A recent article in the SF Chronicle has turned up one more onerous element of the PATRIOT Act: surveillance of library and bookstore transactions. Big Brother wants to know what you are reading.

Apparently, Ashcroft feels that borrowing a book is a public announcement. The Chronicle article reports, in part, "In a letter to an inquiring senator, Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bryant said Americans who borrow or buy books surrender their right of privacy. A patron who turns over information to the library or bookstore "assumes the risk that the entity may disclose it to another," Bryant, the Justice Department's chief of legislative affairs, said in a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt."