes is a free-lance writer and a former agricultural magazine editor. She has written for Science Now, the online magazine of Science, in addition to producing educational materials concerning food, agriculture, and science for the University of Illinois. Her photographs of Broadmoor are part of a solo exhibition, Full Circle, at gallery virtu cooperative in Monticello through September 30. See www.galleryvirtu.org for details.

The current brouhaha between Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes and many of the state’s judges over the latter’s financial compensation finds all of our political leaders tiptoeing around a fundamental hypocrisy underlying the debate. Article 6, Section 14 of the Illinois Constitution begins, “Judges shall receive salaries provided by law which shall not be diminished…” The judges argue that by not paying a regularly scheduled COLA (cost of living adjustment), Mr. Hynes is violating this provision of our constitution. The Comptroller and the Governor have never denied the merit of this claim, but say that in tight fiscal times, everyone has to tighten their belts, including the judiciary.
It certainly makes sense to adjust income levels annually and automatically with a COLA. Even at the relatively low levels we’ve seen in the past decade, inflation eats away slowly but surely at the purchasing power of a dollar. Funny, then, how this common sense principle is discarded when laws affecting taxpayers, and not just politicians, are considered in Springfield. In May, many a public servant took credit for raising the minimum wage from the federally-mandated minimum of $5.15/hour to $6.50/hour with all the usual palaver about how this act puts more money in the pockets of hard-working citizens and don’t forget who took care of the little  guy at the next election. The original version of that bill in the General Assembly also included an annual COLA, but in the labryinth of committees and corridors that is the State Capitol, that provision was eliminated from the final product.
Unfortunately, that watered down law leaves us in the same place we were before, where the minimum wage never catches up with inflation. It’s likethe Looney Tunes, where Wile E. Coyote gets a package from the Acme Company that gives him almost but not quite the boost he needs to catch that darn Road Runner. When the real value of the federal minimum wage over the past 40 years in today’s dollars is graphed, it falls from a high of $8.25/hour in 1969 to a low of just under $5.00/hour in 1989. Though the line occasionally spikes back up when an increase is passed, the trend is ever downward.
The most basic principle of fairness is that what holds for one should hold for all.
When the judges argue that their salaries are diminished without an annual COLA, I completely agree with them, because inflation affects everybody. The minimum wage acts as a floor to ensure that every worker has at least a minimal standard of living. Without an automatic annual adjustment, not just a booster whenever the politicians get around to it, the already too low floor is falling out from underneath the poorest among us in slow motion.
[All statistics contained in this essay come from a wonderful summary of the case for minimum wage increases indexed to inflation by the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois, which can be accessed at http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/uicued.]
– Michael Feltes

Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama supreme court is courting controversy by defying a federal court order to remove a large monument to the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the state courthouse. So why is there a conflict between the chief justice of the Alabama supreme court and a federal judge?
After all, Justice Moore’s supporters argue that the Ten Commandments are a simple moral code, completely compatible with the American legal system. And at first blush, the Commandments certainly seem like the kind of rules any judge would gladly honor and routinely enforce. Obviously “Thou shalt not kill” (Sixth Commandment, Exodus 20:13—the King James version of the Bible is used for citations in this article) and “Thou shalt not steal” (Eighth Commandment, Exodus 20:15) easily translate into our modern criminal codes. Even more applicable to a court of law is the Ninth Commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16)
The chief conflict between the Ten Commandments and the Bill of Rights arises in the First Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3) By “me” the Old Testament is referring to the deity “which have brought thee out of Egypt.” (Exodus 20:2) Clearly this is referring to the God of Jews, Christians and Muslims. These three groups combined make up a clear majority of the American polity. According to a 1999 Gallup poll, 74% of Americans supported displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr990709.asp) With such overwhelming public support, what is wrong, in a democracy, with displaying the Ten Commandments in a government building like the Alabama supreme courthouse? The Constitution.
The First Amendment states, in relevant part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion….” This is commonly known as the Establishment Clause. The Framers inserted this provision because they recognized, as did de Toqueville, the dangers of the “tyranny of the majority.”
The fact that a majority of Americans hold a particular religious view does not mean they can impose that view on their fellow citizens. This was why the First Amendment, which also protects unpopular speech and the free exercise of minority religious practices, was added to the Constitution—to serve as a bulwark against politicians like Justice Moore who seek to trammel upon the rights of minority groups for political gain.
