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Be careful with that library card

scottyz

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NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.
"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it."

The Little Red Book, is a collection of quotations and speech excerpts from Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung.
In the 1950s and '60s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was required reading. Although there are abridged versions available, the student asked for a version translated directly from the original book.
The student told Professor Pontbriand and Dr. Williams that the Homeland Security agents told him the book was on a "watch list." They brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student, the professors said.
Dr. Williams said in his research, he regularly contacts people in Afghanistan, Chechnya and other Muslim hot spots, and suspects that some of his calls are monitored.
"My instinct is that there is a lot more monitoring than we think," he said.
Dr. Williams said he had been planning to offer a course on terrorism next semester, but is reconsidering, because it might put his students at risk.
"I shudder to think of all the students I've had monitoring al-Qaeda Web sites, what the government must think of that," he said. "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless."

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-17-05/a09lo650.htm

I suppose the irony is that this is the kind of thing you would expect to happen in Russia or China, but not America.
 
Could that really have happened? I'm a little skeptical. I mean its only a little newspaper. I'm sure this would be big news if it were true.
 
I don't doubt that it happened. It's common knowledge that under the Patriot Act, government officials can look up any of our information, including library records.
 
This is when conservatism wanders into the territory of totalitarian fascism
 
steen said:
This is when conservatism wanders into the territory of totalitarian fascism

Yes...Conservatism is to totalitarian fascism as Liberalism is to complete anarchy.:roll:

More drama.

Unless you are looking up ways to build a bomb and visiting Al-Queda sites on a regular basis, what the hell are you worried about? Protecting the country is a lot more involved than you think. It's not such a simple thing, especially when having to recreate the ways they do it whenever a reporter decides to make a name for himself for the paranoid of our country.
 
Stace said:
I don't doubt that it happened. It's common knowledge that under the Patriot Act, government officials can look up any of our information, including library records.


The Patriot Act makes it legal. The Patriot Act isn't what allows for it. At least Bush tried to legalize it. Without the Patriot Act, it will still persist as it has in the past.
 
GySgt said:
The Patriot Act makes it legal. The Patriot Act isn't what allows for it. At least Bush tried to legalize it. Without the Patriot Act, it will still persist as it has in the past.

Well, I don't think my library records.....or the results of my last pap smear.....or my cousin calling me from Sweden....is any of their business. That's all I'm sayin'. :mrgreen:
 
Stace said:
Well, I don't think my library records.....or the results of my last pap smear.....or my cousin calling me from Sweden....is any of their business. That's all I'm sayin'. :mrgreen:

Of course it isn't their business, but that's not the point. They are not interested in that trivial information. It's that one time they catch an individual planning out an attack in your home town that makes me shrug my shoulders.
 
Stace said:
Well, I don't think my library records.....or the results of my last pap smear.....or my cousin calling me from Sweden....is any of their business. That's all I'm sayin'. :mrgreen:

Oh, but it IS thier business........
They are trying to protect you against Terrorism

BOOGY BOOGY BOOGY BOOGY!

lol......sometimes I think our government is keeping us in fear of the terrorists so that they can undermine our civil liberties.
 
Caine said:
Oh, but it IS thier business........
They are trying to protect you against Terrorism

BOOGY BOOGY BOOGY BOOGY!

lol......sometimes I think our government is keeping us in fear of the terrorists so that they can undermine our civil liberties.
I haven't read anything like this since...

Oh...I gotta go back to September 10th, 2001...
 
cnredd said:
I haven't read anything like this since...

Oh...I gotta go back to September 10th, 2001...

It's sad how some are so interested in bashing, political grandstanding, or just spitting venom that they will dismiss any effort to safe guard them.

The Patriot Act couldn't be to make us more secure......it's all about Bush usurping our established Government and taking over as Emperor. Sounds to me that we aren't the one's believing in a "Boogeyman."
 
GySgt said:
It's sad how some are so interested in bashing, political grandstanding, or just spitting venom that they will dismiss any effort to safe guard them.

To be quite honest, I don't feel any more or less safe than I did before 9/11....
 
GySgt said:
It's sad how some are so interested in bashing, political grandstanding, or just spitting venom that they will dismiss any effort to safe guard them.

Is the government's #1 job to uphold the constitution or to protect us from the boogy man?
 
Stace said:
To be quite honest, I don't feel any more or less safe than I did before 9/11....


That's because you are not privy to the happenings around the globe. What you see all day is any attempt to sell the news.
 
GySgt said:
That's because you are not privy to the happenings around the globe. What you see all day is any attempt to sell the news.

Ummm.....not really. I've seen a lot more than the average American.
 
Caine said:
Is the government's #1 job to uphold the constitution or to protect us from the boogy man?

Both...and I believe you are the one believing in a "boogeyman."
 
Stace said:
Ummm.....not really. I've seen a lot more than the average American.

Are you aware of what is going in Bosnia? Are you aware of what goes on inside the White House? Are you aware of what goes on regarding intel reports from many different nations? Are you even aware of what the true threat to your security is? I assure you...it's not the "boogeyman."
 
GySgt said:
Both...and I believe you are the one believing in a "boogeyman."

Nah, the 'boogeyman' is the terrorist that the government continues to try to scare us with, while receiving an "F" on thier Homeland Defense report card. Proving that very little is being done to make us more safe.

The Katrina issue is another thing that proves our Federal Emergency Management completely blows if we were to get attacked.
 
GySgt said:
Are you aware of what is going in Bosnia? Are you aware of what goes on inside the White House? Are you aware of what goes on regarding intel reports from many different nations? Are you even aware of what the true threat to your security is? I assure you...it's not the "boogeyman."

I just got out of the military less than 2 months ago.....and my brother is still serving in the Navy. Yeah, I think I'm a little more aware than most people.
 
I sell books over the internet, kind of hobby-like, and I have sold a copy of this little book several times. Does that make me a possible accomplice to terrorism? I think it is a question of parameters here. What is it about requesting a book about communism that makes one a possible terrorist threat?
 
Caine said:
Nah, the 'boogeyman' is the terrorist that the government continues to try to scare us with, while receiving an "F" on thier Homeland Defense report card. Proving that very little is being done to make us more safe.

The Katrina issue is another thing that proves our Federal Emergency Management completely blows if we were to get attacked.


How little you know.


The Federal Emergency Management cannot protect you from an attack. They are merely a reactive tool. How many cities in America have undergone reactive training?
 
mixedmedia said:
I sell books over the internet, kind of hobby-like, and I have sold a copy of this little book several times. Does that make me a possible accomplice to terrorism? I think it is a question of parameters here. What is it about requesting a book about communism that makes one a possible terrorist threat?

/Sarcastic Caine Mode/

Reading books on Communism is a threat because it allows someone to understand how the current Administration is attempting to turn the USA into a Communist Capitalist Republic. Nobody can know whats going on.
 
Stace said:
I just got out of the military less than 2 months ago.....and my brother is still serving in the Navy. Yeah, I think I'm a little more aware than most people.


You just got out of the Air Force. Let's be honest.
 
GySgt said:
How little you know.


The Federal Emergency Management cannot protect you from an attack. They are merely a reactive tool. How many cities in America have undergone reactive training?

I know they don't protect us against an attack. But the fact that we have an F in Homeland Security, AND our Federal Emergency system SUCKS, goes to show that nobody really cares about Terrorism, its just a tool to keep the people's minds controlled as thier Civil Liberties are being disintegrated and the Constitution used as toilet paper.
 
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