I found this story on talkleft who had gotten it from PatriotWatch. It concerns a lot of literary people, like librarians, booksellers, and such having some opposition to some of the current provisions of the Patriot Act:
Under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, passed in October 2001, a secret court can authorize the FBI to inspect or seize bookstore or library records without showing probable cause. Further, the law provides that the bookstore or library is forbidden to disclose that the inspection happened.
There is a counter-measure going through Congress to modify such provision. The government sees nothing wrong with the law as it is now:
People who come in to use the library have lost a lot of the privacy that they expect.'' Barbara Comstock, spokeswoman for the US Justice Department, yesterday said the opposition to the Patriot Act is misplaced. ''All Section 215 says is that when someone who is not an American citizen or is identified as a terrorist comes to a library to use a computer, we can go into the library and see what he is doing on that computer,'' Comstock said. ''The hysteria about this is due to a lack of understanding that a court order is required. There is no interest in a general sense in knowing what people are reading.''
Hmmm, is this still the same United States government that sold us this idea about passing an amendment allowing income taxation with this story about how they were only going to tax 1% of the income of the top 1% wealthiest people in the country. Even the top 1% of the wealthiest could go along with that idea, especially with all those bills from WWI. I am thinking that maybe the Patriot Act is just a bit more oppression we have to watch out for in our daily lives from our oppressive government.
Are we free? Or are we only as free as our government allows us to be? Think about it? Think of the things that you are not free to do because your government says you can't do them.
I believe the government is not involving the people in the process any longer. When it looked like the majority of people did not think we should sell or drink alcohol in the US, they passed an Amendment. When the majority of people thought they made a mistake to stop allowing the selling or drinking of alcohol, they passed another Amendment. I am thinking we need an Amendment vote on whether people think drugs should be criminal, or if abortion should be allowed, and to see if people wanted to withdraw that income tax thing.
Posted by Tiger at May 16, 2003 11:59 PM