“yeah, right” department

According to these breathless reports and baseless hysteria, some have convinced the American Library Association that under the bipartisan Patriot Act, the FBI is not fighting terrorism. Instead, agents are checking how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel.
Now you may have thought with all this hysteria and hyperbole, something had to be wrong. Do we at the Justice Department really care what you are reading? No.

That’s Attorney-General John Ashcroft, defending his department’s ability to look at library records. Boy, that remark just makes me feel great. Especially when he uses the word “hysteria” in reference to people like the ALA. I mean, aren’t librarians just the kind of people that you think of when you think of hysteria and hyperbole?
Link via H20boro Lib blog.