Next time you get an overdue notice from Hayden Library, I advise you to return the book immediately - after erasing all embarrassing writing in the margins. You never know who else got a copy of that very same late notice.
Without trying to sound overtly Orwellian, I'd like to remind my fellow "patriotic" book checker-outers of the Patriot Act. Passed in October 2001, the act gave the FBI unmatched authority to spy on private citizens and businesses without probable cause; they need only a search warrant in hand.
Among its extensive provisions, the Patriot Act stipulates that librarians must turn over patrons' borrowing records, Internet use history, e-mails, disks and hard drive data if requested by an FBI official.
The only restriction is that the FBI must state that the information may be pertinent in ongoing terrorism investigations, and nearly one-tenth of large libraries in the nation have been approached since the passage of the act.
Furthermore, the law places a gag order on those same librarians, making it a felony for them to notify the patrons being investigated or other library officials.
"Ashcroft's Act" also allows federal officials to subpoena private records, books, and any other personal documents - from anyone (even nobodies like us who can't seem to get our books returned on time).
This is not brand new legislation. Maybe you knew all of this already. Maybe, like me, you have decided that the best defense of your civil liberties is to just stop reading.
But what is new is the growing tide of resistance and legally sanctioned civil disobedience to the Patriot Act and its future siblings.
Around the country, cities and townships are decrying the civil rights violations embedded in the Patriot Act, and Bill of Rights defense councils are sprouting up as fast as weeds after the storm of recent censorship.
The catchiest opposition movement currently being waged is the Paul Revere Project, spearheaded by Idaho's Green Party to prevent passage of the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act."
Still in the shop, and dubbed "Patriot II" like some ominous experimental missile system, the sequel legislation would usher in a new level of domestic espionage.
It would give the government, among other powers, the complete right "to wiretap an individual and collect a person's DNA without court orders, detain people in secret and revoke citizenship," according to a draft of the bill leaked to The Washington Post. Disturbing, no?
As of now, the original Patriot Act has been condemned in official resolutions by 89 cities, and 12 more have resolutions in progress. Hawaii is about to pass the first anti-Patriot Act at the state level.
Arcata, in the granola country around San Francisco, was the first city to pass a law forbidding its denizens to comply with the Patriot Act. Any city official approached by the FBI must alert other city council members of Arcata, or face the current fine of $57.
But it's not just Birkenstock towns that are voicing their objections to Ashcroft's law in legislative form. In Congress, an Independent representative from Vermont just introduced resolution 1157, the "Freedom to Read Protection Act."
With 73 co-sponsors on Capitol Hill, the message to the Justice Department is clear. We are on the cusp of a civil liberties crisis that may only ebb with the increasing vigilance of individuals, municipalities and Congress.
In the midst of "liberating" Iraq, we must ask the government this question: How liberated is our own citizenry? When did civil liberties become a quid pro quo in foreign policy?
For those of you who deem it useful to put things in terms of historical parallels, the current encroachment of the U.S. government on free speech in covert and roundabout ways (Dixie Chicks off the air, anyone?) looks a lot like the hearings and silencing of members of the entertainment industry from the fear of communism circa 1950, courtesy of Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
The similarities between the oblique government-sanctioned censorship of the McCarthy era and the steady encroachments the Justice Department has made on civil liberties since Sept. 11 are striking. But so is the growing public resistance to censorship and increased vigilance to protect the liberties guaranteed to U.S. citizens in the Bill of Rights.
Unlike McCarthyism, "Ashcroftism" doesn't roll right off the tongue from the pages of history textbooks. And with the continued vigor of civic opposition and vocal public distrust of the Patriot Act and its hatchling companion, I can only hope that "Ashcroftism" stays a fictitious word.
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Katie Petersen is an English and biology senior. Reach her at katie.petersen@asu.edu.
