Letter: Feds can use Web to invade our privacy

Thursday, June 27, 2002 | 8:52 a.m.

The constitutional contradictions and negations of "inalienable" rights run rampant through the American Patriot Act, and one ugly provision is the library and book seller turnover of reading lists (with federal subpoena).

The gathering of such reading lists is, and must be, anathema to every American, because it not only allows the camel's nose into the tent (apt metaphor, perhaps), but opens the floodgates to mammoths and killer whales followed by Big Brother.

But the worst aspect is this: What is such a list supposed to tell the FBI about the patron? We research and read and learn for all kinds of reasons. With the Carnivore technology now engaged by the feds to follow Web searches by private citizens, the wrong conclusions are always going to be drawn -- especially when the seeker of records is predisposed to believe the worst intentions.

I'll give an example: I recently searched the Web and read up about gun silencers. I don't own a gun, never have, but the physical (aural) science of muffling sound with a small piece of material I find fascinating. I want to learn more about the mechanical interruption of sound waves.

Hardly a criminal, much less a terrorist, purpose. But, if some fed decided beforehand that I was a terrorist, obviously, it's just human nature, this search is what (s)he would use as evidence to "prove" the conclusion!

Shame. Founding Fathers, please accept my apology of behalf of our generations. They embarrass me.

JOHN POWERS