The US government now has a website, lifeandliberty.gov dedicated to comforting the public about the Patriot Act. I find much of the site unwisely worded. Phrases such as “terrorism investigators have no interest in the library habits of ordinary Americans” resemble the old adage that people with nothing to hide have nothing to worry about. However, I’m rather struck by the following assertion:
Does anyone have evidence to back up the idea that foreign powers dangerous to US national security have used libraries to coordinate their plots? I’m an attentive newsreader, and I know something of the history of America’s spy scandals, but I’ve never heard of libraries playing any role.
Though this is something of a GQ, I expect that some of the comments to come in this thread will be either complaints about the site, or complaints about people complaining about the site. Therefore, I’m posting it to GD.
UnuMondo
[Fixed link. – MEB]
I thought it was coffee shops.
This is exactly why so many libraries and city governments have not only condemned the Patriot Act, but are refusing to comply with its provisions. Who and what defines “ordinary American(s)”? Since I’ve posted two rants about John Ashcroft, does that make me suspect, or just someone exercising free speech? In the mind of the current administration, I would suspect the former.
What a luck I always spied under my second identity in US libraries.
Seriously: I think US’ers should be by now extremely worried about all these liberties their government takes with the citizens liberties…
But it seems to me that only the happy few starts getting extremely worried and that all the rest even isn’t aware of what happens and/or is extremely desinterested.
I write that among others on the account of the fact that the USA covers such a vast territory and that people seem to live on islands of cosy happiness within that vast territory - while others are that busy surviving because living outside the cosy islands - that they all can be ruled without knowing very well by whom or by what.
Living from time to time in a small country and for the rest of the time living in an other, a bit larger but nevertheless very small country when comparing with the USA, has its advantages:
You notice even the slightest change in your countries internal and external policies.
See? US’ers can learn from the little ones…
And of course writing this statement down here on this US website makes my day.
Salaam. A