more on librarian faces discipline for obey state law

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Scott Alexander <salex () dsl cis upenn edu>
Date: July 4, 2006 3:19:03 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] librarian faces discipline for obey state law

Since moving to NJ, I've learned that the citizens here are fanatical
about home rule as a basic governing principle.  This results in things
like having 500+ municipalities and 600+ school districts (some of which
don't actually have schools, but just raise money to pay tuition to
another school district).

One of the results of this that I've seen is that there's never a notion
that there is a need for any sort of regional view.  Where one wouldn't
have much success arguing that there should be no cell towers to a
government responsible for a county sized area wouldn't be very
successful, with small, autonomous towns, each of them is trying to
figure out a way to have the cell towers offering local service just out
of view in the neighboring townships.

Generally, residents seem to believe that the township government should
be able to fix their problems.  Following the law is no excuse.  I've
seen people voted out of office for voting for a property re-assessment
(required by state law).  Cell tower plans often go to court despite
fairly clear case law saying that the township has limited authority.
If one wants to stay in office, it is safer to waste local tax dollars
on a suit (and to later rail against the courts) than to try to lead by
explaining that federal law preempts local law in this area and that
you'd rather lower property taxes than tilt at windmills.

Given that attitude, I'm not surprised in the least that township
officials would argue that the local librarian should have acted based
on the ends justifying the means rather than the law.  And, if a
librarian was sued for giving out records without a subpoena, they would
look at that as an entirely different event and claim that she should
have foreseen the result and used different means.

Sigh,
Scott Alexander


On Tue, 2006-07-04 at 14:01 -0400, David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>
> Date: July 3, 2006 9:17:24 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: librarian faces discipline for obey state law
>
> A librarian in New Jersey is facing disciplinary action for following
> state law.
>
> A 12-year-old girl was allegdly sexually threatened outside a library.
> The girl said that the man was carrying a particular book; when police
> asked who had checked out that book, the librarian told them to get a
> subpoena, as is *required* by NJ state law.  Local officials are now
> accusing her of "blatant disregard" for law enforcement, partially
> because
> she consulted a state library association attorney rather than the
> town's
> attorney.
>
> One wonders if the town would be so quick to defend her if she were  
> sued
> by the defendant for turning over records without a subpoena.
>
> Here are two different stories on the incident.
>
> http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?
> qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2MDYmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTY5NTE1NjIme 
> XJ
> pcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkz
> http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?
> qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2OTU1NjU2Jnlya 
> XJ
> 5N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Mg==
>
>                 --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
>
>
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