John Ashcroft’s recent USA Patriot Act apparently “grants FBI agents across the country breathtaking authority to obtain an order from the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court … requiring any person or business to produce any books, records, documents, or items.”
The FBI, armed with a warrant or subpoena from the FISA court, can demand from bookstores and libraries the names of books bought or borrowed by anyone suspected of involvement in “international terrorism” or “clandestine activities.”
Franz Kafka, here we come!
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“And if the FBI deepens its concerns about terrorist leanings after inspecting a suspect’s reading list, how can everyone else know what books will make the FBI worry about us?”
I wonder how far this is from Fahrenheit 451…