I’ve gotten a lot of email from folks dissecting that silly screed about the Patriot Act I linked to yesterday in this post. I thought I was making it clear that I tought there were all sorts of other things wrong with the op-ed other than the thing about libraries, I just was too tired to get into all of it. Anyway, lots of folks have done my work for me. I particularly like this one:

Jonah,
There are no Sections 126, 128, or 129 in the USA PATRIOT Act. Title I stops at Section 106. As for Sections 321 and 322, Sec. 321 simply extends the definition of “financial institution” to credit unions and futures commission merchants, commodity trading advisors and commodity pool operators.
Sec. 322 applies existing law governing fugitive disentitlement to corporations if a majority shareholder or an individual acting in the name of the corporation is a fugitive from justice.
N.B. Although Sec. 322 of the Patriot Act says “Section 2466 of title 18″, this is a misprint, as there is no Section 2466 in title 18. It meant title 28, and this has been corrected in the latest version of the US Code.
In addition, the author states, “[u]nder Section 312 of the Patriot Act, a suspected terrorist can be arrested and detained if he or she says something the government does not agree with.” Section 312 is about standards for financial accounts maintained foreign individuals and has nothing to do with alleged seditious speech.
None of the sections described by that article (even the ones that actually exist) has anything whatsoever to do with “credit records, library records and homes”, nor is Sami Al-Arian going to be prosecuted under the Patriot Act for “a statement he made … in Arabic about Israel.” In short, it helps to READ the bill before waxing apoplectic.