3D Printers and Intellectual Freedom

Hugh Rundle presented a number of arguments against libraries owning 3D printers in his blog post “Mission Creep” at http://hughrundle.net/2013/01/02/mission-creep-a-3d-printer-will-not-save-your-library/. There was one argument that I found myself wrestling with. What if a user wanted to print a gun? Wouldn’t the library be morally responsible for any crime committed with that gun? Could libraries become unsafe as a result of users printing weapons? How could libraries stop them from doing such a thing if the library owned a 3D printer? This assumes that 3D printer technology is advanced enough for the printing of guns that would work and cause actual harm.

 For guidance on this issue I consulted PC Magazine’s August 2012 article “Can A ‘Printable Gun’ Change The World?” by Damon Poeter which can be found at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2408899,00.asp . This article states that a printed gun would be likely to explode in the hand of its creator which implies that the technology isn’t that advanced. Yet this situation could change. Programming a 3D printer not to accept weapon files will only prevent them from being printed until some hacker finds his or her way around the programming. This brings us back to the question of a library’s moral responsibility for whatever emerges from a library 3D printer. Yet couldn’t someone argue the same about books? After all, who knows what dangerous or morally repugnant ideas might appear in books? Someone might borrow a crime novel then go out and re-enact a homicide described in its pages. Is the library responsible for that? Shall we empty the library’s shelves because the reaction of readers to books can be unpredictable?

 There was a time when librarians thought that libraries should only carry the most “wholesome” and “morally elevated” books, and should restrict access to everything else. There are those that believe that libraries should still censor. According to an article by Judith Krug called The Aftermath of the Children's Internet Protection Act , Supreme Court Justice Rehnquist wrote in the plurality opinion in United States v. American Library Association that libraries should “deny access to resources that aren’t of requisite and appropriate quality.” This opinion dealt with a case brought by the ALA to remedy the inadequacies of internet filters which screen out legal websites. As I recently pointed out in a discussion post in SJSU's LIBR 234, the Intellectual Freedom Seminar, the decision to place the burden of ameliorating the deficiencies of filters on libraries isn’t the only one that could have been made. Will we one day be saying that although 3D printers prevent anything illegal from being printed, they also prevent the printing of perfectly legal objects? Will an ALA intellectual freedom activist like Judith Krug need to tell us again that it isn’t the mission of libraries to restrict access? Will librarians need to enter a code to enable the use of the 3D printer when we are satisfied that a user doesn’t want to use it to print any object that might be harmful? How will “harm” be defined? Will library staff need to monitor 3D printer users at every moment to make certain that they aren't contravening regulations about harmful objects?

 This is a technology with troubling implications. I don’t presume to present solutions to the complex hypothetical situations that could arise once 3D printers become more sophisticated. We can’t truly know all the consequences. Yet someone should stand up for the ALA’s position on restriction of access if we don’t want libraries to be the type of institutions that imprison minds rather than setting them free.