Intellectual Freedom

CHICAGO – Each year on May 1, librarians, library users and privacy advocates come together to observe Choose Privacy Week - an annual event promoting the importance of individual privacy rights.  But protecting and promoting privacy in libraries and in patrons’ lives shouldn't be a one-off annual event.  Libraries and librarians should provide privacy programming and resources throughout the year, whether the topic is government surveillance, data mining, identity theft, or threats to personal privacy from implementation of emerging technologies. 

CHICAGO — The American Library Association (ALA) will join the technology policy conversations in play at the South by Southwest EDU and Interactive conferences in Austin starting this week. Privacy and the “internet of things” will be among the topics on the agenda for the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) and Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP). ALA also will join members and sister library organizations at the joint “Innovative Booth for Libraries” March 7-11, 2014.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, Barbara Stripling, president of the American Library Association (ALA), released the following statement regarding President Barack Obama’s remarks on the National Security Agency surveillance program:

CHICAGO — The Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) yesterday joined with the American Library Association and several other library, education and free speech organizations in filing an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Arce v. Huppenthal, a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Arizona Revised Statute § 15-112(A).