Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Army Libraries

Since visiting my brother at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri, I have been curious about libraries on military bases. I’ve gathered that they are staffed by non-military staff and are for the use of active duty and families and retired military. There are the same types of libraries as outside the military—public, school, academic, and special. What I really wanted to know, and couldn’t find, was how the military’s version of the First Amendment was handled at libraries on a military base.
There are limits to a soldier’s free speech, spelled out in the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Defense Department Directives. “Subchapter X of the UCMJ is the “Punitive Articles,” which include four of the more scrutinized articles in the UCMJ. These are Article 88, Contempt Toward Officials; Article 92, Failure to Obey Order or Regulation; Article 133, Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman; and Article 134, General Article.” (http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/Speech/personal/topic.aspx?topic=military_speech ). In the 1974 case, Parker v. Levy, an army physician was prosecuted for speaking against the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction. The military is a “specialized society separate from civilian society”.
Considering the fact that military personnel have limits to their free speech, how does a library operate? Presumably, a soldier could be prosecuted for blogging negatively about the President. Does a military library endorse the ALA’s Freedom to Read/View statements, or their Privacy statement? Do they use filters on their computers (for adults as well as soldiers)? Can a soldier check out ‘subversive’ material without fear of retribution?

1 comment:

  1. This was really interesting! I had never really thought about military libraries. I would think that they would have a very specialized policy. Many special libraries have limitations on what they collect and I think this would be similar. I am interested to find out now!

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