The Little Brown Reader

Ashcroft Rips Anti-Patriot Act 'Hysteria'

The last statement quoted below is a common technique used by Justice Department folks to diffuse "hysteria" (a.k.a., legitimate concern about civil liberties): you could call it the "We don't want to search you" method. The FBI guy who spoke at the public forum I organized in March used the same line, multiple times in different forms. "You regular, law abiding folks have nothing to worry about."

Right -- because law enforcement has never investigated, searched, or surveilled an innocent person.

They don't care what you're reading -- just what the bad guys are reading. So, no worries. Carry on.

(In the preceding paragraph, Ashcroft uses another common rhetorical trick -- painting a silly, cartoonish scenario, and attributing it to the law's critics. I call him on this in the local news hour segment that I posted on my main blog recently.)

Ashcroft Rips Anti-Patriot Act 'Hysteria'

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON Sept. 15 — Attorney General John Ashcroft denounced as "hysteria" the contention by some librarians and civil liberties groups that the FBI can use a new anti-terror law to snoop into Americans' reading habits.

"Now, you may have thought with all this hysteria and hyperbole, something had to be wrong," Ashcroft said. "Do we at the Justice Department really care what you are reading? No."

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