Republican-connected law firm demands identities of Michigan library users

This story from the Detroit News publicly reports something that's been discussed behind the scenes in Michigan LibraryLand for several days: a law firm in Okemos (near East Lansing) has filed at least 85 "Freedom-of-Information-Act" requests demanding addresses, telephone numbers, e'mail addresses, and other identifying information about all library users over the age of 18. Such requests have reportedly been sent to public libraries with names beginning with the letters A through H. All have reportedly rejected the demands, citing Michigan's Library Privacy Act.

What the story does not report is that Michael Flory of "Flory and Associates" is chairman of the Michigan Federation of Young Republicans. (See also here, here.)

Now there are any number of possible motivations for this raft of requests. Perhaps they really were initiated by a 21-year-old law student working as a clerk who merely wishes to compile a profile of library users for purely innocuous purposes.

Or perhaps Mr. Flory is attempting to use the FOIA to compile a free mailing list for political purposes. (When you signed up for a library card, did you do so in hope of receiving more political junk mail? Or being signed up for political-propaganda e'mail spam?) Or perhaps the strategic purpose is to weaken legal protection of library records through litigation. Or perhaps Mr. Marker is compiling information for resale to commercial marketers and spammers. Or perhaps, given the animosity between present-day Republicans and literate people... er, library users... the conspiracy-minded might even speculate that it's to compile a list of Suspected Readers who are more likely than the general, TV-watching population to hold "treasonous thoughts".

Just kidding, officer. You can put away that badge. Heh, heh... Just a little joke....