Libraries are trusted community spaces and education centers -- quite often as the only such resource in their communities. Libraries serve people from all walks of life, including immigrants, poor and working people, and others who are under greater threats of surveillance. Finally, libraries have a deep historical and ideological commitment to protecting privacy; for example, librarians in the United States were some of the earliest opponents of overbroad government surveillance programs like the USA PATRIOT Act.
The use of TOR is not, in and of itself, illegal. There are legitimate purposes for its use. Originally designed, implemented and deployed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory, TOR affords users a way to share information over public networks without compromising their privacy.
When we consider the threats we face from government agencies Spying on Democracy - the disturbing increase in surveillance of ordinary citizens and the danger it poses to our privacy, and to our civil liberties - it only makes good sense to take steps to safeguard our personal privacy and civil liberties, and what better place to do that than in our public libraries?
Contact your local library and encourage them to run a TOR Relay. By running a Tor relay they can help make the Tor network:
- faster (and therefore more usable)
- more robust against attacks
- more stable in case of outages
- safer for its users (spying on more relays is harder than on a few)
Librarians may also be interested in the Library Freedom Institute.
The Library Freedom Institute (LFI) is a privacy-focused six-month program for librarians to teach them the skills necessary to thrive as Privacy Advocates, from installing privacy software to influencing public policy.
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