In today's "liberal" Washington Post, an op-ed entitled In Defense Of the Patriot Act from former liberal Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute:
"It is inconceivable that the court that oversees espionage and counterterrorism investigations will approve a records request made because the FBI doesn't 'like the books' someone reads, or 'because she wrote a letter to the editor that criticized government policy,' as the ACLU claims.The ACLU also argues that Section 215 violates the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. But like it or not, once you've disclosed information to someone else, the Constitution no longer protects it. This diffuse-it-and-lose-it rule applies to library borrowing and Web surfing as well, however much librarians may claim otherwise. By publicly borrowing library books, patrons forfeit any constitutional protections they may have had in their reading habits.
Another ACLU attack on 215 uses the tactic of ignoring legal precedent. Grand juries investigating a crime have always been able to subpoena the very items covered by 215 -- including library records and Internet logs -- without seeking a warrant or indeed any judicial approval at all. Section 215 merely gives anti-terror investigators the same access to such records as criminal grand juries, with the added protection of judicial oversight."
(Emphasis added.)
All of this obviously cries out for rebuttal, but today is too nice to stay inside blogging. I'll be a picnic with hundreds of my kinky friends all afternoon. You should be doing something equally fun, too.
Update 8/26/03: Added "former liberal" link.
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