Library leader questions Patriot Act
By Deborah Zabarenko
Sun Jul 24, 2005 11:41 AM ET
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The president of the American Library Association has one word for the USA Patriot Act's so-called library clause -- "Kafkaesque."
"It's very reminiscent of the '50s and the 'red scare' where people showed up at libraries trying to find which political books professors had read, because they were going to be put on a communist list or something," said Michael Gorman, a British-born librarian who heads the U.S. library group.
"Where it doesn't seem sinister, it seems comic."
Alluding to writers George Orwell and Franz Kafka, Gorman said of the Patriot Act, "I'm much too fond of Orwell to call it Orwellian, but it's Kafkaesque." [...] Read the rest at http://tinyurl.com/9zndt
© Virginia Metze
Sun Jul 24, 2005 11:41 AM ET
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The president of the American Library Association has one word for the USA Patriot Act's so-called library clause -- "Kafkaesque."
"It's very reminiscent of the '50s and the 'red scare' where people showed up at libraries trying to find which political books professors had read, because they were going to be put on a communist list or something," said Michael Gorman, a British-born librarian who heads the U.S. library group.
"Where it doesn't seem sinister, it seems comic."
Alluding to writers George Orwell and Franz Kafka, Gorman said of the Patriot Act, "I'm much too fond of Orwell to call it Orwellian, but it's Kafkaesque." [...] Read the rest at http://tinyurl.com/9zndt
© Virginia Metze
Starmail - 27. Jul, 14:30
