Some quotes from Goldberg:
The latest embarrassment is the revelation that the Department of Justice has not invoked the Patriot Act's Section 215
Yet.
Caught up in the Section 215 hysteria they helped create, librarians have gone batty.
I refer my learned colleague to the reply I gave some moments ago. Paragraph # 4.
Not only has the government never used 215, but the section doesn't even mention libraries - or any of the other secular holy sites allegedly imperiled by it.
No, it doesn't mention locations or institutions. It only mentions the things in them, to wit:
The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or a designee of the Director (whose rank shall be no lower than Assistant Special Agent in Charge) may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution.[emphasis mine]
Sec. 215, USA Patriot Act
The mention of First Amendment provisions protects people for being investigated solely for saying "Ashcroft is a fink", or for leading a prayer to urge God to remove the scales of finkhood from Mr. Ashcroft's eyes.
Are we to infer from Mr. Goldberg that this means the books, records and "other items" in libraries are exempt from the provisions in Sec. 215? Could we have that from Mr. Ashcroft himself? In writing?
And the clincher for me:
John Ashcroft (for whom my wife works)
Someone's dissin' his wife by suggesting she works for someone who's not nice!
All righty then.