Libraries Asked To Destroy Reports, Databases

unix guy writes: "Our good friends and protectors in the U.S. Gov't have decided that what we used to know we can't know any longer. This LA Times story talks about libraries being ordered to destroy existing government reports and data sources in the name of homeland security." Is it really a fair trade to give up readily-available information about "airports, water treatment plants, nuclear reactors and more"?

Comments

This is absurd.

[trilucid]

If the damned terrorists want to know all about our nation's infrastructure, the information is readily available in A LOT OF PLACES, not all under government control. The ways of getting at such data are simply innumerable.

This is wrong, and yes, I'm going to mention 1984 here. How much closer do we have to get? The government is, in effect if not by intent, enforcing the concept of revisionist history. I don't pretend to understand how to deal with our current problems (here in the U.S.), but this isn't the way.

Maybe it's time to really step up efforts to archive data in places out of the reach of such efforts. Data warehousing might be what saves us in the future from this sort of insanity. Yes, it would have to have significant funding to work, but that funding could come from anywhere, anonymously if necessary. I for one would contribute.

Of course, even given that, the government would no doubt make accessible such digital troves illegal at some point, potentially classifying the very action of such access as "terrorist in nature".

Nobody is going to tell me I can't access public domain information and knowledge. No matter what, people will find a way. Sorry about the rambling here, this just pisses me off.

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Re:This is absurd.

[gilroy]

This is so absurd that I'm sure I'll be "redundant" before I get to hit Submit, but...

There are only one reason terrorists haven't detonated an atomic bomb and that is that they don't know how to do it.

Wow, are you dumb. The knowledge on "how" has been widely available for decades. It takes a not-too-sophisticated knowledge of some simple physics. Heck, some university graduate programs assign the shielding calculations, etc., as questions on their qualifying exams!

What is hard to do, and generally denied to terrorists, is the laborious process of amassing enough fissionable material to make the bomb work. That is not an information thing -- the materials are themselves rare, expensive, and tough to produce. In fact, the best way to combat the true threat of nuclear terrorism is to educate the public about what steps must be taken to keep that material in safe hands. Knowing more, not knowing less, serves the interest of public safety.

I can't wait until Ashcroft's thought police break down the door to my classroom because I dare to teach the principle of relativity and quantum mechanics that make nukes possible.

This is part of a scary trend

[D. J. Keenan]

The actions describe by the LA Times are part of a scary trend. The Economist has a series of stories about how rights are being lost in the name of terrorism fighting. In the US, over 1000 people are being detained incommunicado, sometimes subject to mistreatment. Another story (this not free) describes how some terrorism trials will now be conducted in secret and need not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In the UK, the Home Secretary has warned judges not to apply the Human Rights Act. And mobile-phone calls are now logged, which forces terrorists to use only pre-paid phones (wow).

Likely the cowed populace will ask for even more disenfranchisements.