This posting on BookSlut brought up a hoary old chestnut about the Patriot act:
Ken Wainstein, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, made the disclosure in testimony to the House subcommittee on crime, terrorism and homeland security. He argued that Congress should renew provisions of the USA Patriot Act that allow seizure of library and bookstore records.
Get ready for a fight
Realize, that there is no provision in the USA Patriot Act that specifically allows seizure of library or bookstore records.
Rather, there is a provision in the Patriot Act that requires seizure of 3rd party records to be approved by a judge.
Previously, this required approval of a grand jury.
In other words:
A subpoena now requires judicial review.
That’s it.
While perhaps libraries or bookstores should be singled out for special treatment, this actually has nothing to do with the Patriot act. Libraries or bookstores could always be subpoenaed for records, its a pretty basic part of our judicial system that people can be subpoenaed for records. (Duh)
The Patriot Act changed this to require a judge to review it, which if you knew anything about grand juries (only the Prosecution testifies, etc.) you’d realize meant subpoenas were basically rubber stamps. Judges are often more skeptical, because of the “fruit of the poisoned tree” rule.
So while there are probably definite issues with parts of the Patriot Act, hearing stuff like this constantly repeated just annoys me.
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