There are ways to gather data and aggregate that are much less of a threat to individual privacy. This is what TiVo's said they're doing. We'll see.

It's funny how you all trust corporations more than you trust the government, yet most of you are Democrats, whose party believes in a larger government.

Speak for yourself... I don't trust the government or large corporations, or our currently large corporation controlled government.

frankly, as a liberal, i find corporate and government collection of data terrifying. for instance tivo is now reporting viewer's watching habits to other corps. makes me glad my tv still has knobs and rabbit ears.

i'm surprised cash purchases aren't looked at with suspicion yet.

forgive my ignorance, but what exactly seems so implausible about this anecdote? Elderly woman stops by the library for a book, finds out about the Patriot Act (notice posted at several libraries), tells the guy at the desk her opinion and leaves. Being a public librarian, many things happen at a public library which would seem crazy, and certainly implausible, to many people.

It's funny how you all trust corporations more than you trust the government, yet most of you are Democrats, whose party believes in a larger government.

Amazon.com tracks what you buy and uses it to target market (including spam), but if they used the data to try and stop terrorism then that's bad?

I guess we'd rather have large mega-corporations knowing everything about us, but not the government...

I know, I know, I'm being inflamatory. I know you don't like retailers tracking you either, but still my point is that you are going to be tracked, so what's wrong with the government doing the same thing that Amazon.com's doing? Is it because they are doing it to fight terrorism that makes it evil? What if, instead of the Government getting access to that data, it was instead sold to Amazon.Com so they can target market you, is that OK?

For the record, I think much of the Patriot Act IS a bit silly, but much of it is also very useful. Library records are part of the silly bit, but I don't find it offensive. I mean you cannot surf the web 100% anonymously anywhere else (ISPs track every IP they DHCP out) so why shouldn't libraries be allowed to do the same?

Wow. That moves me to ignore all possible security concerns, in the name of not making a fictitious elderly woman feel uncomfortable. Kudos to the storyteller...er, I mean "author."

The PATRIOT Act is evil, and those who support it are 'useful idiots.'

While I detest this act, this story smacks of a fairy tale. I'd like to see a little more proof that it occurred.

that liberal-intelligentsia-media is at it again.

Yes; what's fabricated is the government's belief that collecting this kind of information from libraries is either necessary or useful.

Fabricated stories move me.