WATCH OUT, ASHCROFT

You don't truly know pain until the nation's librarians open up a can of whoopass (sp?) on you!

(CBS) Across the country librarians and bookstore owners are worried that reading the wrong book could make them suspect, reports CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone.

Neal Coonerty, who owns a bookstore in Santa Cruz, California says, "We've always argued that what you read is not necessarily who you are. So if you read a murder mystery, it does not mean that you are plotting a murder."

Coonerty is among those who have joined a growing campaign against some provisions of the USA Patriot Act. The Act, approved hastily by Congress days after September 11th, makes it much easier for federal investigators to seize records of bookstores and libraries.

"Going into bookstores, going into libraries, finding out what people are reading is not really going to make us safer from terrorism," Coonerty says.

Customers at his store are warned that their purchases may not be private, and the best way to asure that they are is to pay in cash.

And just around the corner at the public library, the shredder starts up at the end of every day, destroying records of reference requests and Internet usage, Blackstone notes.

"The right to privacy is a basic American right," Anne Turner, the head librarian in one Santa Cruz facility, reminds Blackstone. She has put up signs warning patrons the FBI could be watching.

I wonder, are terrorists more likely to use microfilm or microfiche?

Remember those tv ads the government put out last year, showing a hypothetical situation whereby a guy was dragged from the library for checking out certain books by govt types? Those ads were supposed to express that this sort of thing would never happen in America, and not to be a glimpse of the near future. Argh.