Quote :

"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."

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-17-05/a09lo650.htm
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/12/17/2115239.shtml?tid=103&tid=158&tid=146&tid=219

Well, I'm done with ILL for anything remotely sketchy.

I wonder if it's possible to get around this by just buying the books we want to read, but that might be on their hotlist... Any ideas on if Amazon reports to HS?

12/17/2005 11:56:19 PM

My modern Islam prof last semester said the Feds have visited him randomly three times in the past 4 years....prying like hell, but in a very underhanded, almost civil way.

Overall, he said they were very nice though. Just attempting to be sneaky.

12/18/2005 12:01:14 AM

Look, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but the terrorists hate our freedom.

The clear solution is to stamp out what they hate.

12/18/2005 12:28:47 AM

I'm not seeing this as a big deal, except insofar as it's a waste of time and money to go tracking down everyone who requests one book. It's a state school and a state service, which means it's plugged into the government.

It's not like the guy got arrested, detained, or harrassed. He got a visit.

Mind you, it's incredibly stupid that he got a visit -- it looks bad, for one, and it accomplishes nothing. I would be willing to bet that in a century library records would never once help us foil a single terrorist.

And who the hell is worried about the fucking Maoists, for Pete's sake?

12/18/2005 12:58:24 AM

agreed. libraries aren't going to help us catch terrorists; visits to public planning offices, or monitoring freedom of information act requests might, but the library probably isn't.

12/18/2005 1:03:25 AM

I don't buy it yet. Too light on the details and too many little things wrong with it.

12/18/2005 1:37:25 AM