Consider, for example, the hypothetical case of Abramson v. Patel (I am using the names of two of my college friends, one of whom happens to be Jewish and the other Hindu) before the Alabama supreme court. Mr. Abramson might walk into the courthouse, see Justice Moore’s monument and be pleased with this government vindication of his personal religious beliefs. But what about Mr. Patel? He will see not only the First Commandment’s admonition, but by implication, that of the Alabama Supreme Court, to “have no other gods” but “thy God, which have brought thee out of Egypt.” Mr. Patel, a Hindu, does not worship the God of the Old Testament. In essence, the Alabama supreme court has already ruled against his personal spiritual beliefs before he even steps into the courtroom. What confidence can Mr. Patel feel about his prospects of a fair hearing before Justice Moore’s court?
Supporters of Justice Moore argue that our nation’s legal system was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and there is therefore nothing wrong with posting the Ten Commandments in a courthouse. In fact, the Bill of Rights’ “Congress shall make no law” language is strikingly similar to the Ten Commandments’ “Thou shalt not” language. Although there has been recent scholarship indicating that Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were deists rather than practicing Christians, the fact remains that a majority of the Framers were Christians. But it was these same Christians who added the Establishment Clause to the Constitution to prevent the legal codification of their (or anyone else’s) religious beliefs.
Moreover, the Ten Commandments are not the only basis for our legal system. Justice Moore’s monument does not include homages to Hammurabi’s Code, Roman civil law or Blackstone’s Commentaries, all significant forebears of modern American jurisprudence. The Ten Commandments are displayed in the Alabama Supreme Court not for their historic value but for their religious value. Justice Moore has a right to follow the Ten Commandments.
He has the right to post the Ten Commandments in his home or office. He has the right to go door-to-door passing out copies of the Ten Commandments to his neighbors.
He has the right to shout the Ten Commandments in the streets to anyone who will listen. But he does not have the right to impose his views on the people of Alabama under color of state authority.
-Matt Hlinak

On August 19, Attorney General Ashcroft began a national tour to defend the USA PATRIOT  Act. The complex 342 page law, passed less than 7 weeks after the events of September 11, 2001, gives law enforcement wide authority to monitor citizens. It also expands  governmental powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978,
breaking down barriers between foreign and domestic surveillance.
Section 215 of the law allows agents to obtain a search warrant without having to demonstrate “probable cause” or the existence of specific facts to support belief that crime has been committed or that items are evidence of crime. An agent needs only to claim he or she believes the records requested may be related to terrorism or intelligence activities.
Once a search warrant is served–i.e, a business is asked to provide information–that business
may not tell anyone about the warrant, not even the person about whom information was requested.
Authorities may find out what someone has purchased at a bookstore, what a person checked
out from the library or how an individual may have used the Internet at their local public library–all in the name of preventing terrorism. Librarians themselves may not know that records are being used since many libraries’ records are kept on computers managed by others–by a city manager or a campus computing center, for example. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, law enforcement officials are less accountable for their actions, library records are more vulnerable and domestic and international issues become blurred.
Librarians see the USA PATRIOT Act as an attack on fundamental beliefs of the profession.
The Act unnecessarily lowers the legal standard for obtaining patron records, records that are deemed confidential under the law of 48 states. Illinois law, for example, states “The registration and circulation records of a library are confidential information. Except pursuant to a court order, no person shall publish or make any information contained in such records available to the public.” The law also exempts patron records from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Using library circulation records as a way to hunt terrorists assumes the questionable connection between what someone reads and how one acts. It would be foolish, for example, to assume the millions of readers of Tom Clancy novels of the recent The Last Jihad are reading these a manual for terrorism. The greater danger is that readers will be nervous to inquire about politics, history or current events, lest their intellectual curiosity make them suspects in terrorist investigations. A librarian, Jamie LaRue, tells the story of his own search for information shortly after 9/11/01. To try to understand  what was happening and why, LaRue went to various websites about terrorism, Osama Bin Laden and even to
pornography sites, after reading on CNN that terrorists were hiding instructions in such places. He reflected afterward that just such a search would make him a prime candidate to be investigated as a potential terrorist.
