Suit Seeks Data on Library User Probes by FBI : Workers Asked to Watch for ‘Suspicious-Looking’ People, Disclose Records

Two liberal lobbying organizations filed suit here Thursday seeking more information on a controversial FBI effort to enlist librarians to track suspected Soviet spies, a program that the groups contend is unconstitutional and involves harassment.

“Libraries are for checking out books, not people,” said Arthur J. Kropp, president of People for the American Way. He attacked the FBI program as a threat to the free flow of information and the privacy of library users. Joining his group in the legal action is the National Security Archive, a nonprofit group that collects unclassified government documents.

Their suit, filed in U.S. District Court here, seeks to force the bureau to disclose more information about the program under the Freedom of Information Act. The groups believe that the bureau’s so-called “Library Awareness Program” is much broader than the FBI has disclosed.

‘Suspicious-Looking’

Librarians and clerks in at least 25 libraries nationwide, including UCLA’s Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Library, have reported that they have been asked by FBI agents in recent months to be on the lookout for “suspicious-looking persons” with an avid interest in highly technical topics such as robotics or superconductivity.

In some instances, librarians say, they were asked to turn over records on what books or journals were checked out, a violation of law in 38 states, including California.

FBI officials say that their scrutiny of libraries and their patrons dates to 1962 but that they stepped up their efforts when the Soviet KGB showed even more interest in tapping into the vast wealth of scientific data freely available in U.S. libraries.

Surveillance was concentrated in the New York area after the 1986 arrest of Gennadiy Fedorovich Zakharov, a Soviet employee at the United Nations who had recruited a graduate student to gather unclassified technical information from university libraries, FBI officials say.

Program Defended

Despite increasing criticism, FBI Director William Sessions has defended the program as a small but significant part of the bureau’s counterespionage effort. “People don’t come to a technical library to read ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears,’ ” Sessions said last month in defending the program before a skeptical Senate committee.

“We are simply trying to make library employees aware of this threat from a hostile intelligence operation,” FBI spokesman Ray McIlhaney said Thursday. “If they want to assist us in ways they see fit, we would appreciate it. But that’s up to them.”

But Kropp and Scott Armstrong, executive director of the National Security Archive, contended at a news conference that FBI agents have tried to enlist the aid of library clerks through intimidation and deception.

They reported instances in which FBI agents “flashed a badge” and asked for information about any patrons with “East European or Russian-sounding names.” They knew of no instance, however, in which a librarian or clerk had cooperated with the federal investigators.

Two FBI agents visited UCLA’s Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Library last year seeking information on a Russian student who was in Los Angeles for one month and had spent considerable time photocopying information at the USC and UCLA libraries.

‘Keep Her Eyes Open’

“They wanted to find out what this person was doing in the library. They also encouraged our employee to keep her eyes open for suspicious-looking persons,” said Ruth B. Gibbs, an associate university librarian at UCLA.

But no information was given to the agents because UCLA has a policy on confidentiality and because the librarian did not recognize the student’s photo. “The library staff do not have the time or the inclination to monitor who uses what in the library,” Gibbs said.

The American Library Assn. has written its members urging them to refuse to cooperate with the FBI.

“Our position is that anyone who enters the library as a patron is entitled to have access to the information--all of which is unclassified--and that it is our duty to keep that confidential,” said Patrice McDermott, assistant director of the library association’s office for intellectual freedom in Chicago.