I'd be just as upset about the government tracking my Amazon purchase records, or video rental records, as my library loan records.

It does matter what they're being used for. Amazon making inept attempts to show me what it thinks I'd like is merely annoying. John Ashcroft using my reading of books on Islam to prove I'm a terrorist is a lot more than annoying.

Anyone who thinks it's odd of liberals (who, as everyone knows, just love every bit of government on every level: racist southern sheriffs, door-kicking narcs, dictatorial zoning boards, ultra-conservative Supreme Court justices, and all) to be objecting to a government snooping program doesn't have a clue as to what liberals like about government programs, or why.

I suppose the people who cheered Ronald Reagan when he said "Government is the problem" have an explanation for why so many of them are now cheering Bush and Ashcroft's exercise in incipient totalitarianism, but I've yet to read anything that even attempts to bridge the gap.