"Under the Patriot Act, librarians and booksellers are required to open their records to the FBI so the feds can trace a person's Internet activities and the books he's been reading and buying. Since these investigations are conducted in secret, the librarians and booksellers are bound under a gag order not to divulge one word of what the FBI is after, nor, indeed, even mention that they have received a visit from the FBI. Librarians fear criminal prosecution should they talk, although the law actually does not specify penalties.

As a result, nobody knows exactly what's going on. A recent Freedom of Information request to the Justice Department asking it to divulge the number of FBI library visits has been denied by the government. Still, bits and pieces of information leak out. A survey conducted by the University of Illinois last October, sent to 1,505 directors of 5,094 U.S. public libraries, showed that the FBI was busy making visits." ~~ James Ridgeway, "Throwing the Book at Us" in the Village Voice