The Freedom to Read statement of the American Library Association begins “The freedom to read is essential to our democracy…We, as citizens devoted to reading and as librarians
and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.” It has been adopted by a number of other groups
including the American Association of University Professors, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and the National PTA. The
statement concludes, “We do not state these propositions in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant.
We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.”
Libraries also worry they may become the target of a court order requiring the library to cooperate in the monitoring of a user’s electronic communications. Under Section 216 of the
PATRIOT Act, libraries that provide access to the Internet and email service to patrons may be required to monitor a user’s electronic communications sent through the library’s computers or network. Because computers in libraries are often the only source of Internet access for the poor, librarians also worry that surveillance under the USA PATRIOT Act may differentially affect the poor. Librarians have become activists in fighting provisions of
the USA PATRIOT Act. Some have put signs in their libraries, warning users of these provisions. Santa Cruz Public Library, for example, posts the following:
WARNING: Although the Santa Cruz Library makes every effort to protect your privacy, under the federal USA PATRIOT Act (Public Law 107- 56), records of the books and other
materials you borrow from this library may be obtained by federal agents. That federal law prohibits library workers from informing you if federal agents have obtained records about
you. Questions about this policy should be directed to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. 20530.
A website provides suggestions of signs libraries might use warn patrons while “respecting” the gag rule that prevents staff from informing a user if the FBI has asked for the user’s library records. For example, The FBI has not been here (watch closely to see if this sign is removed).
Librarians and the American Library Association have been active in informing the public about the USA PATRIOT Act and in working on legislation to overturn some of its provisions.
In a recent survey by the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois, 20 percent of public librarians said that if law enforcement asked for information about one of their users they probably or definitely would violate the gag order by notifying someone of the request.
Public opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act grows. To date 152 communities and 3 states (Alaska, Hawaii and Vermont) have passed legislation opposing the USA PATRIOT Act as a
threat to the civil rights of the residents of their communities.
On March 6, 2003, Democratic Representative Bernie Sanders has proposed the “Freedom to Read Protection Act” – HR 1157. It would return to pre-PATRIOT Act standards the standards for the FBI to obtain FISA court orders and warrants to investigate library patrons and bookstore customers. In July, the House of Representatives approved (309-118) a Republican sponsored amendment to the Sanders’ bill to block the Justice Department
from using any federal funds for broad searches.
Other legislation includes the Surveillance Oversight and Disclosure Act (HR 2429) that would require regular disclosure to Congress by the Attorney General about authority he has granted under the USA PATRIOT Act.
On July 30, 2003 the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of six advocacy and
community groups from across the country whose members and clients believe they are currently the targets of investigations because of their ethnicity, religion and political associations.
The lawsuit names Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller as the
defendants. In a report, Unpatriotic Acts issued at the same time, the ACLU stated that Section
215 of the PATRIOT Act violates constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures as well as the rights to freedom of speech and association.
The opposition is having an effect on the Attorney General’s office. On August 19, Ashcroft began a public relations tour–not speaking to the public, but to law enforcement agents. Ashcroft is insisting on the importance of the USA PATRIOT Act and he minimizes the threats to civil liberties caused by enforcement. The PR campaign includes a Department of Justice website called “Preserving Life and Liberty”    (http://www.lifeandliberty.gov/) with a header of a section of the Declaration of Independence. Among the assertions on the website is that the USA PATRIOT Act makes “only modest, incremental changes in the law. Congress simply took existing legal principles and retrofitted them to preserve the lives and liberty of the American people from the challenges posed by a global terrorist network.” It mercifully does not have an attached audio file of the Star Spangled Banner.
Websites maintained by the American Library Association (www.ala.org), Bernie Sanders (http://bernie.house.gov/) and the ACLU (http://www.aclu.org/ ) provide rich and up-to-date information about opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act.

Leigh Estabrook is professor of Library and Information Science and of Sociology at UIUC. She currently directs the Library Research Center of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science and oversees a series of studies on the impact of the USA PATRIOT Act on libraries.

