There's been a brouhaha stirring over whether the feds should be able, in complete secrecy, to find out just what you've been up to when you use a computer down at the library. (Congress recently considered and failed to pass legislation that would have barred searches of library records by the Justice Department.) To find out just how private the use of one of those computers is, we asked Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Director John Halliday for information, by recent emails and by telephone on July 12, 2004.

Right now, you must sign in at the desk to use a computer, with your name and the time and date. (We recently published the Library's official policy about computer use.) These sign-in sheets, we are told, are held for up to 30 days to keep statistics about how many people are using the machines, and for how long.

Director Halliday tells us that, "Within the next year we intend to do away with that system. There will be a log-in right on the computer--you'll just type in your library card number. And there's a Library Board policy that that information will also just be kept for as long as it is administratively useful--again, up to 30 days or so."

The history of what websites you visit while you're using the computer is erased when the computer is re-booted--up to several times a day, in normal practice. And if you request it, the staff will reboot the computer after you log off so the next patron will not be able to view your pattern of clicks.

How erased is erased? Says Director Halliday, "Well, I don't know what the government--you know, if they came in and seized a computer, could they find something? I just don't know."

Has the library had any such inquiries or seizures, any probes to find threats to Homeland Security? "We have not had any inquiries from any federal authorities--[laugh] of course, under the Patriot Act, if we had, I could not tell you that we had. But in fact, we have not." (Dave Sagarin, July 12, 2004)