Sign the Petition to Remove Ashcroft

American Progress has launched an online petition calling for the removal of Attorney General John Ashcroft...it is at www.americanprogress.org/ashcroft

In case you needed a reminder about why this guy has to go, see this item from the Progress Report:

CIVIL LIBERTIES – ASHCROFT MISLED PUBLIC ON LIBRARY SEARCHES: New memos released today show the Justice Department deceived Congress and the public about its use of controversial Patriot Act provisions that give investigators easy access to people's business and library records. As the WP reports, four weeks after Attorney General John Ashcroft said the provisions had never been used, "The FBI asked the Justice Department to seek permission from a secret federal court to use" them. Last year, when Congress considered bipartisan legislation restricting these sections of the Patriot Act, Ashcroft deployed his top spokesman, Mark Corallo, to attack librarians and lawmakers and claim their concerns were not based in reality. He said their concerns that library searches were going on were "a ruse being used by critics to scare the public." He said, "The idea of the FBI snooping around the library to see what John Q. Public is reading is absurd." He continued making such comments, even after the 11/1/03 newsletter of the American Library Association revealed that FBI agents in the summer of 2003 "formally contacted 14 libraries with requests for patron-record information." Sign the petition to remove Ashcroft.