>Some librarians are probably now thinking they have a patriotic duty to >see what people are reading and to report any "suspicious" behavior. >Part of the intent of the Patriot Act and the Library Awareness Program >was to bamboozle the nation's librarians into acting as the kind of >"ward watchers" that were once so common in the Soviet Union (the >babushkas who sat on each floor of apartment buildings and filed >reports on the comings and goings of their flock).
The purpose of this is purely a show and indoctrination. 1. No self-respecting terrorist would go to a fucking library to do terror reading (maybe there is something positive here - I think that we should get protected by pigs from extremely dumb terorists.) 2. No library that I am aware of requires ID to do on-site anything. The same goes for internet cafes and open wireless access points. 3. Buying books for cash is anonymous as it gets - it's unlikely that a library will have something that university bookstore or Internet doesn't have. Again, poor terorists should be caught. I want to be terorized by professionals.
