At the same time, Ashcroft's defense of the few provisions it chooses to address is highly misleading. In response to criticism of Section 215, for example, which allows the government to demand access to library and bookstore records without probable cause, Ashcroft claims that this authority has always been available through grand jury subpoenas. But he does not say that those subpoenas are limited to criminal investigations and are public, while Section 215 requests need have no connection whatsoever to crime and are carried out entirely in secret. He also stresses that records requests must be approved by a court upon a showing that the records are related to an investigation concerning a foreign national and, if the investigation concerns a US citizen or permanent-resident alien, that the investigation is not based solely on First Amendment-protected activities. But he fails to acknowledge that these limitations apply only to the target of the investigation and not to those whose records are sought. Once the government has a legitimate investigation under way, the act allows it to obtain library records on unlimited numbers of citizens, without making any showing that these citizens were involved in illegal activity.

Cole proceeds to debunk of Ashcroft's most misleading claims: First, that the Patriot Act has resulted in important successes in the terror war. Second, Cole says Ashcroft has exaggerated the successes in the legal cases brought to date. And third, Ashcroft "fails to account for losses of liberty and privacy."

Cole is one of the foremost authorities on civil liberties and the terror war. This is must reading.