FBI Agent Tries To Register Copyright On Top Secret Interrogation Manual… Making It Available To Anyone
Here’s a bizarre one on so many levels. The FBI has a top secret 70-page “interrogation manual.” For years, the ACLU has been trying to get its hands on a copy, finally receiving a heavily redacted one. However, it turns out that if the good folks at the ACLU had just decided to wander over to the Library of Congress, they could have seen a totally unredacted copy of the entire manual, as could anyone else with a library card. Why? Because in this bizarre age we live in, in which people seem to think it’s important to copyright absolutely everything the senior FBI official who authored the manual decided that he should try to register a copyright on it, and submitted it to the Library of Congress as a part of the registration process, whereby it becomes available to anyone who stops by and asks for it.
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
View all posts by Michael Sauers
Here’s a bizarre one on so many levels. The FBI has a top secret 70-page “interrogation manual.” For years, the ACLU has been trying to get its hands on a copy, finally receiving a heavily redacted one. However, it turns out that if the good folks at the ACLU had just decided to wander over to the Library of Congress, they could have seen a totally unredacted copy of the entire manual, as could anyone else with a library card. Why? Because in this bizarre age we live in, in which people seem to think it’s important to copyright absolutely everything the senior FBI official who authored the manual decided that he should try to register a copyright on it, and submitted it to the Library of Congress as a part of the registration process, whereby it becomes available to anyone who stops by and asks for it.
