just thought you might enjoy this
Sep. 21st, 2003 07:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sisyphusshruggedJohn Ashcroft is fighting out of his weight class. Compared to your local librarian, our U.S. Attorney General is a pipsqueak, a flyweight.
Last week in Memphis, Ashcroft revealed himself to be utterly ignorant of the principles of civil rights. In the process, he managed to insult every librarian in the country. Don’t worry, his roundhouse punches just glanced off the librarians, whose counterpunches landed squarely on Mr. Ashcroft’s glass jaw.
Speaking to police and prosecutors on September 18, Ashcroft claimed that reports declassified last week proved that his Justice Department had never yet used the U.S. Patriot Act to monitor the records of bookstores and libraries. “No offense to the American Library Association,” he said, but the FBI and others assigned to seek out terrorists “just don’t care” about the reading habits of the average American. He went on to say, “The charges of the hysterics are revealed for what they are: castles in the air built on misrepresentation; supported by unfounded fear; held aloft by hysteria.”
So now, according to Mr. Ashcroft, librarians who are worried about the federal government checking what books you read are “hysterics.” (No offense.) And those of us worried that if we take out a chemistry book the FBI might think we’re building a bomb or if we take out the Koran they might think we’re members of Al Qaeda--well, we’re obviously in the grip of “unfounded fear” and “hysteria.” (No offense.)
Once again, Mr. Ashcroft has utterly missed the point. As many commentators have patiently tried to explain to him--we must, after all, talk to him as one talks to a punch-drunk fighter--the point is not whether federal authorities have yet started checking what we read; the point is that the U.S. Patriot Act gives those authorities the right to monitor what we read. Giving anyone that right is exactly what’s wrong, Mr. Ashcroft. If we are hysterics, then you, sir, are a dangerous dimwit. (No offense.)...
Last week in Memphis, Ashcroft revealed himself to be utterly ignorant of the principles of civil rights. In the process, he managed to insult every librarian in the country. Don’t worry, his roundhouse punches just glanced off the librarians, whose counterpunches landed squarely on Mr. Ashcroft’s glass jaw.
Speaking to police and prosecutors on September 18, Ashcroft claimed that reports declassified last week proved that his Justice Department had never yet used the U.S. Patriot Act to monitor the records of bookstores and libraries. “No offense to the American Library Association,” he said, but the FBI and others assigned to seek out terrorists “just don’t care” about the reading habits of the average American. He went on to say, “The charges of the hysterics are revealed for what they are: castles in the air built on misrepresentation; supported by unfounded fear; held aloft by hysteria.”
So now, according to Mr. Ashcroft, librarians who are worried about the federal government checking what books you read are “hysterics.” (No offense.) And those of us worried that if we take out a chemistry book the FBI might think we’re building a bomb or if we take out the Koran they might think we’re members of Al Qaeda--well, we’re obviously in the grip of “unfounded fear” and “hysteria.” (No offense.)
Once again, Mr. Ashcroft has utterly missed the point. As many commentators have patiently tried to explain to him--we must, after all, talk to him as one talks to a punch-drunk fighter--the point is not whether federal authorities have yet started checking what we read; the point is that the U.S. Patriot Act gives those authorities the right to monitor what we read. Giving anyone that right is exactly what’s wrong, Mr. Ashcroft. If we are hysterics, then you, sir, are a dangerous dimwit. (No offense.)...
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-21 01:48 pm (UTC)