Homeland Security/Letters to SLA Membership and Tom Ridge

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From: PAMELA MILLER (pamelamiller@prodigy.net)
Date: Tue Sep 17 2002 - 18:09:10 PDT 

Message-ID: <20020918010910.13446.qmail@web80101.mail.yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 18:09:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: PAMELA MILLER <pamelamiller@prodigy.net>
Subject: Homeland Security/Letters to SLA Membership and Tom Ridge

Dear Ms. Smith,

As a librarian and as a citizen who loves this country
and the principles upon which it was founded, I am
totally opposed to the letters posted on the SLA
website with your signature and under the aegis of the
Special Libraries Association organization. I feel the
breath of fascism on my neck and I can only wonder
when the knock on the door will be for me as people
participate more and more willingly in the informing
(information sharing) on their fellow citizens,
neighbors, or indeed anyone at all for any reason.

I do not want to be a member of an organization whose
leadership so willingly supports the Homeland Security
Act. The SLA is NOT a monolithically-minded group --
which is part of why I am so proud to be a librarian.
I consider the recent first amendment protection fight
waged against CIPRA by our sister organization, the
American Library Association, to be one of the finest
and bravest stands taken by a professional
organization in recent history.

I am appalled that the SLA is not looking closely at
the long-term implications of this "Act" -- with the
blatant gutting of our precious civil liberties. NO
ACT OF TERRORISM IS WORTH THE PRICE OF OUR
CONSTITUTION. There was no such response to the
destruction of a Federal building and the loss of more
than 150 lives through the act of a blond white male
driving a rented Ryder truck. Why not?

The SLA is a membership organization and we (members)
have not had an open discussion amongst ourselves
about what action we will take on this critical issue.
I want the SLA to be a spokes-vessel for the now
almost-silenced opposition to the current destruction
of the Bill of Rights -- all in the name of making
America "safe".

Not only that, I think it is our moral and ethical
responsibility to speak out against such a
destruction, if our country is to remain
multicultural, open-minded and multi-dimensional.
Freedom of thought is core to all our original
freedoms. It is worthy of considered contemplation and
discussion -- by all of us.

Please remove this "newsletter" from the website
immediately and present your proposal to the members
before offering it to the world (thanks to content on
the Internet's ability to live on forever) as the
"position" of SLA. It is not my position at all.

Pamela Miller
SLA-SF Chapter Member

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