Slashdot Mirror
Effects of the Patriot Act on Librarians
Quaryon writes "The Patriot Act apears to have some chilling effects with respect to libraries and booksellers. An FBI agent can get a warrant, without any evidence, in order to compel a librarian to reveal lending details on a suspect. The librarian cannot tell anyone about the search, including the target of the search, and the details of how many such searches are done are not made public. Articles at SFGate News and Common Dreams give more details." We had a related Ask Slashdot a few weeks ago.
Where would the librarian get my mortage info from in the first place!?
I guess they'll know now that I borrowed money from the bank to pay my fine on If You Give a Mouse Cookie.
Librarians have been running wild in this country for too long.
It's about time someone had the courage to say ENOUGH. We've had enough of you librarians.
For too long they've been blantantly stealing money from the hands of hard working authors, like the repeatedly deceased Stephen King, by allowing people to READ BOOKS they haven't even PAYED FOR.
A simple 'Shhh.. This is a library' from one of these liberty-devouring monsters is all it takes to silence free speech in buildings that we all pay for.
And who granted them the power to arbitrarily decide which portions of human knowledge are FICTION and which are NON-FICTION.
They hide truths as make-believe, and make-believe as truth, by use of the dewey decimal system.
I applaud our brave president for standing up to these monsters who would rob us of our precious ignorance.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Response to everyone who thinks they are smart, because they know that public libraries are paid for by taxes.... Yes, duh. Of course, and that makes them free. Whether there are libraries or not, you will still be paying taxes. The services at a library for all intents and purposes are free. When you checked out a book and what books you checked out should be public information, because my tax dollars (in your own arguments) pay for you to be able to check out books, therefore I want to be able to know what you are checking out and more importantly allow the FBI to find out. Also, I have to mention this, people did not die defending their rights to not have their library records seen. Also, is it against the law to not fill out the census? Yes, you MUST fill it out and correctly. Freedom means, doing what is best for the majority. The United States is a republic which operates on trying to make the best decisions for the majority. There is no due process in a time of war, and we are at war right now. And yes, you do have to pick your battles, you do have to play the game. People who do not believe this and still hold fast to their "library rights" will never win the game and never make any impact on the world or their own freedom. We can not have all the rights we want, otherwise we would have anarchy. There are lines of black and white which must be set, and judgements, must be made to decide what things are on what lines, for the good of the majority.