Robert Reich in today’s Marketplace Morning Report (“Spies Like Us”) talks about how unchecked executive power is a concern for business. We can argue about whether Congress authorized any means necessary with its vaguely worded declaration of war. We can argue about whether the ends justify the means. But if the President can designate anyone an enemy combatant with no judicial check, that suspends habeus corpus. Holding people without charge is not supposed to happen in America especially not to American citizens on American soil.

If the President can tap anyone’s US-overseas calls without judicial review and use the evidence against them, that suspends the 4th amendment protections on unreasonable searches.

If the President can search my library book record, that nullifies the first amendment right to freedom of the press as surely as staking out people’s bedrooms nullifies their right to privacy.

Innocent until proven guilty is being whittled away as people like Walt Anderson are being held without bail based on their reading list.

Reading unclassified information is not illegal. A free press requires that anything that is legally published should be read without legal consequence.

I believe that authorities have overstepped here. There are antibodies society should create to check an executive or Congressional majority tinkering with the Constitution.

I propose that libraries be reorganized to hide reading lists from authorities. In particular, books should be checked out anonymously. The main business problem this causes is that the library doesn’t know who to send an overdue notice to. To solve this problem, readers should be allowed to pay a substantial deposit in cash to check out a book anonymously which would then be returned when the book is returned.

Let the Executive Branch go to Congress for money and get a warrant for staking out the library if it is so all-fired important to find out what we are reading.

So check the Executive. Check the wire. Check out the books without Big Brother looking over your shoulder.