Patriot Act Defended

Holly Hill writes “Attorney General John Ashcroft on Monday used the occasion of a conference on the response to the September 2001 terrorist attack on the Pentagon to decry critics of an antiterrorism measure enacted later that year.
“Unfortunately, some Americans have been told myths about this law, a myth that [police] can unlawfully visit local libraries and check the reading list of ordinary Americans,” Ashcroft said at a conference keynote speech. Sponsored by Arlington County, Va., the conference assembled “first responders” to emergency incidents from around the nation.

Ashcroft said the USA PATRIOT Act preserved traditional checks on library, bookstore and business records because a “federal judge must first issue a warrant” and because it is for “foreign intelligence that doesn’t affect U.S. persons.”

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