Library clears its shelves in protest at closure threat

The library at Stony Stratford, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, looks like the aftermath of a crime, its shell-shocked staff presiding over an expanse of emptied shelves. Only a few days ago they held 16,000 volumes.

Now, after a campaign on Facebook, there are none. Every library user was urged to pick their full entitlement of 15 books, take them away and keep them for a week. The idea was to empty the shelves by closing time on Saturday: in fact with 24 hours to go, the last sad bundle of self-help and practical mechanics books was stamped out. Robert Gifford, chair of Stony Stratford town council, planned to collect his books when he got home from work in London, but left it too late — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Wikileaks volunteer detained and searched (again) by US agents

Jacob Appelbaum, a security researcher, Tor developer, and volunteer with WikiLeaks, reported today on his Twitter feed that he was detained, searched, and questioned by the US Customs and Border Patrol agents at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on January 10, upon re-entering the US after a vacation in Iceland.

He experienced a similar incident last year at Newark airport — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Unacceptable: Online retailer draws reactions over Giffords comments

On Saturday morning, a gunman shot Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords while she was meeting with constituents outside a Safeway store in Tucson, Arizona, and then apparently kept on shooting, leaving six people (including a nine-year-old girl) dead and Rep. Giffords in critical condition.

While the rest of the world was wishing Gifford well, mourning the dead, and denouncing the vitriol that encourages such violence, Travis Corcoran, the president of online comics retailer Heavy Ink, put up a post on his personal blog titled 1 down, 534 to go. Corcoran was, of course, referring to the 535 members of Congress — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Privacy Law Is Outrun by Speed of Web’s Progress

Concerned by the wave of requests for customer data from law enforcement agencies, Google last year set up an online tool showing the frequency of these requests in various countries. In the first half of 2010, it counted more than 4,200 in the United States.

Google is not alone among Internet and telecommunications companies in feeling inundated with requests for information. Verizon told Congress in 2007 that it received some 90,000 such requests each year. And Facebook told Newsweek in 2009 that subpoenas and other orders were arriving at the company at a rate of 10 to 20 a day — via redwolf.newsvine.com