Four officials of a Connecticut library organization stepped forward
last week to describe what they said was a harrowing experience --
receiving a secret order from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that
required them to turn over library patrons' records without telling
anyone....
Ann Beeson, the ACLU lawyer representing Library Connection,
... resurrected the now infamous line of
the former attorney general, John
Ashcroft, who once
called librarians
"hysterical" for saying that the FBI would use the Patriot Act to demand
library records....
"The lesson of this story is simple," said Ms. Beeson. "Be very
skeptical when the government invokes national security to impose
blanket secrecy."
-- Ann Beeson, quoted in "Library Group Tells the Story of a
Gag Order by the FBI" By Andrea L. Foster, Chronicle of Higher
Education, June 9, 2006.