New Hampshire: “Proposed Bill Would Make It Clear That Libraries Can Support Anonymous Online Network Tor”

From the Concord Monitor:

The bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Keith Ammon, a New Boston Republican, admitted in committee testimony Tuesday that the bill may not strictly be needed, since running Tor or similar programs is perfectly legal for public libraries.
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Kilton Library remains the only public library in the country participating in the Library Freedom Project to handle encrypted traffic for the Tor system, largely because the national attention generated by debate in Lebanon overwhelmed the Massachusetts-based project.
“There was so much attention that we were not prepared for it. We were bombarded by requests,” said Alison Macrina, a librarian who founded the Library Freedom Project. “That’s a good problem to have, but it means we had to stop and do a lot of groundwork.”
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Randy Brough, director of the Laconia Public Library and representing the New Hampshire Library Association, told the committee that the association opposed the bill partly because it seemed unnecessary. Under an existing law (RSA 201-D:11), the confidentiality of library records “stored in electronic form” is already covered.

Read the Complete Article (approx. 700 words)
Read the Full Text of the Bill (HB 1508, via New Hampshire State Legislature)

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