Ashcroft rips into anti-Patriot Act 'hysteria'
Attorney General John Ashcroft denounced as 'hysteria' the contention by some librarians and civil liberties groups that the FBI can use a new anti-terror law to snoop into Americans' reading habits.
In a speech Monday to an American Restaurant Association conference, Ashcroft said people are being wrongly led to believe that libraries have been 'surrounded by the FBI,' with agents 'dressed in raincoats, dark suits and sunglasses. They stop everyone and interrogate everyone like Joe Friday.
[The Patriot Act in fact does make it illegal for librarians to tell users if computers are being monitored by Federal agents. Technically legal signs for display in US libraries provide some kind of loophole :)]
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