On Wed, Jun 26, 2002 at 09:30:47AM -0600, Michael Motyka wrote:

OK, so all that is needed is a collateral-based anonymous library card. Required collateral could be based on the difficulty of replacement. Priceless relics could require identity as collateral. Potboilers, market price + shipping and handling.

Actually, I think it's a non-issue. Why would someone planning a bombing, let's say, check out a book from the library on explosives, when he could just read/copy it right there, totally anonymously. Of course, in the past when the fedzis wanted access to patron's records, it was more on the level of thought crime -- were they reading commie lit. Is that what they're after now -- whose reading Islamic texts? Put them on the list to be tortured. Also I just realized that if they allowed the fedzis access to the staff side of the database, so they could read the victim's records, they would then also have the ability to manufacture evidence, check out books in that person's name.

Worse than searching library records, of course, is the tracking of internet reading habits.

Exactly. And most ISPs don't have the moral backbone that librarians do, they all roll over without a wimper. I think the fedzis would have to be seriously stupid in the first place to even attempt to get libraries to spy on patrons -- there's far too many old '60s radicals in libraries who would love the opportunity to shout it from the rooftops, make a real cause out of it. It's totally absurd for the fedzis to think that they can tell anyone not to talk about it anyway -- there's no possibility that could pass constitutional muster. Are they going to start arresting citizens as "material witnesses" because they refuse to cooperate? That would go over real well. Maybe we should hope they do, all the better to get protestors out in the streets. It's pretty clear the courts are starting to really frown on the current fedzi power grab, as is congress. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com