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Library Freedom Project: the long overdue partnership between libraries and free software
Alison Macrina and Nima Fatemi, Library Freedom Project
Librarians have long been defenders of democratic ideals like free speech and privacy, not only providing access to information and technology freely, but also by fighting back against threats to civil liberties like the USA PATRIOT Act and National Security Letters. In the post-Snowden era, libraries have taken this activism further and are teaching FLOSS privacy-enhancing technologies to their patrons in free computer classes, and installing these tools on library PCs. Nima Fatemi and Alison Macrina of Library Freedom Project will talk about how LFP kickstarted this movement of radical crypto-librarians, and how FLOSS tools like Tor Browser, Signal, OTR, GPG, and Tails are being deployed and taught in libraries to an overwhelmingly positive reception. Nima and Alison will also discuss LFP's newest project, bringing Tor exit relays into libraries, what happened when the Department of Homeland Security tried to shut down that project at a small New Hampshire library – and how the local and global community fought back and won.