I am not rose petals, waterfall, childhood’s dream
I am not lullabies, tenderness, sweet summer rain
I am not the breath of babies, the taste of last year’s honey
I am not philosophy, magic, christmas morning
I am not art or poetry
No, not I
I am not Buddha, Krishna, God, or Allah
I am not Mary, Gandhi, Teresa, Lennon
I am not friend
I am not brother
I am not sister, father, mother, neighbor
I am not heart
I am not semen
I am not egg
I am not sun or moon or stars
I am not the wind upon your face
I am not warmth, compassion, courage
No, not I
I am not serenity
I am not laughter
I am not sunrise or the silver slippered moon
I am not you or she or he
I am not love or hope
I am not peace
I am bitter leaves, stagnant water, mother’s nightmare, father’s folly
I am screams and sirens, toxic rain of retribution
I am the stench of swollen corpses, the flyblown taste of this year’s slaughter
I am lying, deception, spikes of crucifixion
I am the song of suffering
I am Satan, Beelzebub,Wendigo, Legion
I am Attila, Charlemagne, Saddam, Bush
I am enemy
I am killer
I am destruction, disease, defiler, denouncer
I am the blackened soul
I am the evil seed
I am the poisoned womb
I am your darkest night, your darkest hour in your darkest day
I am the napalm flames dancing upon your face
I am hatred, cruelty, vengeance, fear
I am insanity
I am hopelessness
I am terror
I am guns and bombs and incinerated children
I am gas and tanks and fallen cities
I am ruin, pestilence, famine, and despair
Cold am I, dull,metal-barreled butcher heart
Feel my sweat ooze from your frozen flesh
Kiss my ashgray lips
I am plucked eyes, broken eardrums, splintered nostrils
I am numbness, the savor of dried blood and cracked bone
marrow
I spit on warmth, compassion, courage
I kick the face of your bliss
I strangle your sons, rape your daughters
I corrupt your spirit and break your heart, violate your home
I am the one who murders peace
Yes, yes, I
I am the one who hates what’s kind
I am the one who lies behind
I am the one who lies ahead
I am the one who craves what’s dead
Try to stop me if you can
Try to stop me who I am
I am the one who came before
I am the one who keeps death’s door
I am the one who makes tears pour
I am the pimp to Fortune’s whore
Ask, who am I?
My name is War

A true fact, but unfortunately not widely-known, is that over 1300 US Government depository libraries exist for the public’s free use. The US Government is the world’s most prolific publisher, and depository libraries receive 1000s of government titles annually at no cost for the publications. Two important corollaries, these libraries are required to provide
direct access to electronic government information and databases on the Web, and to have specialists available to help anyone and everyone locate and utilize government documents
in all formats. Locally, the Government Documents Library at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is a designated Federal Depository. It is a community, as well as a
campus, resource. Its librarians are specialists and advocates, who help users access  government information. UIUC’s Law Library, although more selective in terms of its collection policies, is also a Federal Depository.
WHAT A DEPOSITORY LIBRARY HAS
Depository libraries include the obvious, such as a 1980 congressional hearing, “Effect of Iraqi-Iranian Conflict on U.S. Energy Policy,” or a 1998 congressional hearing, “Iraq:
Can Saddam Be Overthrown?” Even Frank Zappa’s congressional testimony on song lyrics may sound like standard fare. However, the range of subject matter which government
information encompasses may surprise the uninitiated, and its educational and instructional value in a land-grant university environment such as ours extends far beyond the campus.
Libraries continue to receive depository shipments of government documents in paper, and audio-visual materials, CD/DVDs, maps, microfiche, posters, videos, etc.; yet, the
passage of the Government Printing Office Electronic Information Access Enhancement Act of 1993 marked the beginning of the official trend towards a predominately digital Federal
Depository program. This initiative evolved into the present GPO Access site, a marvelous resource for tyros and technocrats alike, which has official information from all three
branches of the US Government. The possibility of relatively easy, unparalleled access to government information led to visions of “downloading democracy,” and increased awareness of US Government practices and programs. Then and now, Federal Depository librarians develop web sites for their local congressional districts and communities, and promote e-government resources through a myriad of access tools. Examine the Affirmative Action web site, created by Grace York, Documents Center, University Library, U of M, Ann Arbor, or The War with Iraq, a webliography, done by James Jacobs, Data, Government and GIS Services, UCSD Libraries. Or in your own virtual backyard, view Government  Information for a Changing World, the work of many, Government Documents Library, UIUC Library. The depository library system originated in the country’s oldest right-to-know laws. To many, an informed citizenry is fundamental to our vision of American democracy. Federal
Depositories, encompassing tangible and virtual government documents, also function as the “nation’s collective memory.”
