🚀 go-pugleaf

PATRIOT ACT: ASHCROFT DISMISSES LIBRARIANS AS "HYSTERICAL." 
In a speech on Monday the Attorney General ridiculed the concerns
of librarians.  "Do we at the Justice Department care what you
are reading?  No!" he scoffed.  "People are being led to believe
FBI agents dressed in trench coats are surrounding libraries." 
Librarians get pretty testy when government officials make light
of free speech.  So why did they put language in the Patriot Act
giving Federal authorities the right to access library records,
the librarians want to know?  In Maryland, as in 38 other states,
library circulation records are treated as confidential, and
federal authorities must have a search warrant to get at records. 
They'd better hurry, librarians around the country are shredding
circulation records.  Seeking to calm the furor, the Department
of Justice released an accounting showing the library records
provision of the Patriot Act had not been used a single time. 
Bad mistake.  So why, the librarians demanded to know, does the
Justice Department need this authority if it's not going to use
it.  Librarians are a lot tougher than they look.

(From Bob Park's "What's New")