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Originally Posted by Rekna
The right to check out a book from a library and be sure it won't get your name on a list  |
This is the classic example cited by opponents of the USA PATRIOT Act. I apologize for being frank but... who the fuck cares? Seriously.
The freedom of speech or expression or whatever constitutional right you want to appeal to does not protect your ability to go to a government-funded library to check out books without having one's name and reading habits recorded. If you are so peeved about other people knowing what you read, don't check books out of the library: read them in the library or buy them from a bookstore.
The fact that opponents of the USA PATRIOT Act use this example with annoying frequency leads me to believe they have no freaking clue which, if any, of their rights are being violated. This whole library things sounds like inarticulate propaganda to me.
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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
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