Will The “Patriot” Act Target Gun Owners?

The USA Patriot Act could be used to target law-abiding gun owners. Section 206 of the Act allows “John Doe” roving wiretaps, ailment which authorize wide searches of people without even providing the name of the target to a court. The section merely requires a “statement of facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the tangible things sought are relevant to an authorized investigation.” Of course, “relevant to an investigation” does not mean that a crime has been committed or will ever be committed. As has been the case with the prolific abuse of “National Security Letters” from the FBI, the John Doe provision is tailor-made for wide and wild spying on Americans. Moreover, the provision specifically allows the FBI to target gun owners and to see what books library patrons are reading, specifying in the law that the FBI may issue subpoenas “requiring the production of library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales rec-ords, book customer lists, firearms sales records, tax return records, educational records, or medical records containing information that would identify a person.”-[source]