These collections and services, combined with basic government information literacy skills, represent at least one major means of finding out what’s what, and holding our public servants, elected or otherwise, accountable.
THE ‘FUGITIVE’DOCUMENT
Throughout the country’s history, “fugitive” documents have existed. Although the web environment has given new meaning to the concept, fugitives are basically government
documents not cataloged in, nor distributed through, the Federal Depository Library Program. This would include, for example, a government agency fee-based electronic journal or database that was unavailable for free at a Federal Depository. Another example, Congressional Research Service reports, prepared specifically for Congress, are not distributed for free to Depository libraries. Three recent titles, Low Power FM
Radio Service: Regulatory and Congressional Issues, Substantive Due Process and a Right to Clone, or Patient Protection and Managed Care could conceivably be of interest to area
residents.
The meaning of “fugitive” took on another dimension in the aftermath of the devastation on September 11, 2001. On September 14, 2001, President George W. Bush issued  Proclamation 7463, declaring a national emergency by reason of the terrorist attacks. The vulnerability of electronic government publications, databases, and records did not originate with the 9/11 tragedy. However, the US Government’s procedural response to it in terms of openness precipitated the removal of thousands of important government documents and information resources from the Web. In many instances, these web-based editions were the only official depository copies disseminated. Between September 11, 2001, through mid-October, 2001, US Government agencies and the Executive Office of the President either immediately shut down or restricted access to electronic government information. The Federal Aviation Administration took away its enforcement files, which included information about security violations, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission removed publications that had detailed specifications for energy facilities. The Centers for Disease Control and its Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry removed individual reports
from agency sites. A number of Department of Transportation agencies, including the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Geographic Information Services, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and the International Nuclear Safety Center, all removed maps or atlases from their web sites.
The list of agencies is long, and ranges from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to the US Geological Survey. Selected actions by some of the agencies may seem
justified. In many cases, it has been excessive. The Department of Energy eliminated over 15,500 reports from its DOE Information Bridge. These resources were part of the Federal
Depository Library Program electronic collection. The Environmental Protection Agency, excepting its own employees and contractors, and military, federal, and state employees, is
now allowing the public only limited and less flexible access to Envirofacts, which the agency describes as “your one-stop source for environmental information.” Although it is to be
expected that the Department of Defense would do a sweep of what it considers sensitive, accessible e-information, journalists, lawyers, librarians, and many Americans really,  wondered why the Department of Education, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Internal Revenue Service felt compelled to do so.
THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE GETS INTO THE ACT
The Government Printing Office rarely asks Federal Depositories to remove paper or other  tangible format publications from the shelves. Since 1995, twenty tangible items, out of a total of 230,000 titles disseminated, have been recalled or withdrawn. In October, 2001, the Government Printing Office instructed libraries to “withdraw and destroy” US Geological Survey Open-File Report 99-248, Source-Area Characteristics of Large Public Surface-Water Supplies in the Conterminous United States: An Information Resource for Source-Water Assessment (1999). This official request was sent to 335 Federal Depositories holding a copy. Breaking this CD was not a natural act for us. This product, done in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency, was to assist the agency and states in meeting the  requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 by identifying selected characteristics of source-water areas for drinking water for fifty million people. In some areas, the FBI followed up to make sure the CD had been destroyed. A few individual depositories have been approached about removing other government titles.
AN ADMINISTRATION’S POLICY OF DENYING ACCESS
This trend was accompanied by a series of policy issuances that redefine open government  and access to government information. Most of these have been fairly widely discussed.
Attorney General John Ashcroft’s October 12, 2002 memorandum to federal department and agency heads on the Freedom of Information Act, essentially a reinterpretation of the act, began the trend. If agencies are able to identify any “sound legal basis” for withholding information, the Ashcroft Memorandum clearly states that they will be protected. The
USA Patriot Act, signed into law on October 26, 2001 by President Bush, and also his December 10, 2001, Administrative Order, empowering the Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, to classify the department’s information as “secret,” confirmed the direction the Administration was taking. Heretofore the department had no classified
documents. The result was many unclassified documents were removed from public view. The Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency now have
“original classification authority” as well. In total, over 4,000 individuals at agencies have this type of authority.
