thought police at work (Vineland echoes)

[Doug Millison]

Holt Uncensored #336
Friday, July 19, 2002



BOOKSELLER WARNS CUSTOMERS: PAY BY CASH OR CHECK ONLY

Here's a (literal) sign of the times, I'm afraid:

The other day I was startled to see a sign on the door of a local
bookstore, Bird & Becket of Glen Park in San Francisco.

Taped under a newspaper clipping headlined "FBI Checking Out Americans'
Reading Habits" (San Francisco Chronicle, 6/23 - see HU #330-331), the
sign suggests that customers do three things immediately (as
paraphrased):

1) Write a letter to Congress;
2) Write a Letter to the Editor;
3) Pay for books with check or cash so there won't be a computer record
of what you buy.

It's that third one that sent shivers up me timbers.

Like the American Library Association's alert to librarians to dump
records before the FBI can get hold of them (see #330-#331), warnings
like this from independent booksellers are a great idea.

If it's true that FBI agents are demanding records of customer purchases
in bookstores and user records in libraries - and they are - maybe we
should stop using credit cards *and* writing checks for books from now
on, just to be sure records about the books we buy won't get scooped up
in some future FBI sweep.

At the same time, the implications of warnings like this are terrifying.
Bookstores and libraries offer a sacred place for free speech and
freedom of inquiry. Continuing threats that FBI agents may suddenly
arrive at the door to demand records are surely causing a chill in the
way people select the books they want to borrow or buy.

This loss of choice in reading material runs so counter to the role of
libraries and bookstores, so opposite to the goal of informed citizenry,
that it's no wonder the USA PATRIOT Act has anticipated public outcry by
giving FBI agents the search-warrant ammunition they want to blast their
way through Constitutional protections.

So while it's comforting to see signs like this on a local bookseller's
door, it's frightening, too. Just when you think the clamps can't get
any tighter on intellectual freedom in America, something unbelievably
stupid like Operation TIPS comes along (see above). Who knows what's
next?


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