Librarians have long been defenders of democratic ideals like free
speech and privacy, not only providing access to information and
technology freely, but also by fighting back against threats to civil
liberties like the USA PATRIOT Act and National Security Letters. In
the post-Snowden era, libraries have taken this activism further and are
teaching FLOSS privacy-enhancing technologies to their patrons in free
computer classes, and installing these tools on library PCs. Nima Fatemi
and Alison Macrina of Library Freedom Project will talk about how LFP
kickstarted this movement of radical crypto-librarians, and how FLOSS
tools like Tor Browser, Signal, OTR, GPG, and Tails are being deployed
and taught in libraries to an overwhelmingly positive reception. Nima
and Alison will also discuss LFP's newest project, bringing Tor exit
relays into libraries, what happened when the Department of Homeland
Security tried to shut down that project at a small New Hampshire
library – and how the local and global community fought back and won.