posted on April 3, 2002 02:36:13 AM new
We all know that even the most innocent or innocuous seeming book may contain passages which could be taken in several ways. Because of various interpretations a book might seem offensivve to one while seeming harmless to another. Now though, an interpretation of a book which you check out of a library to read could result in your arrest or detention for investigation of terrorist activity or sympathies, no matter how you see it.
'John Ashcroft's war on terrorism includes the most far-reaching gag order in First Amendment history -- preventing the press from reporting on the FBI's seizure of the
lists of books bought or borrowed in bookstores and libraries by noncitizens and citizens suspected of terrorist activities. Under the omnibus USA Patriot Act, the FBI has the authority to get an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- a secret body composed of rotating federal judges -- to seek "any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."
The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the American Library Association (ALA) have particularly alerted their members to part of the law that prevents booksellers and librarians -- once the FBI has come calling -- to reveal that a search has been made. The law states: "No person shall disclose to any other person ... that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained" these records.
This means that the press and, therefore, the public cannot find out how often and where th ese searches have taken pace -- and what books, as well as readers, are under suspicion. Customarily, when a court imposes a gag rule on pretrial or trial participants, including the press, it is fought in open court by the press and often overturned.
Now, however, this chilling incursion on the First Amendment right to read remains as hidden as some of the security operations of the People's Republic of China.'
Don't assume that only people previously suspected of terrorist activity will be the object of such cearches. The books themselves, whichever ones they might be, can be signposts pointing to their readers as suspects.
I read 1984 a long time ago in High School. I can go to my local library and check it out to read again. But, if I should become a suspected terrorist , under the New Patriot Act, the FBI may investigate my reading and book buying habits in secrecy. Librarians along with booksellers will be obligated to cooperate in this investigation and keep it secret.
In view of our first ammendant rights, how is this justified? A Patriot Act clause states..."An investigation under this section shall not be conducted of a United States person solely
upon the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
What a creepy concept. Maybe I don't need to read 1984 again because I'm experiencing it first hand.
posted on April 3, 2002 07:43:38 AM new
Oh Boy, and I've been selling books lately.
Well, I guess it's time to hold on to the good ones, archive wrap them, and start an underground library. But I can't do it because 1) They are onto me now, and 2) No Room.
posted on April 3, 2002 08:40:45 AM new
Well turn about is fair play.
Could these agents stand the kind of scrutiny they want to subject others to?
If you started tracking the daily habits of all your local FBI agents how many would be lilly white and pure?
Of course if you did find out an agent was doing dope or cheating on his wife or not reporting income who would prosecute him?
That makes it pretty hard.
posted on April 3, 2002 08:51:18 AM new
Well, I doubt that it should give much hope, but a couple of repugs are biting the dust for corruption and racketeering in your neighbor state, Gravid.
posted on April 3, 2002 10:30:15 AM new
I suggest a two-tier system of government in this country, since there are largely just two opposing political parties.
For Republicans, they get NO Bill of Rights, Miranda Rights, or other Rights (unless they keep paying off the right people). They can persecute their own kind for any number reasons: homosexuality, compassion, sympathy, race, color, creed, national origin, etc. Furthermore, the only measure of a person's worth is the weight of their possessions and Who they are "doing" now. They can enjoy a total police state. They can enjoy the total invasion of privacy by the state and corporations. They can be used, abused, fired from jobs for getting injured on the job, no social security, no blanket out there to catch them should they fall. Let them prey on each other and make each other's lives miserable.
THAT is what it takes to make Republicans happy!
The rest of humanity will continue to enjoy their Rights -- even though it causes problems of other sorts. You know, we'll just T-O-L-E-R-A-T-E those kind of things. A person's worth will be the weight of their charcter, no matter how humble a living they may have or their living situation. And, by golly, we'll even let in all of those Foreigners with their 'other' religions and we'll celebrate our differences together! That's because we'll all enjoy our Privacy and the governments being kept away at arm's length: except, they'll do what we tell them to do because that's their job!
That's what it'll take the rest of America to be happy.
Do you think that we ought to give the Republicans to some other country? Island of some sort, like New Zealand or the Hawaiian Islands? Maybe just send pick one of our most POLLUTED states (downwind) and let them have it? South Carolina, maybe?
posted on April 3, 2002 11:24:45 AM new
Won't work. It is like putting all predators on an island. You have an immediate population crash. They NEED prey.
