Patriot Act debate needless, Ashcroft says [View All]

[Nottingham]

Patriot Act debate needless, Ashcroft says
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
New York Times

WASHINGTON -- After months of increasingly noisy protests, fears of Big Brother run amok and government warnings about needless "hysteria," the Justice Department gave its first public accounting on Thursday of how many times it has used its newfound counter-terrorism powers to demand records from libraries and elsewhere.

The answer is zero.

Department officials and their supporters pointed to the goose egg as evidence that the raging public debate over the government's expanded powers has been much ado about nothing. In this case, they argued, public fear and mistrust of government appear to have outpaced the reality of what federal agents are actually doing.

But the disclosure by Attorney General John Ashcroft, who said he grudgingly agreed to declassify the data on demands for library records to counter "misinformation," is unlikely to end the debate soon.

Ashcroft's opponents said they remained deeply concerned over the government's far-reaching powers under the legislation formally known as the USA Patriot Act, and they said the Justice Department added to public fears by maintaining such tight secrecy over its activities.

more...
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2108405
"There's real concern about the scope of the government's unchecked powers," he said. "And it's the things the government is doing that we can see that has us worried about what we can't see."

I love this quote! :bounce: