Wednesday, January 25, 2006

From the Boston Herald Web site:

Terror threat sparks Newton librarian/FBI standoff

...Police rushed to the Newton Free Library after tracing a terrorist threat e-mailed to Brandeis University to a computer at the library.

But requests to examine computers Jan. 18 were rebuffed by Newton library Director Kathy Glick-Weil and Mayor David Cohen on the grounds that they did not have a warrant.

Cohen, defending the library's actions, called the legal standoff one of Newton's "finest hours."...

It took U.S. attorneys several hours to finally secure a warrant, Glick-Weil said, and they took the computer from the library at about 11:30 that night, after the library had closed.   

...[But] a law enforcement official close to the investigation said in an e-mail the confrontation was a "nightmare." ...


Hmmm, let's see: Glick-Weil has denounced provisions of the Patriot Act pertaining to libraries and has shredded documents in protest of those provisions. The Newton Board of Aldermen has also unanimously adopted a resolution questions aspects of the law.

And now -- just at the moment when the Bush administration is passionately defending its warrantless spying program and awaiting renewal of the Patriot Act -- someone picks Newton's library to e-mail a terrorist threat?

If this becomes a right-wing outrage du jour, I smell a rat -- a rat with the initials K.R.

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