The lies of Little John Redux
John Ashcroft, on his crusade to uphold the virtues of the Patriot Act, decided yesterday to attack the American Library Association for getting the word out to library users that the Justice Department has the right to look at your records there and that the library has no right to ever tell you that they let them. The The New York Times quotes him:
Let's pick this apart a minute. First off, Herr Ashcroft says that the Justice Department has no interest in reading habits. Obviously, this is wrong since it was the Justice Department that insisted upon being given the right to track reading habits when they shoved the Patrioit Act down Congress' throat, making them vote on it two weeks after September 11, without giving many (if any) in Congress the chance to read it first.
Secondly, he states a "high regard for the First Amendment." This too is obviously bullshit given that they shoved the Patriot Act down Congress' throat...
Thirdly, and this is the kicker, is the claim that "it would be a waste of time anyway". How many people have used that line. "No, I didn't tell anyone your secret, why would I? I wouldn't have anything to gain from it..." Or the hand in the cookie jar "I wasn't stealing a cookie, I'm not even hungry, why would I want a cookie?" Seriously, why do people for this stuff? Besides, the FBI is notorious for throwing resources into the ridiculous. Last year, they put ten agents on the case of a brothel in New Orleans that could have been used for, I don't know, trying to figure out what the hell went on on Septemeber 11. How the hell is Herr Ashcroft able to then say that the FBI has better things to do than look into library records? It seems to me that they're already wasting time on other things -- checking up on random reading lists is going to net more bad guys, it seems, than tracking the comings and goings at a fucking whore house.
The Justice Department, Mr. Ashcroft said, "has no interest in your reading habits. Tracking reading habits would betray our high regard for the First Amendment. And even if someone in government wanted to do so, it would represent an impossible workload and a waste of law enforcement resources."
Let's pick this apart a minute. First off, Herr Ashcroft says that the Justice Department has no interest in reading habits. Obviously, this is wrong since it was the Justice Department that insisted upon being given the right to track reading habits when they shoved the Patrioit Act down Congress' throat, making them vote on it two weeks after September 11, without giving many (if any) in Congress the chance to read it first.
Secondly, he states a "high regard for the First Amendment." This too is obviously bullshit given that they shoved the Patriot Act down Congress' throat...
Thirdly, and this is the kicker, is the claim that "it would be a waste of time anyway". How many people have used that line. "No, I didn't tell anyone your secret, why would I? I wouldn't have anything to gain from it..." Or the hand in the cookie jar "I wasn't stealing a cookie, I'm not even hungry, why would I want a cookie?" Seriously, why do people for this stuff? Besides, the FBI is notorious for throwing resources into the ridiculous. Last year, they put ten agents on the case of a brothel in New Orleans that could have been used for, I don't know, trying to figure out what the hell went on on Septemeber 11. How the hell is Herr Ashcroft able to then say that the FBI has better things to do than look into library records? It seems to me that they're already wasting time on other things -- checking up on random reading lists is going to net more bad guys, it seems, than tracking the comings and goings at a fucking whore house.
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