“The reality of this world is that the federal government is not going to go after Harvard professors regardless of anything they say, because Harvard hires expensive lawyers. The real people who are going to be affected by this are people working at community colleges and untenured people working at state universities and ordinary citizens.”

TEARING OUT A PAGE FROM THE LEGAL BOOKS

In fact, Harvard’s legal department immersed itself in the new regulations following Sept. 11.

In the spring of 2003, the General Counsel’s office, which handles legal concerns within the University, instructed librarians on how to respond to governmental requests for information under the new regulations. The instructions are now available to the workers, whether staff or students, at every circulation desk in the library.

Verba says the University established this standardized procedure, which slightly predated concerns that Faculty members voiced last spring, as a result of concerns voiced in the media.

Much of the controversy surrounding Section 215 of the Patriot Act concerns a secrecy clause stipulating that federal request for information must remain strictly confidential. Libraries, in other words, can’t report in some cases whether they have received governmental inquiries.

The implications of this regulation are ambiguous. Some of the law’s readers have assumed that employees who comply with governmental demands for information may not report their experience to anyone.

But Harvard thinks otherwise. According to the General Counsel’s interpretation of the law, library employees can—and should—report all government requests to their superiors.

“We tell them that they’re not authorized to give information,” Verba explained. “You would be violating your job if you gave away any information.” If an employee receives a federal request for records, he or she is required to notify a supervisor, who will in turn contact the General Counsel. The University would release records only under duress.

ALL CLEAR, MAYBE

So far, no federal officials have requested information from Harvard’s libraries since Sept. 11, Verba says.

But he does not discount the possibility that demands could have been made without ever being reported.

“Conceivably it could happen,” he says. “But as far as I know, it’s never materialized as an issue for the Library.”

Given some other libraries’ unsubstantiated reports of coercion from government officials, he says it is possible library workers could find themselves in an awkward position with contradictory imperatives from the government and their employers. “Either they get in trouble with their supervisor or they get in trouble with the law,” he says.

Unlike several other libraries, which post signs alerting users that their records may be released under government request, the University Library has not taken such conspicuous steps.