Terror trove

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As Congress scrutinizes the Patriot Act, it explicitly should include libraries among the locations federal investigators may hunt terrorists. Here are five reasons: Marwan al-Shehhi; Mohand, Wail and Waleed Alshehri; and Mohamed Atta. All of them September 11, 2001, hijackers.

Florida reference librarian Kathleen Hensmen remembers Wail and Waleed Alshehri's summer 2001 visit to the Delray Beach Public Library. Ms. Hensmen tells me she found them "very courteous, very friendly," though "they just sat at one computer, and they were staring at me, and I didn't understand why."

Marwan al-Shehhi arrived later that evening, Ms. Hensmen says. "He didn't ask for a computer," but wondered: "Can you recommend a good restaurant?" Ms. Hensmen, a newcomer, couldn't help. But "a group of 'we nice Americans' who were sitting around said, 'Oh, I can recommend restaurants to you.' "

"When their pictures were published in the Miami Herald, that's when I broke down and cried," Ms. Hensmen says. "I lost it, knowing what they had done, and how we were so friendly toward them."

Additional evidence of the September 11 hijackers' fondness for libraries has not fazed Patriot Act foes.

Al-Shehhi and other conspirators "used to frequent a library in Hamburg [Germany] to use the Internet," states the September 11 Commission's report. Al-Shehhi smashed United Airlines Flight 175 into 2 World Trade Center, helping al Qaeda kill 2,749 innocents in Lower Manhattan.

Mohand Alshehri, the Sept. 30, 2001, edition of The Washington Post explained, "was facile enough with computers that he could use the Internet at a Delray Beach public library."

While learning to fly, the Los Angeles Times reported Sept. 27, 2001, "Atta used computers at the public library.... "

These were not the only terrorists who considered libraries tactical assets.

"[I]n January and February '04, I went myself, personally, to South Waziristan and handed over money to, and supplies to a high-ranking al Qaeda official," Mohammad Junaid Babar confessed last June 3 in Manhattan federal court while pleading guilty to giving terrorists material support. The Pakistani-born, Queens-reared Babar frequented the New York Public Library. As Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee last Sept. 22: "We found out after we locked this guy up that he was going there because that library's hard drives were scrubbed after each user was done, and he was using that library to e-mail other al Qaeda associates around the world."