On March 25, 2003, one year after White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card issued a   memorandum that contained guidelines for reviewing classified, reclassified and declassified, and also, “sensitive but unclassified” information, President Bush issued Executive Order 13292 – Further Amendment to Executive Order 12958, as Amended, Classified National Security Information. It “prescribes” a uniform system of classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national security information. Foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources and weapons of mass destruction are just two of the specific categories that could be restricted. It also provides new authority to reclassify
previously declassified documents. Congressional Research Service has prepared a comprehensive report on Executive Order 13292, entitled, “Sensitive But Unclassified” and Other Federal Security Control on Scientific and Technical Information:
History and Current Controversy. It points to problems, including the lack of a statutory definition, individual agency interpretation, and the potential expansion of the applicability
of the “sensitive but unclassified” label. The Office of Management and Budget is apparently developing guidelines. In light of increased secrecy and further limitations on egovernment
information, many activist groups, think tanks, organizations and professional associations, and individuals are speaking out, lobbying and campaigning, and challenging such restrictions in the courts and elsewhere. For example, the American Library Association adopted a resolution on Security and Access to Government Information at its June 2003 annual conference. Another group, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, has
released Homefront Confidential: How the War on Terrorism Affects Access to Information
and the Public’s Right to Know, 3rd ed., RCFP White Paper, March 2003 (see RCFP’s web
site).
On a related note, the Information Security Oversight Office’s fiscal year 2002 Report
to the President indicates that 23,745,329 classification actions – original and derivative
– occurred. This is 2,909,520 more than the previous fiscal year, a 12.2% increase. The
Department of Justice reported an increase of 39%. A dramatic jump occurred in fiscal year
2000, when the number of actions went from 8,038,592 in fiscal year 1999 to 22,965,363.
This represents an increase of 64.9%, and each successive year, the number has grown.
Stephen Aftergood describes the Bush Administration’s secrecy as an “empirical
fact,” and predicts, given the state of military affairs, that this pattern will continue and
expand (“The Bush Administration’s Suffocating Secrecy,” Forward, March 28, 2003).
Certain provisions of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, passed on November 22,
2002, create a broad exemption from the Freedom of Information Act. In response, on
March 12, 2003, Senator Patrick Leahy, Vermont, introduced the Restoration of Freedom
of Information Act of 2003, which would amend the Homeland Security Act. It
was referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and no further action has occurred
on the bill. On June 19, 2003, Representative Barney Frank, Massachusetts, and Mark
Udall, Colorado, introduced a similar bill, H.R. 2526, with the same title.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 harks back to another
age, as it would allow the Director of the National Security Agency, in coordination
with the Director of Central Intelligence, to exempt the agency’s operational files from
public disclosure requirements. As of July 22, 2003, it is in the process of being reported out
of committee.
A CALL TO ACTION AND TO VISIT THE LIBRARY
If this bothers you, find out where, when, and how US Government information is  disseminated, how it is organized, and read and use it. Whether you are attempting to understand the labyrinth of 1980s export controls vs. military items and technology sales to
Iraq, tracking the latest activities of the Department of Homeland Security, or planning
a visit to a national park, drop into your local depository library – virtual or otherwise.
Talk with your depository librarians.

Advocate for no-fee, broad public access to government information with as few restrictionsas possible. It belongs to all of us.

Agencies Who Have Had Information Removed From Their Websites

• Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
• Bureau of Transportation Statistics: Geographic Information Services
• Center for Disease Control (CDC)
• Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC)
• Department of Defense
• Department of Education
• Department of Energy (DOE)
• DOE Information Bridge
• Department of Transportation
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Federal Aviation Administration
• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
• Fish and Wildlife Service
• Food and Drug Administratio (FDA)
• Internal Revenue Service
• Los Alamos Laboratory
• National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)
• National Institiute of the Humanities
• Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) From The Working Report of the Task Force on Restriction on Access to Government Information

Mary Mallory has been a librarian for 32 years. For 23 of those years, she has been a government information specialist, serving as the Head of the Government Documents Library of the UIUC Library since November 1999. Mary has has worked as a librarian in Ann Arbor, Cambridge, MA, Manhattan, and CU.