Of course you also have a population crash from overcrowding if you put all grass eaters alone on an island.....
You've almost convinced me that social systems NEED assholes to slow things down. I'm just trying to figure out how useful the analogy really is.
I dropped a copy of the above article off to our head librarian in case they were not aware.
posted on April 3, 2002 12:46:01 PM new
ummm . . . I understand what you're saying; but really, it would be good for everyone if we could somehow get rid of these monsters.
Of course, their solution to likewise get rid of us would be extermination camps, not giving them cushy islands like I suggested for them.
Republicans want to hassle and harass others? Let them do it to themselves! They believe in money is everything, so let them go and abuse each other and just leave the rest of us alone to live in peace! They want everyone to live in a total police state? Hell, put them somewhere else and let them create Hell-on-Earth for themselves and torture each other and just leave the rest of us ALONE! They want to be led by the nose -- do it to themselves. Christ, they LOVE being Brainwashed and TOLD what to believe! Just let the rest of us alone to Think for oursevles!
Maybe that should be our next Presidential campaign slogan: "LEAVE US ALONE!" You know, when the Republican politicans come around with their blatant lies and promises that don't mean sh*t, their supporters can all go around drooling over them while the rest of us surround the place in protest and chant, "LEAVE - US - ALONE! LEAVE - US - ALONE! LEAVE - US - ALONE!"
Maybe we should start doing that right now? Find out where ever Bush is going to be at and gather protesters to shout at him, "LEAVE -US - ALONE!"
posted on April 3, 2002 01:10:48 PM new
Helen, that's an intersting link to David Brock's book.
"In "Blinded" he acknowledges that "Hill's testimony was more truthful than Thomas' flat denials." He avows that none of the trooper allegations about Clinton that could be independently checked turned out to be true. (The troopers themselves soon recanted their story of a job offer.) He makes no bones about why he wrote such lies and why the Spectator published them: "The aim was not journalistic, but political." And he apologizes for his role in spreading the lies."
It renews my faith that I have had in Clinton. I mean, sure Clinton didn't always work in our best interest, but he did most of the time. And the lies that are ongoing even today to fool the gullible republican voter ...
"Sparing no one, he relates how Gingrich and company steered the Republican party from fiscal conservatism to moral absolutism. How, knowing they could not defeat Clinton's policies, they determined to go after his personal life. How they manipulated the mainstream media into spreading lies, sleaze and ugly rumors. How they reversed their belief in constitutional protection of the presidency to launch a campaign to impeach Clinton. And, how, long before anyone ever heard of Monica Lewinsky, they designed the Paula Jones lawsuit as a trap to catch Clinton in a lie about consensual sex -- thereby creating a crime that, otherwise, might never have been committed."
How many times have we been slammed on here as "foaming at the mouth over fantastical notions?" How many times have the Republicans come in and rode their High Horses using the lies about Clinton and refusing to see, read, or hear evidence to the contrary? Oh, yes. Payback is just beginning.
"At last we know, Hillary was right. There was a vast right-wing conspiracy -- and David Brock was its high priest. In this book, he apologizes. When will the rest of them?"
Remember the last time that you got chided by braindead Republicans for siding with Hillary's statement?
UUB
[ edited by Borillar on Apr 3, 2002 01:11 PM ]
posted on April 3, 2002 02:51:13 PM new
AMEN TO THAT!
In Cheryl Seals daily article she writes,
"When Hillary Clinton said her husband was the victim of a vast rightwing conspiracy, says Brock, she was "right on the money." It was absolutely true. Brock himself is now the victim of an arm of this conspiracy. The Washington Post, for example, had Brock's book reviewed (i.e., trashed) by one of the "American Spectator" "journalists" that Brock mentions unfavorably in his book! And, of course, the Post does not disclose this connection! One caller said she had gone into the Barnes and Noble in Bethesda to try to get the book. There out front on prominent display were all the current rightwing slops — BIAS, etc. Nowhere in sight was Stupid White Men or Blinded by the Right."
The publishing industry is in collusion with the rightwing politicos. I can remember the trashy reviews that this book received.
