Gonzales: "We cannot allow libraries to become safe haven for terrorists"

One of the Patriot Act's most debated elements, known as the "library provision," permits secret warrants for "books, records, papers, documents and other items" from businesses, hospitals and other organizations. While it does not specifically mention bookstores or libraries, critics -- both conservative and liberal -- say the government could use the provision to subpoena library and bookstore records and peek at the reading habits of innocent people.

Gonzales said he was as concerned about privacy rights as anyone but, he told CNN, "we cannot allow libraries and computers at libraries (to) become safe haven for terrorists."

Gonzales cited an example of terrorists who used library computers, believing them to be protected from government searches. He reiterated that he would consider certain, clarifying amendments to the provision, but he argued against its outright removal.

"To take it away as a tool from the law enforcement community I think would be counterproductive and would make America less safe," he said.

http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8BHT06G0.html

that have taken over our government. But Gonzalez is one of them, so I suppose he'll never get it.

DoYouEverWonder,

I'm with you on that one. The biggest danger to our country is the current administration. Outside threats pale in comparison.

Unfortunately it has.

we have to destroy the village to save it, and how long have you been a black quarterback? (neither of which was actually said, btw) Gonzales is one scary dude!

when they can find whatever it is that they're looking for on the internet in the privacy of their own home. This is a stupid law brought to us by monolithic people.

Inquiring minds want to know.

(guess we'd all better stay away from libraries..........they are VERY dangerous places if terra-ists go there!)

at least if they were really interested in finding out what you've been doing. Any "terrorist" worth their salt would be using someone elses unprotected wireless network for internet access...

other people could walk by and see what they were doing and reading.

Mr. Gonzales is the author of memos that justify acts of torture and inhumane treatment. It is nothing less than Exhibit A in a case against the Bush regime for disregard of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld are co-conspirators in this scheme to violate conventions against mistreatment of prisoners of war or other detainees.

All three should be impeached, removed from office and indicted under the war crimes act of 1996. If the federal government is unwilling to prosecute, then an international tribunal should be convened for that purpose.

Why not just close libraries? What a fascist

--which pages out of which books were xeroxed at the library

--what books were taken to the stacks and read by someone at the library

--what notes on books were taken from the library

--what books were paid for with cash from university bookstores

their dastardly deeds in more covert ways? Like, "Dude, don't leave a library card trail (don't check out the book), and use Grandpa's computer to research bomb making, d'oh".

I put this right up there with banning Bic lighters on airlines and shaking down the grannies at the subway stations.

Absoulutely no freaking common sense in this administration, and for that, I feel less safe than I did on Sept 10, 2001.

I was surprised at how "wimpy and uncertain" he sounded..

Seriously wimpish! :o :o :o

gahhh...

the internet and if you can't find it, there are millions of forums where you can ask for the information. This kind of stuff is not in libraries. This is another joke brought to us by *

so she can email her kids AND she is going to China soon. Want to join our pool about what comes first, an FBI visit to her home or her name on the No-Fly list?

Yep, she is one ragin' granny AND a DEM. Ya know they are watching her. She's a threat to America, I tells ya! A terrorist wannabe if ever there was one. She even reads books 'n stuff.

to understanding it. During the McCarthy Era, and again during the Countercultural Rebellion, police and intelligence agencies routinely monitored library records in their hunt for suspected activists. During the McCarthy era, anyone who read "Communist" or "subversive" authors was suspect: you could find yourself on a Red Squad watch list merely because you had checked out a copy of Manifesto. During the Countercultural period, there was a whole laundry list of "suspect" books: not just the "usual suspects" (people who had checked out Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh etc.), but anybody who checked out books about the psychedelic drug experience, alternate spirituality, bohemia, commune living, feminism, environmentalism, the history of Vietnam, the Chinese and Russian revolutions and a plethora of other subjects. Far too many libraries complied without protest; some libraries even cooperated enthusiastically: the public library in Bellingham, Washington, for example, allowed its facilities to be used by police Red Squadders as a kind of hunting blind -- a rooftop "hide" from which to methodically photograph every individual participant in demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Bottom line, these "crimethink" dragnets swept up hundreds of thousands of people whose only "crime" was to seek original sources on controversial topics. (Which of course was a big part of the oligarchy's intent: the fear to inquire makes a profoundly effective tool of censorship.)

I'm sad to say I don't remember what stopped these abuses -- seems to me there was a U.S. Supreme Court case, but I wouldn't swear to it. Whatever, after the post-Nixon reforms, the practice was stopped. At least theoretically, the only way law enforcement could access library records was by court order.

Enter the Patriot Act, which wants to give the government the same authority it had back during the bad old days of Joe McCarthy, Richard Milhous and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. One of the immediate consequences has been a telling case in which the FBI wanted to regard as terrorist suspects anyone who had checked out a certain book about Osama bin Laden. This profoundly disturbing story of the terrorizing of Americans for "wrongful" reading is linked here:

http://www.komotv.com/stories/33363.htm

Interestingly, at least two formerly available newspaper stories about this matter have vanished from the Internet. Though I profoundly distrust "television news" as not only a contradiction in terms but the abode of drooling videots, in this case it's the best I can do. And here is another relevant link, this to a Canadian blog that discusses the Bush Administration's assault on the entire First Amendment, "the Talibanization of America":

http://jakking.typepad.com/daily/2004/10/talebanization_.html

Point being that by caving in on the library matter -- by giving the authorities carte blanche to search library records without first narrowing the search to a specific individual and then obtaining a court order -- what the House really did legalize censorship by fear and intimidation.

Obviously it's time to renew that ACLU membership -- or to join if you don't already belong.



Edit: for precision.

on a 'watch list'.

Support Your Local Police: "Them godless tree-huggers, they wanna overthrow the Good Lord Jehovah, make ever'body worship Nature, turn us all into nekkid drugged-out hippies."



Edit: typo

And no one has to borrow books from the library--you can read them there, return them to the shelves, and leave.

:headbang:
rocknation

I remember reading some years ago about the discovery of a large number of unreturned library books in the homes of some fellow after he died. It was hilarious. I realize that new security codes on books make theft more difficult for most of us, but if terrorists are devious to sneak bombs into subway stations, I suppose they could sneak books out of libraries. The Patriot Act's provisions on libraries is simply intimidation. That's all. The government cannot trace purchases of used books or even new ones. Surely we are not going to be required to show ID every time we buy a yellowed paperback at a garage sale.

in a public library that couldn't be found much easier on any piece of internet computer?

BUT NOT THE LIBRARIES

One can almost picture Sean Hannity, Rush and the Gang roasting marshmallows over a blazing pile of books singing "White Christmas". And in their case, they ain't singin' about the snow!

WHO WANT TO BLOW YOU TO SMITHEREENS! And heaven help you if you read the Hardy Boys.