Slashdot Mirror
Little Red Book Draws Government Attention
narcolepticjim writes "An unnamed Dartmouth student was visited by Homeland Security for requesting a copy of Mao Zedong's Little Red Book for a class project." From the article: "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.amazon.com/gp/product/offer-listing/083 512388X/ref=dp_olp_2//102-9865629-6948961?conditio n=all
I'm not fat, just big boned...
...at least he got material for his research paper on fascism and totalitarianism.
Thanks, I'll be here all day.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Why did he have to provide his "name, address, phone number and Social Security number" ... to read a book?
Cue discussion of RMS's paper on "The Right To Read", but still. Is this just sensationalism, or does one actually have to give all one's personal information to read this?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Everyone go checkout Mao's book from your local library. If enough people do this, the FBI will have to give up on this type of spying as I don't think they can visit 100,000 people.
This is where your hard earned tax money goes. Read and weep.
Well, it's not as though this kind of thing is unexpected. Once the
government is given power, it is human nature to abuse it. What I
don't understand is why people fall hook, line, and sinker, for the
same techniques throughout history over and over again.
1) Instill fear in the population somehow, by either orchestating or latching on to
a catastrophic event,
2) Tell the population that you will take care of it, blame enemies of the state,
3) Go to war, claim critics of the war are unpatriotic, out of touch, part of an "elite".
This is all classic power grab politics, and yet it happens again and again in
history.
Why do people not learn from history? It is clear that those in power have a
vested interest in having a sheeple populace. A critical thinking, well informed
electorate, is the biggest enemy to would be dictators in a democratic society.
Start with the children. I guess fear really is the mind killer. And, at the risk of
pulling a Godwin, two quotes from Hermann Goering, leader of Hitler's Luttewaffe.
"Education is dangerous - Every educated person is a future enemy"
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Finally, just a minor nit. The submitter claims the student was a "Dartmouth" student, whereas the article states that the student was from "U Mass-Dartmouth".
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
If you mean the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, you're right.
I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I free...
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Do you think maybe they were eavesdroppping on him too?
Oooh, creepy!
Anyhoo, filling out a request shouldn't require your Social Security number, I'd imagine. Aren't good ol' interlibrary loans done based on name/address/phone information? Then again, I'd think the DHS wouldn't need an SSN if they've got everyting else. Give 'em a reason and they're there. No need to click your heels three times.
At the local library, information is kept only on books you have out on loan -- so they know what's been borrowed and needs to be returned. Once the book is returned, the record supposedly goes away. That way, there's no tracking of anyone's book-borrowing patterns.
Now whether a nightly database backup or whatnot exists is another story. It would be relatively trivial to piece together enough of that info to come up with something.
Needless to say, this is just another recent transition from witch to communist to terrorist. Same general idea, different era.
Dunno, after reading the whole article I'm a bit conflicted. Keeping an eye out is what we expect the Feds to be doing, and someone who travels abroad frequently, not only wants to read Mao but wants to be sure they are reading the official version instead of just any translation and is clustered with a lot of other hits on the automated sensors due to the professor's frequent contacts in watch list countries, added to the hits on al-Qaeda websites he was assigning students.
Sounds like this prof is actually trying to educate his students instead of being one of these pro-terrorist cranks the university system seems to enjoy hiring, but shouldn't we be wanting the Feds to go have a look for themselves to make sure everything was on the level? Be careful before tossing out the standard issue slashbot line, because when something eventually goes BOOM you won't be allowed to ask "Why didn't the spooks connect the dots and prevent it" if you are now howling that they shouldn't be looking for the dots.
Does sound like this was a case for them to have done a more quiet investigation though instead of coming in flying the colors. Good spook action is invisible, the quiet defenders of Truth, Justice and the American Way of life and all that stuff.
No, what shocks and confounds me is what sort of instituition is Dartmouth anyway! No copy of Mao in the library, they have to request one via ILL? Shocking.
Democrat delenda est
of 1984...
Am I not the only one that finds this not only outrageous but terrifying? Not only are two federeal agents coming to the home of someone who simply requested a book (And not even like "Terrorism for Dummies", at that, just a book of quotes), but it's OUR tax money at work sponsoring this. I wonder where the government reasonably bases this sort of decision on...
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
I really don't like the direction this country's taking. :(
... at least the 'Patriot Act' was not reapproved, but I'm sure they've got some other stick they're prepared to use.
Fundies, big-brother tactics
Hey, why's there a black heli......
It's not my fault! It was this way when I got here.
As a marxist, I find this insane. Is there a huge wave of communists knocking down the door of the goverment? I mean, how naive is the goverment. I can read any damn book I want and you can't do anything about it.
At the New York Public Library on 42nd Street, you have to fill out your name and address to request a book (which you can't take out). I always give a fake name and address. I used to read Bell Labs RECORD, AT&T Technology and stuff like that, as well as other stuff. The Mid-Manhattan Library used to have the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, but it is not there anymore for whatever reason. Now it is in the NYPL, in a special room, with an even more rigorous list. I also noticed the largest local library to me had "Molotov Remembers" on the shelves before it disappeared from the catalog.
I'm not getting over on anyone, I'm being gotten over by being successfully intimidated. I sometimes volunteer at a local volunteer-run bookstore where people can browse, borrow or buy books from publishers like Soft Skull Press, Autonomedia, South End Press etc. I've also scanned public domain stuff in and put it up for sites into that. I also contribute to wikis like Anarchopedia and Red Wiki. You can hear stuff other than the Republicrat party line in the US, but it takes a little bit of work. I do it, and also try to make it easier for others, and others doing the same makes it easier for me.
Now watch those Slashdot reading, right wing faggots justify OHS's incredibly retarded action. Ohmigod, if people read commie literature, they'll become commie terrorists!
What's next? Sun Tze?
... and this kind of stuff is news to me. I'm not going to the library from now on.
If the government wanted us to read Mao then they wouldn have replaced our Bibles with little red books.
"Fuck you, get a warrant".
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
but he had to fill out a form because he was requesting an inter-library loan. I don't know how your school works, if the loan department can psychically detect what you want to request and save you the trouble of filling at a form or whatever, but obviously his school works the old-fashioned way.
Not that this excuses the utterly retarded HomeSec nonsense, of course.
Not funny ha ha, but funny strange.
h /bush;_ylt=AuvuW06usVciqJihQS1hh_us0NUE;_ylu=X3oDM TA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
Bush just admitted eavesdropping on US Citizens http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051217/ap_on_go_pr_w
Then of course, the politicians is claiming that we need the "Patriot Act" to protect us. Are we sure that 9/11 was not a setup for the Patriot Act?
Just remember:
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." -- Benjamin Franklin
Of course, Bush would put Benjamin Franklin on a terrorist watch list.
Fight Spammers!
Most insightful joke of the day.
Chinese-americans, communist or not, aren't really much of a threat to our homeland security. Sounds like a phony story.
How does this take two months to get out? If it were me this happened to, I'd call the press the minute the men in black suits left.
It strikes me as troubling that this stuff waits a while before hitting the presses. So in two months we'll hear about the stuff happening now.
But I do want the names of the agents, and their supervisors.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And of those of you that did, how many of you can still recite your student ID number by heart? I'm willing to bet it's a pretty high percentage for one reason and one reason only - at most, if not all, colleges, your student ID number is your SSN. So for all of you who are saying "Why do they need your SSN, this is an invasion of privacy, etc.", it's really not. I'm not trying to stick up for the government or anything here (although I wonder what would have happened if I had taken out that copy of the Communist Manifesto post-9/11 instead of pre-), but when you have an entire system based around a number given to you at birth, the number's going to become an integral part of what you do and how you do it in certain situations. Anything I needed to do regarding personal information on my campus, I needed to give my social security number. I don't think my college library had a way to cross reference people based on their names, so when his copy of the Book came in, there would be some sort of marking on it - a printout or something - that would have his SSN on it.** From there, they would put in his number, his name and box number would show up, and they could get word to him that his book was there. I don't know how DHS got involved, I don't care, that's not what I'm talking about here. :-)
-CB
**This is largely conjecture, but note that I worked in my local library for 2 years in high school and a couple of very close friends in college worked in the library, so I have an understanding of how it works. Largely conjecture, but not completely.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/work s/red-book/
coral
http://www.marxists.org.nyud.net:8090/reference/ar chive/mao/works/download/red-book.pdf
There are way too many US colleges that routinely violate the privacy of their students and expose them to identity theft by using their Social Security Number as a student ID number, because it's ostensibly unique and they sometimes also need it if the student's an employee or has a government loan. Fortunately neither school I attended did that, but it's extremely common. Similarly, many US states use the SSN as a driver's license number, and all of them collect the SSN in keep it in their databases. And many medical insurance companies use SSNs as a customer ID number (HIPAA's changing that a bit, but Medicare's still based on SSNs so they usually need it anyway.) And too many companies use SSNs as an employee ID. It's appalling, but get used to it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Here is a clue-by-four. Grasp in both hands, hit yourself in the head. Repeat until you get a clue or knock yourself the hell out. He was borrowing the book through interlibrary
...requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.
loan.
Guess what. To borrow through interlibrary loan, you have to identify yourself. The school has chosen, name, number, address, and my personal favorite barcoad, the Social Security Number. You know why all that information is required? So they can uniquely identify each indivual in their database. Why uniquely identify them? So students get the correct book and do not steal those books.
Be upset that every organization in the US that want to track someone uses their SSN, which makes it so easy to perpetrate fraud on an individual. This is not specific to that book alone, but to all books in all interlibrary loan situations. If they were that interested in finding the kid, they would not have needed his SSN to track him down. Be uncomfortable that they new he was looking for the book because they were tracking interlibrary loan usage. They probably would never have known if it was available in his campus library and just checked it out there on his library card.
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
--
holiday - n. - A religious feast day; a holy day.;[Middle English holidai, holy day, from Old English hlig dæg : hlig, holy; see holy + dæg, day; see day.]
The practice of red flagging books (no pun intended) has been around for a long time now but as Morgan Freeman said in the movie Seven; "99 times out of a hundred it's a student doing a research paper"
Why would the Dept. of Homeland Security tip their hand in such a visible fashion? Perhaps the agents themselves are uncomfortable with the practice and are seeking to shed light on it?
Why does this sound like the ultimate "the dog ate my homework" excuse? Why does the student fear putting his name forward, in the age when anyone who has been the subject of percieved executive overreach complains loudly to the press about it? I need a little more evidence before I take this for granted.
On another note, the professor who noted that "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless." is living in some kind of bubble. Mao killed many people and his disastrous policies almost certainly resulted in the starvation of many millions. I would recommend this book for those who have not read enough of the real history behind the cultural revolution.
Are libraries like foreign agent and terrorist magnets? I mean, it's been all over the press for years that the feds do this stupid shit. Do the feds think the "enemy" can't go to the local bookstore and pay cash for these books? What fucking planet am I on anyway, this is too stupid.
I hope they realize that suppressing all knowledge of the Truth will only make the Glorious Communist Revolution come faster as the masses find themselves suspiciously cut off from knowledge of alternate and Better Forms of Society.
Nevertheless, I find the details fishy:
- Why would a student have to write down a SSN for a book loan, but not have to write down the class for which he is requesting the book?
- If he *did* have to write down his class, then why would the NSA waste resources on this case?
- Why would a book by Mao be on a watch list? Surely the NSA isn't having flashbacks to the 1950's!
- Why does it seem just a little too convenient that this unnamed student is being investigated by the NSA while doing research for a class on "fascism and totalitarianism"?
- Why are none of Robert PontBriand's classes (the professor in question, according to TFA) listed as "fascism and totalitarianism"?
No doubt there are good answers to these questionsHuman being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
There must be something more to this story.
I cant accept things have gotten to that point, yet.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Am I not the only one that finds this not only outrageous but terrifying?
Sure, if it's true.
The story is based mostly on third-hand information: The agents talked to the student, the student talked to the professors, the professors talked to the media.
It's like a game of telephone. Information can be exaggerated or it can be lost. The people who really need to comment on this are the student and the feds.
There's no indication that the reporter tried to contact the Homeland Security people to get their angle on this. And it's not clear that the reporter even tried to contact the student. It says only that "he has not spoken to The Standard-Times."
... if the student travelled abroad, which the article says he did, requested a known communist propaganda piece from a site that required SS#, most likely governmental in nature, and actually turned out to be a terrorist,
What would the public outcry be? "Where was the government? Why did they drop the ball on this, they had the guy's info and did nothing.... " We all know it.
It was proven during the last four years...
It's only the commie books that the US has trouble with.
Hitler was a fascist.
Stick Men
You understand that ifyou fear the consequences of reading a book, we're living in a police state and not a free country. Guess Bush was right when he said the Constituion is just "a goddamned piece of paper."
I had a copy of The Little Red Book that I bought in the sixties and carried around from house to house for decades. I last saw it about a year ago and now it seems to be missing. You don't suppose the spooks came and picked it up do you? I even tried to read it but it was an awful bore and I didn't get far.
War Is Peace
Freedom Is Slavery
Ignorance Is Strength
(http://www.studentsfororwell.org/)
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
Which raises several questions:
Also, the trigger was apparently the book being request by a person who spent significant amounts of time abroad, not just the book by itself. Not that that makes it any better.
Of course the recent NYTimes bombshell story about Bush authorizing survellience of US Citizens, contrary to law, is making big-time news this weekend.
But did anyone see this report on MS-NBC only a few days earlier?
This has to reach a breaking point right? Or do the American people just continue to bend over and take it?
Are libraries like foreign agent and terrorist magnets? I mean, it's been all over the press for years that the feds do this stupid shit. Do the feds think the "enemy" can't go to the local bookstore and pay cash for these books? What fucking planet am I on anyway, this is too stupid.
Ah, but to pay cash at the bookstore would be to engage in the capitalist process - surely no dangerous communist would do such a thing. Now, borrowing from a library, that there is real commie-like.
Everyone go checkout Mao's book from your local library. If enough people do this, the FBI will have to give up on this type of spying as I don't think they can visit 100,000 people.
Somehow I doubt there are 100 000 copies of Mao's little red at public libraries in America.
There's definitely a major major threat that college students reading Mao's Red Book are going to go out and start peasant revolutions - here in the US they'd need to learn to sing country music first, and then they'd find that most of the farms have been taken over by large agribusinesses like Tyson Chicken and Archer-Daniels-Midland, who've got other ways to be connected to power. I mean, sure, the Little Red Book was popular reading back in the 1960s, since the US hadn't had a Cultural Revolution and reading was still legal, but the Feds are starting to catch up with Mao.
At least they don't have to worry about anybody reading "Das Kapital" and believing Marxist economics - it's a really dull read and the economics are transparently bogus, unlike the Communist Manifesto which is at least short and enthusiastic.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar." -- Julius Caesar
Personally, I'd normally brush off conspiracy theorists and tin foil hat types with a joke and grouping them in to the "whack job" grouping that usually includes cults, scientoligists, militia types and mormons. Frankly, it's sad how under the reign of George Bush, his greatest contribution seems to be lending credibility to these type of people. It seems to me that the war on terror has shifted from the Middle East to the shores of America. This war now needs to be fought on home soil; not from Islamic radicals or those of that ilk, but from politicians who more and more seem to be using fear and terror to pass laws within our own government and abusing the rights of it's own citizens.
To borrow a quote, "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." (Benjamin Franklin)
$sys$droids
And you all thought the McCarthy era was over... Nope.
As a Dartmouth College student, I find it misleading to say, as the news summary says, that a Dartmouth student was visited. Dartmouth should not be brought into this issue.
Ironic... as that is a perfect example of facism.
google.slashdot
There is:
- He spent a lot of time abroad. Let me guess: Egypt? Iran? Saudi Arabia? The Palestinian Authority?
- He calls a lot to Afghanistan, Chechnya and "other Muslim hot spots".
- The professor's students hang around on Al Qaida websites.
The book itself isn't what's dangerous here. Although I wouldn't go as far as saying that "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless." Well, he is NOW, because he's, like, dead. Just like Hitler, John the baptist, Mother Theresa, your great-great-great grandparents and other dead people. He wasn't harmless in life though....
Terrorism for Dummies is available at your local federal governmen't printing office.
It's called an "Army Field Manual"
They've got How-To's on everything from training insurgents, fighting a counterinsurgency battle, improvised explosives/munitions/booby traps/guns/silencers/, code breaking, psychological ops, interrogation... the list just keeps going. And that doesn't include Marine field manuals.
The U.S. Army has put into print enough information that terrorists don't need any other sources. And when I say "For Dummies" I really mean it, those field manuals are written for the lowest common denominator.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Here's a free ebook version in most accesible formats, compiled from the one here. I don't track downloads.
about losing a $20 and looking for it under a streetlight down the street becasue the light is better.
Agent A: How are we going to catch some terrorists?
Agent B: We could inflitrate their organizations and to track their activities.
Agent A: Nah, that'd take years. I was thinking of a quick fix.
Agent B: Technical?
Agent A: Preferably.
Agent B: OK, we intercept their commnications.
Agent A: Whose?
Agent B: The terrorists.
Agent A: And who are they?
Agent B: Uh. I don't know. Why don't we monitor everyone's communications.
Agent A: We do.
Agent B: So, why don't we know who they are?
Agent A: You speak Arabic?
Agent B: No.
Agent A: You know anybody who speaks Arabic?
Agent B: No. But we could learn it.
Agent A: That'd take years too.
Agent B: Well, hire some translatos.
Agent A: Spend money? You got money for friggen towel heads in your budget? Just clearing them will take years.
Agent B: You clear them?
Agent A: Well, no. But it doesn't change the fact I dont' have the budget. I need to put some numbers up on the board this quarter, otherwise they'll ship me to New Mexico to do Indian shit.
Agent B: Oh, is that all. Just do the usual.
Agent A: You mean pick a source of data that's convenient to monitor and jump over anything that's different?
Agent B: Yep. Throw your weight around and make a lot of noise.
Agent A: I like throwing my weight around.
Agent B: And I hate people who are different.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I got paid a visit for reading material that was hardly "subversive" -- it was published by the U.S. military! Read all about it here and here... I was reading the literature on a plane, to be sure, but a home visit from the feds seemed way over the top. To their credit, however, the Marshals seemed to be nice enough and they didn't seem to think I was a threat to national security, and I haven't been bothered since the visit to my house. Though I wonder whether there are now federal files on me, and whether I'm being looked at funny at the airport.
Does freedom go down the toilet the other way around in the Northern Hemisphere?
3 56.htm
Sadly, this story is no surprise, it's also happening here in oz. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1422
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
They forgot to mention that they flushed the book down the toilet during the interrogation. Apparently throngs of Chinese citizens have been protesting....
So, basically, he wanted to find out about life in Communist China, and got a pretty good lesson about what life was like in Communist China. You read something off the government's unapproved list, and the government comes calling. Wake up folks, it's happening here, right now.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
I'm not going to speculate about this specific incident - there is too little information to form a solid opinion.
Stories like this highlight a problem in the country at large, however. We have reached an age where its not that unlikely that the government, putatively a government of our peers, can monitor us en masse. We have reached an age where low-grade harrassment is a tool of domestic policy. What kind of country do we live in?
If we do not address these encroachments on our privacies and liberties now, there may never be an opportunity for us to regain them.
-vs, me@acm.jhu.edu
i call bullshit on this one....
i was a fiend, before i became a teen...i melted microphones instead of cones of ice cream
Double plus good news indeed...
For the longest time I was wondering who this Mao Zedung/Zedong character was and then it hit me...somebody's misspelling Mao Tse Tung. Is this in the new textbooks on history or is this just another case of how some idiot's inability to research snowballed into thousands of idiots not researching either? Of course, I could be one of those idiots but googling Mao Tse Tung gave Zedong as the secondary and possibly improper spelling.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
... to their credit blah blah blah.
If by chance your name had matched the name of someone on their secret lists, you would have been held without charge, unable to contact even your family, under the patriot act law.
But it didnt happen to you, so its all just fine and dandy. 'freedom' is preserved.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
As for this event, I saw no mention that the book was confiscated or that the student was arrested or even held in custody. Only that he received a visit. Wow. I once got a visit from the cable company to "check my outlets." Doesn't mean that I got all upset with them because they might wonder if I'm stealing cable when I'm not. It's their job and they are doing what they have to do to protect the proper interests. Same thing with DHS. I, for one, am glad to know that they are not taking anything too lightly and also not abusing their powers. And before you jump the gun and say they are and that this all a part of a huge fascist plot by the Bushies, I suggest you provide some evidence from the article. There's none there. It's as simple as DHS following through and checking things out. If, hypothetically, the student was later involved in espionage and cyberterrorism and the press reported that he had requested materials about Zedong, the same people crying out here would be crying out about how DHS didn't do their job and check on the suspicious activity early on.
Like I said... damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Am I the only one who sees this as just plain pathetic? I mean really, not even the Chinese read the Little Red Book any more. Mein Kampf is in wider circulation. When faced with an enemy determined to destoroy us for religious reasons, an enemy capable of launching attacks within our borders what do we do? We waste time violating the law to track people who read COMMUNIST BOOKS.
If it wasn't so frightening it would just be sad. If it wasn't such a waste of time, money and effort when that effort cannot be wasted, it would be laughable.
As it is it is stupid, pathetic, dangerous, and utterly inexcusable. If anything could more fittingly demonstrate the unsuitability of those in charge to be in charge this policy is it. Tracking maoists does nothing to stop Al Quaeda. Spying on our citizens in this inept way only sames us in the eyes of the world and weakens us as a nation.
There is exactly *one* article that I can find that covers this.
My guess is that the unnamed student didn't get the book in time, or was otherwise late in turning in his paper. So the student makes up this story to tell his professors.
I'm a senior in college, and in the years at school, I have seen bomb threats called in for buildings on campus, twice for unspecified locations on final exam days, and once for the library, called in by a student who hadn't finished a paper that was due the next day.
With all kinds of conspiracy theorists in the ranks of the professors at my school, I could probably tell them something like this and get away with it, too.
It's all to convenient that the supposed government agents "brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student". From which library did they get the book they brought, or was it their copy?
This whole thing stinks of a student trying to cheat for extra time or lenience in grading. When this comes out as a hoax, I look forward to hearing about him getting an F for academic dishonesty. It's too bad most colleges don't believe in expulsion.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
If he had requested a copy of "Mein Kampf", he could have gotten an autographed copy from the White House.
How does saying that federal agents didn't act like assholes deserve the bitchy, sarcastic response it got from you? He said nothing about supporting any of these laws, so just grow up and leave your snide remarks at the door.
The article summary: "An unnamed Dartmouth student was visited by Homeland Security for requesting a copy of Mao Zedong's Little Red Book for a class project."
The first sentences of TFA: "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.'"
Dartmouth != UMass Dartmouth.
The student attends the University of Massachusettes at Dartmouth, which goes by the shorter name "UMass Dartmouth." This is not to be confused with Dartmouth College, which, considering that it predates the founding of the United States, is the proper institution to be called by that one-word name.
let the mod-down begin...
In Communist China you get run over by a tank for reading the writings of George Washington. In Amerika they only run you into the tank for reading the writings of Chairman Mao.
Who really cares, honestly? What greater harm is the DHS than the old lady in the library that loaned him/her the book in the first place.
YRO posters are a bunch of whiners.
With the wire tapping,
there are good grounds for an impeachment so what you waiting for to do it.
they just give you the book
I Predict A Riot
Step 1 - Assemble numerous cells in the US.
Step 2 - Have all but one or two act as decoy cells. Keep decoy cells separate from the real cells with no contact whatsoever.
Step 3 - Members of decoy cells check out hundreds of books from librares, surf dozens and dozens of terrorist websites, etc., etc.
Step 4 - While Feds waste time chasing down book readers and web surfers, the real cells continue on with their plans.
Step 5 - As the US government expands powers and searches, create more decoy cells that create more needless searches and wild goose chases.
Step 6 - Repeat steps 3 to 5 as needed.
Step 7 - Obtain US citizenship and vote for politicians that expand the powers and searches in Step 5.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
keep watching your state, we still (mentally) export those guys:
knock knock
whos there?
the homeland security!
what the homeland security?
we vil ask se questions!
anonymous cowardly greetings from germany (:-
They systemised the Chinese -> European spelling system some years ago.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
First, what "pro-terrorist cranks" do universities "enjoy hiring"? Even Al-Arian in Florida, who is hardly in any way representative of the kinds of professors hired at most universities in the US, was acquitted of any wrongdoing. But he lost his job as a result of the controversy, and you can bet that professors likely to cause such controversy are going to be passed up by most hiring committees.
More importantly, however, can you please tell us what "dots" can possibly be "connected" to terrorism based on a professor checking out a book of quotations from a library? You make a big deal out of the fact that this guy wanted the right version of this book - as if a concern for accuracy makes one a terrorist suspect. This is ludicrous. I have no problem with the Feds monitoring purchases of large quantities of dangerous chemicals, but books? Full of quotations? By dead Chinese dictators? Come on.
As a professor who writes and teaches about war and terrorism (among other things), I often find myself checking out and buying books about terrorism, al Qaeda, and other things far more "threatening" than Mao's red book (not to mention visiting websites, etc.) My research interests have caught the attention of the feds before, but never from just checking out a book from the library. The idea that certain books are flagged simply for ideological content is a sign of significant problems in terms of academic freedom and freedom of thought generally.
The fact that a forty-year old book of vague quotations about "people's war" that is also the second most popular book in the world (second only to the Bible) is on that list just shows how surreal and absurd this war on terrorism has become.
Isn't the whole reasoning behind "democracy " (Yes, I know America isn't quite a full democracy, but tell that to loyal citizens) freedom? As in freedom of religion? The press? And freedom of political alignment? Even if it wasn't for research, would they really have the right to invade his privacy if he was trying to start a Maoist communist party? This isn't the cold war. I don't think there is much of a reason to be all uptight about communism..... Sounds like it would actually be a pretty intersting read. Maybe it even has some good points (As works by Marx relating to communism were quite good from what I read in a philosophy class, although a lot harder to implement then speak about). Brb, I see a strange black sedan with some people in suits coming to the door....
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
You yanks may have freedom of speech, but listening (RIAA) and reading can ruin your life.
P.S. with this type of gov't conduct the bad guys win yet another round by default. That bearded fucker is sitting in a cave laughing.
http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&id=-1 UETU2h-AoC
Like here?
I can't.. The library doesn't have the book since the GOP Rally/Bookburning last month.. bummer!
Yes, I agree that they should do their jobs. Sometimes, yes, it does seem like a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation.
The problem here is they are using intimidation tactics unprovoked on some college student who was CHECKING OUT A BOOK. If the kid had done something wrong, or ANYTHING that would warrant suspicion, yeah they should check it it.
But the kid was just requesting a book.
If you want to read something in the country, you shouldn't have to worry about the government knocking on your door about it. This kid did nothing remotely wrong, and taxpayer dollars are spent intimidating intimidating him for no reason.
Whoever sent those agents out should be jailed.
-Dash
I'm going to get out of this place alive, even if it kills me!
The is not a (mod) funny post. Please visit the web site of the ALA: http://www.ala.org/ Our parody image of the typical little old woman with powered bun saying "shooooosh" is wrong. They are closer to being real time action heros, that are doing more to defend our freedoms than our elected leaders. Do check out their web site and see they work they are doing with the ACLU to protect your privacy.
Please mod me 1 or troll. It's where the truth is these days, even on Slashdot. Beware the power of moderators everywh
This book is actually the second-most published book in the world (well, third if you count the Ikea catalog), which means that if it is on some kind of watch list, the Feds really have their work cut out for them. If this is one of those books that can change the world, it already has, and there's little the Feds can do about it now by stopping people from writing papers about it at universities.
Most professors allow extensions for much lamer excuses than the government ate my textbook.
I think it is a good strategy to monitor libraries for the government. Controlling what people think is an excellent way to control behaviour.
This is why thought crime is being pursued so vigorously right now. Not only is it hard to defend against, but it is an excellent intimidation tactic.
DHS is a financial burcen on this country, and a slap in the face to freedom loving people.
Government agents should not be watching what people are reading, much less questioning them.
That said, This particular incident reaks of hoax.
" I, for one, am glad to know that they are not taking anything too lightly and also not abusing their powers. "
HAHAHahaha... I suggest you read up on them. Thay can't abuse there power becasue they are allowed to do whatever they want. So by definition they can't abuse it.
They are used to enforce trademark and copyright issues for Gods sake. that should be entirely civil.
They threaten to shut down a tow store because the company that makes a product the toy store had violated trademark. Keep iun mind, the store is a couple of middlemen away from the creator and had no way of knowing there was an issue.
They make it more difficult or other agencies to do there job. They are only a solution if you want an agency outside the process. Which is a Bad thing.
Get rid of them, and put that money into the preexisting agencies for communication and spies.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Others disagree.
Kill tally: 14 to 20 million deaths from starvation
"responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime"
You can find more for themselves.
Besides, even if Mao were actually harmless, why all the fuss? Did the agents confiscate the book? Did the threaten the reader? If not, then what's the big deal with them stopping by to see who was reading the book, and why?
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
Requesting Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung
Please enter the following information:
(e.g. Jane Smith) Your Name:
(no dashes) Your SSN:
(Choose a Pickup Location)
Feel free to complain all you want. http://www.wright.edu/
Tens of millions of fewer dead peasants!
That's not the right question to ask. The real questions to ask are:
NSA = No Such Agency
Move along, nothing to see here..
Don't you think that suppression of such freedoms is making us the very state we're fighting in the War on Terror? The slope from monitoring to censoring is a slippery one.
On the other hand, the original student was extremely foolish to tell anyone this, since doing so is a Federal felony in itself. We won't be hearing from him again, I'm afraid.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
... the DHS to harass a college student working on a paper, especially when we have missing truckfulls of radioactive materials, unchecked illegal immigration linked to terrorism, and gross negligence in disaster preparedness? (cause, you know, let's not forget that FEMA is in the DHS now)
<sarcasm>I'm so comforted that a noticable portion of my paycheck gets usurped for such important security concerns.</sarcasm>
If you are a taxpaying U.S. citizen, I advise you to see how your contributions to the government are apportioned and spent.
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
According to the professor: He openly admits that this is merely his take on the situation. The student has not come forward with his story. The journalist who wrote this sensationalistic piece has no idea what truly triggered the investigation. Observe the following quote (also from the professor): Further, note that the student had amassed "significant time abroad," presumably in antagonistic countries.
Suppose this individual carried out an attack. In retrospect, the time spent abroad and the observance of terrorist websites would seem like obvious red flags. These behaviors were no doubt of far greater interest to investigators than any of Mao's works. The book request was probably used to intimidate the poor guy, a tactic that I certainly do not condone. Yet I think it is clear to all rational members of society that "monitoring" al-Qaeda Web sites will (and should) yield the attention of the DHS.
This is a clear instance where some sort of oversight is needed. A supervisory body should rule on the legality and prudence of this investigation. However, the opinions of a professor and the misleading writings of a journalist should not hold sway in the court of public opinion.
Grown up in the eastblock I know a little bit about the USSR - believe me when I tell you how common this state was to the USA of today when it comes to ideology.
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
As Arlo Guthry asng in Alice's Restaurant:
"You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.
And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar."
"I have nothing to say".
Make the jack booted thugs life miserable.
The USA PATRIOT Act also makes it illegal to talk about what information has been garnered from this monitoring or even that it has been done.
It'd be nice though if you would refrain from making derogatory stereotypical remarks about Americans though. When an Amercican does it, perhaps it's contructive but when someone else does it, is just comes across as pejorative.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I collect books on socialism and communism, and English translations of works published by Progress Publishers (which went out of "business" with the collapse of the Soviet Union). I've bought the collected works of Lenin on Ebay - 40+ volumes. I have probably 70 linear feet of book shelves filled with the works of Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, and many, many others. (Very little Mao, however, whose works are a dime a dozen). If I start making calls overseas, am I going to end up being "renditioned"? I consider myself a socialist, but no other kind of capital letter "-ist". Are they only worried about Maoists? WTF? This is just crazy.
"We must unite with the proletariat of all the capitalist countries, with the proletariat of Japan, Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy and all other capitalist countries, before it is possible to overthrow imperialism, to liberate our nation and people, and to liberate the other nations and peoples of the world."
A political leader who insists that other nations must be liberated from their evil governments...where have I seen speeches like this recently?
And it doesn't stop there. Many Americans want to sacrifice many freedoms for their safety. Right now China, in terms of tourism, is often ranked the MOST safe nation in the world. They don't, however, have as many freedoms as we do.
While America certainly has more freedoms than China and one can still easily contrast between the two nations, it appears the similarities between the two governments are increasing.
Supporting occupied peoples in regaining their freedom is clearly a hindrance to trade when politicians and their corporate cronies have manufacturing bases to export and bucks to be made. It is interesting how the empires of Mao and Lenin, both of whom remain on display full of preservatives, have turned to imperialist fascism (made infamous by their past opponents Japan and Germany respectively, although e.g. the British Empire certainly had such tendencies as well) in order to "earn their rehabilitation" in the eyes of the West.
Western leaders are full of love and affection for dictators like Putin and Hu Jintao (aka the Butcher of Tibet after his brutal crackdown on Tibetans during his reign as the supreme chinese party chief in occupied Tibet) while the non-expansionist socialist dictators of smaller countries, like Cuba's Castro and Zimbabwe's Mugabe, are still being treated like pariahs.
If the western democracies actually asked their electorate which is worse, a small non-expansionist socialist state like Cuba or a genocidally expansionist one-party dictatorship like China, would the western leaders have to act surprised by the answer?
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
--What agency in the Department of Homeland Security would be in charge of visiting people who read the Little Red Book?
FEMA? TSA? CUSTOMS and IMMAGRATION? Federal Air MArshalls?
BULLSHIT!
Only the FBI would be able to do such a thing and they aren't in the DHS.
It means we're opposed to those who are opposed to the opposition of those who oppose the opposition's overlords. I guess that makes it The Story of "O".
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
My mother mentioned once that, back in the 50's, she took a class while at university for which she found it useful to get a subscription to the Daily Worker.
The FBI promptly showed up at her doorstep for a little interview.
My, how far we've come.
My calendar doesn't read 04/01/06, this hoax came early.
1. Why would a student have to write down a SSN for a book loan, but not have to write down the class for which he is requesting the book?
The UMass system when I was there asked for your SSID/student ID and the various other pieces of information, but not what class you were doing it for (you could include it as optional information). The reason is that they really don't care if you're reading it for a class, multiple related classes or for your own personal improvement.
2. If he *did* have to write down his class, then why would the [DoHS] waste resources on this case?
See 1
3. Why would a book by Mao be on a watch list?
The article mentioned that the student had been abroad for a significant amount of time; it was probably a totality of the evidence. (Note: not justifying the situation, just saying how it probably came about)
4. Why does it seem just a little too convenient that this unnamed student is being investigated by the NSA while doing research for a class on "fascism and totalitarianism"?
The course is Ideologies of Power, as has been pointed out. Fascism and totaliarianism might be part of the course or an Honors' Colloquium, which typically takes part of the course and creates a focused presentation, research paper or discussion group for an extra credit plus honors credit in the area of the course. This would also explain why a course text was not available in the UMass Library system.
5. Why are none of Robert PontBriand's classes (the professor in question, according to TFA) listed as "fascism and totalitarianism"?
See 4
Within minutes, I was hassled by a very hot and loud bitch cop (120 dB of pure bitchery and 120 pounds of hot chick). Within minutes I was surrounded by 6 cops and transit security.
During the ensuing shouting match, none was ever able to say what illegal act I had committed. I eventually gave my (cellphone) number to the bitch ;)
6 months later, a "national security division" cop of the RCMP calls me on the cellphone and wants to talk to me.
- This is a cellphone.
- Oh. Sorry. Well, call me at 555-555-5555.
Not being stupid, I make sure I don't call him from $ORKPLACE. They're the police, so they surely can find my home number in the phone directory, no? And if they check google with my name, they can find I'm a transit buff, no?
Well, I guess not. And if they are doing "national security" investigations, 6 months later is pretty fast, I guess...
Imagine you're a fed.
Imagine you're stationed in Boston.
You spend 99.9% of your time looking into student idiocies which amount to zip. Once in a blue moon, several things come together to make you think, one of these kids is getting serious about a revolution. Wouldn't you pay him a visit? It wasn't a SWAT team that showed up.
Pull that in SLC and I bet the SAC would show up and give you a body cavity search.
I personally believe that all of this security is useless, that the nuts that do these horrible things are spread so thin that it will only ever be random chance that they'll catch one that has a brain at all. So why do we spend billions of dollars when it's all just a crap shoot anyway?
Well, guess who gets the money!
What alarms me even more than this blatant corruption is the number of bad cops that end up being produced by this unattainable "perfect security." Recent example- Everyone on the plane has been cleared, the luggage has been screened. Some guy starts screaming he has a bomb while a female companion starts screaming he's bipolar and off his meds. What kind of cop thinks, "All the systems have failed and I have to put a bullet in this guy to save everyone?" Not a good one. The training is set up the way it is so that bad policemen can make bad calls and it's ok because that's the way they were trained.
The Air Marshalls can say the guys were following training, but that training sucks if they start shooting passengers because they didn't get their meds today.
Seriously, when all of this stuff is going on I don't want Dirty Harry or John McClane protecting me, I want freaking Andy Taylor.
You'll notice that the jerkstores brought the book he requested from the library with them but didn't actually give it to him. They took it with them when they left.
You deserve to be modded -1 Didn't RTFA Very Well
P.S. The cable company does regular audits where they go and inspect everyone. So don't think you're being so generous by not getting mad. And no, it's not a valid comparison to say the DHS is like your cable provider.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Glad that wasn't me. If feds showed up at my door, I'd have closed it for second, run out the back, got in the car and booked it out of there. The only reason we heard about this is because he got off. Who says there aren't other people in some secret place being held because they got a secret warrant from a secret court all because some kid need a damn book for a class.
I bought a vintage Soviet hat the other day on eBay. If someone comes knocking on my door, I'm runnin'. Look for me on the news!
"Communism" was the Bogey Man of yesteryear. The current Bogey Man is "Terrorism".
I doubt this happened, unless maybe it involved nail clippers onboard an aircraft.
One is ivy league one is a state school. Not that UMD isn't a good school, but it's not Dartmouth. Good to see good old new beige making it into news.
http://monkeyserver.com --- weeeeee
When vacationing in Seattle back in August, I saw a white Homeland Security police vehicle in traffic... I was wondering why the U.S. government would have these -- now I know.
Books are lethal. Books can make you dream and if you ever actually read the little red book, I inherited it from a real communist, it has some intresting ideas. Yeah sure our current western world is very comfy but it is also.... well rotten and boring. Young people of today seem more intrested in getting the latest cell phone BUT the powers that be are old enough to remember the 60's and 70's when young kids came close to destabalizing a country. Lets see, republicans in power, abusing their power, fighting an unpopular foreign war with no end in sight. Oh yeah all they need is a bunch of commies running around to make it complete.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Check for bugs!
Although I think that in your case of "He's a communism!" and off you went to a prison.. hanging is to good for you.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
A guy I know from a flight sim Web board was visited by the FBI in late 2001 because he bought a HOTAS joystick and throttle for his flight sim. Rumor was circulating back then that the 9/11 hijackers used a flight sim to practice the attacks. This guy bought the joystick online and it was delivered by a well known parcel carrier. The package was just the original manufacturer's box with the pictures of the joystick. He suspected that the delivery guy called the Feds but he couldn't prove it.
A single agent dropped by his house in the evening, looked around, noted the flight-sim on his computer, and the joystick, and CDs and books and manuals on the subject, asked him some questions, and left.
WTF?
What better way to learn about fascism and totalitarianism than to live under 'em, eh?
Yes, I'm feeling sardonic today.
All right, all you college types. Time to give something back to the society that has either given you so very very much or at least failed thus far to kill you. Go to your university library, and try to order Mao Zedong's Little Red Book. Preferably using inter-library loan, and preferably order it in the original Chinese. Knowing a foreign language has to be a red flag, right?
Maybe if we flood the world with bogus information, they'll have to go back to, you know, actually running proper investigations instead of wasting our time and scaring people whose only sin is having interests.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I'd just like to point out a key phrase in the article, for those who didn't RTFA: "...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." So he was already on Santa's "naughty" list.
This reminds me of the time when I was fifteen, and we were doing a presentation on Hitler and WWII. I thought we needed some extra material, so I walked into the local library and loaned a copy of Mein Kampf. Now I'm not sure, but I think that may be why the police paid me a visit last weekend. That or the 100 decibels worth of Megadeth.
control of the populace by making an example of one errant sheep.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
If DHS does nothing, everyone complains. If they take precautionary measures and do their job, everyone complains.
Well, Department of Homesecurity of China surely takes precautionary measures. Those who complain must be idiots, right?
As for the person who said that the Chinese present no threat to us, how quickly you forget the Slashdot story from a couple days ago detailing the cyber attacks originating from the Chinese military.
How about cyberattacks originating from the US? Does US present threat to China? Yes, a small but recently scarily increasing threat, still both China and even US are in the path of shared economic growth despite arms-industry-friendly extremists in both sides.
And no, nowhere should people be visited for interest in some fucking book and there are quite a few places on earth where that actually happens despite the country where this featured case supposedly took place. I've spent almost an year in China, even the most backwards regions, and never been visited by anyone despite my public anti-government articles or even revolutionary encouragement. Neither I know anyone who has, though it surely happens to vast amounts of non-important people exceeding limits. But at least they don't lie about jailing people for wrong opinions.
That said, I cannot say the equally good personal experiences about US. The only time I have been seriously pointed with a gun was by some kind of US secret agent before he understood I was just an harmless European tourist shooting tourist photos of weird-behaving Americans. Thanks for protecting my overseas photography freedoms and safety not being killed by idiots. For me it seems that difference between China and United States is that US maintains higher criterias, does things more professionally and ironically more US citizens actually believe in their government. That said, both are lightyears from the countries where I can really feel the freedom - no secret non-accountable agencies with billions of non-audited financing to spy and disappearize people without even minimalistic legal hashle.
Sure, somebody gotta protect society in both China and US, but there are proven ways to manage secret safety operations in accountable and sane way. Visiting people for interests in commie books, activism, falun gong or extreme political opinions are not, neither are massive propaganda budgets and enforcement or unaccountable surveillance practised in both socities. Cocksuckers who have no idea how to actually protect society needs to be removed far and out of such important and powerful offices. Any government can turn to next devil, currently the trend is to better in China and to worse in US. Liberties go hands in hands with safety and development of our civilization.
I know a popular one is Mein Kampf, as well as the book involved with this story. Any others? I'm surprised there isn't more interest in what books are on the watchlist. In my opinion, if the information they contain is dangerous enough to be put on surveillance, then their educational value must be worth at least as much. I'd like to see a middle school summer reading list compiled completely of books under surveillance.
There was also a man who Photoshopped an image of guns next to George W. Bush's head who was checked out. These stories are always hilarious and begin with "I woke up, opened my door, and shit myself." Please, more.
The message is a Base64-encoded random binary file.
If 10,000 people do this, it will drive the NSA guys totally nuts.
And when the US finally will outlaw that, we'll just do it from abroad.
Just take a page from the corporations' books and buy a politician. Then you can make them do whatever you like. Hmmm, weren't the Saudi Royal family thick as thieves with the Bushes?
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
you bet your sweet patoot they have files on you... you think they.... nevermind... i'd say more, but this is subject to go in my file
by Virtuous
How far is the step from feds showing up, asking questions and leaving, to feds showing up, asking questions, and leaving with you?
As a side note, I also got my luggage raided by the TSA without them leaving any notification. In my case, the baggage handler stole my iPod charger and digital camera battery charger.
I wrote to the TSA explaining that I have a major issue with their apparent lack of security. After all, the Lockerbie bombing was most likely carried out by someone introducing a bomb into luggage while it was being processed by the airport. As I said to the TSA, if it's possible for someone to open my luggage and steal stuff while the airline is transporting it, it's just as possible for someone to open my luggage and plant drugs (say) to try and use me as a mule to get stuff through customs.
Predictably, I got a form letter back from the TSA saying they were sorry their procedures did not always reach the standard expected.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Okay this is weird. I have a crappy blog that I post to once in a while, and I've quoted Slashdot posts only twice. The really crazy thing is that both times are quotes from Turn-X Alphonse! I don't know anybody's name on slashdot so this was entirely a coincidence!
Today:
"terrorist, communist, witch or heretic. Same name, same tactic, different era."
July 7th:
"I'm from the UK (an hour from London) and can I just say something here.
I couldn't care less. The IRA did this loads of times, lots of people have died in the same situations spread out over a couple of weeks. It used to be a fact of life that this happens. 1 event isn't a huge issue.
Save the pity and shock for else where. It's not needed and hopefully we won't whore this like September 11th was.
I know this'll get marked troll but I think it's an opinion we NEED to see put out. Some of us couldn't care less, it won't stop our lives any more then seeing a giant pink elephant would.
It happened, it's over and done with, next please."
-That's a hell of a coincidence...
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
"Open the door. You have requested forbidden literature. You are hereby placed under
permanent surveillance. In case of repeated offence, you will be detained!"
Say, shouldn't the US be a little bit less concerned about what people read? This is
getting so ridiculous. You no longer live in a free country, folks.
--- Eat my sig.
"Printer's ink has been running a race against gunpowder these many, many years. Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries." --Chistopher Morley, "The Haunted Bookshop"
....And who say's americans dont get irony.
"The world is progressing, the future is bright and no one can change this general trend of history. We should carry on constant propaganda among the people on the facts of world progress and the bright future ahead so that they will build their confidence in victory."
Could be bush or rumsfeld...but it's from mao's little red book. Incredible, the similarities between dictators.
What about black slaves? How significant were there deaths in allowing the US to become the power it is today? How many million were worked to death?
How many slaughtered in your foreign wars? When will the US attone for its purposefull bombing of civilians in Vietnam?
Yet you americans happily quote the founders of your "free" nation who were slave owners. They are heros who thought the owning of other human beings was okay.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. This means that the US cannot even LOOK at the stone.
The chinese revolution has caused many a death but so have many things wich eventually have led to so called better things. I dare say the american revolution, Oh I am sorry war of independance, caused more then a couple of deaths.
It is not that I am defending the chinese, more that I am questioning your right to question them. Of course I really have no right to question you but hey, that never stopped anyone before has it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I hear people complaining about the department of homeland security, and their recent actions in questioning a college student over his assingment. Honestly, they only asked some questions. Its not like the young man was taken into custody, sent to an undisclosed location, denied due process, and totrured to find out what he knew about the chinese communist dictator. Communism is a dangerous thing with a savavge domino effect. First you read books on Mao,then the next thing you know you're praising your comrades work on his macoroni sculpture of the kremlin. Dangerous stuff. We cannot allow these things to happen and I for one applaud the efforts of the dept of homeland security.
Same as the Old America.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
So, to remind everyone, we have exactly one source for this, the professor, who is at best relaying the story secondhand to all of us - we do not have an eyewitness report, in that the student to whom this supposedly happened hasn't given his version to anyone else, including the paper in which this was reported. Hell, it doesn't look like the paper even bothered to contact DHS for any sort of comment.
I dunno, I really think I'd like a little more info. More than just the say-so of some professor dude, who may or may not have a vested interest in telling tales.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
This is a surprise? The administration that ships people off to overseas prisons so they can be tortured, spies on his own citizens and labels it "necessary", let's the military spy on US citizens, holds suspects indefinitely with no charges and no access to a lawyer.
After all that anyone's surprised to find out they're investigating innocent Americans for requesting a suspicious book? Get real. How does this compare with all the atrocities you've already tolerated?
There's no lower limit to the behavior of this administration. The only difference now is the clueless 52% is starting to wake up to reality.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
"In America, you check out books at the library. In Soviet Russia, library checks you out!" -- Yakov Smirnoff
Well, looks like that one's not true anymore.
Communism didn't fall.
We just became THEM.
"The process of making sure that no one can apply for credit in my name is something I do not want to repeat."
Tell me about it.
It's taken me *years* to build-up enough late-payments and charge-off accounts to sufficiently protect my good credit from these thieves.
Calm down and take the tinfoil hat off.
You generally need personal information to check out a book, you don't need anything to sit there and read it in the library. You still need contact information for: notification of late/stolen items and proving some one is a resident (i.e. using what your taxes pay for).
Hell, if he was a student, the univeristy already had his address and contact information linked to a student id, which he would use to check out the book.
The library didn't even have the book in this case, which they had to order it though inter-library loan.
Keep in mind the requesting library becomes responsible for the cost of the item if it is lost / stolen / unreturned, etc.
I believe his point was that, regardless of how the agents acted, he should have raised a much larger stink about the whole situation instead of just posting some lackadaisical story about it on an unknown blog. As the parent mentioned, he was lucky that he was even able to do that.
In 10-20 years everyone will be wondering "How the hell did we get in this crappy position to begin with?" Until that time, the uninitiated masses will just continue to ignore everything and mutter "in this day and age we just have to give up some things, I guess."
I'm also a huge proponent of the individual rights and liberties. And this news makes me sad.
Frankly, I think the student *should* not only be permitted to read Mao's book, but it should be encouraged, and the DHS should fuck off. Only by understanding where we are coming from, and the sort of horrors for which Mao is responsible -- and doing this can centrally include reading Mao's views that helped catalyze the policies leading to them -- will we be able to avoid such brutal ideologies like communism and totalitarianism.
"Those who do not learn from their past are doomed to repeat it", after all. A free, non-totalitarian society allows its people to read books written by rulers of non-free, totalitarian societies; this is not true in reverse.
Ironically, the DHS is enforcing the sort of totalitarianism the student intended to read about. Apparently the DHS has yet to learn history too...
(His professor is unbelieveable though, saying at the end of the article "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless." Given that Mao was responsible for the mass-murder of as many as 70 million people, nothing could be further from the truth.)
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
power, n.: possession of control, authority, or influence over others. Knowledge is the ability to refute others' power over you, or to accumulate the devices/assets/flunkies that DO constitute power.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Well the Tibetans, and anyone with access and interest in non-CCP-revised history books, know that Tibet is only "inalienable part of Chinese empire" because certain Mao Zedong sent his battle-hardened communist party army to invade it in 1950. Tibet had decided to give up militarism in favour of buddhist studies centuries earlier (they even invaded China's imperial capital once, but that was settled for an eternal peace and respect for each others' sovereign borders...) so they were easy prey for their indoctrinated and military-expansionist neighbour.
A few years later it took a massive UN-backed military expedition to save South Korea from being overran by the Maoist China-backed North. Tibet fell and remains under brutal occupation and genocidal policies by China, while in South Korea people are free.
If there is no cost involved in destroying one's neighbour (Tibet is actually being ripped off of its natural wealth), be it a trade blockade or military action, knowledge alone provides no protection to the victims.
Of course, in Tibet the occupying chinese are doing everything to distort and suppress information and communications to prevent the people from organizing uprisings, but even when they do rise up there are people like Hu Jintao (China's current Party supremo aka Butcher of Tibet for his brutality as the chief chinese CCP head in Tibet) who have no qualms about using military firepower against unarmed people.
It is extremely tragic that the Tibetans' non-violent struggle for freedom is being doomed by the indifference (and preference to do business with their occupiers instead) of the West. What would you do if you were a Tibetan under the dire circumstances? Knowledge hasn't helped and even if they had guns the chinese have a massive military superiority at every imaginable level.
It ain't easy being a freedom fighter these days. I mean terrorist of course...
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Was is Special Agent Scott Kohler or Bill Perry by any chance? Here are their phone numbers and Kohler's email:
24 hour: 617 565 5640
Direct/VM: 617 303 5643
Fax: 617 565 5659
Beeper: 877 713 9872
E-mail: skohler@usss.dhs.gov
Reply to this posting if it was one of the guys above. I am exposing them now because of their harrassment of us Massachusetts guys...
...is that not many people are exposed to the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. Given The Little Red Book is the second-most published book in the world, then it's humanities duty to ensure Nine Commentaries is the first.
Life is not for the lazy.
black slavery in colonial america was built on a white slavery infrastructure. See my sig for a documentary link
eat shiat and bark at the moon
You can't destroy a plane with a book.
You can, under the right circumstances, destroy a political party with a book.
Which of these do you think the current government is more afraid of? You destroying a plane? Or you destroying a political party?
I mean, not that anyone's going to be destroying anything with Mao's little book of trite speeches, but hey, it's the thought that counts.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I can safely say I never had the desire to read anything written by Mao Zedong... UNTIL NOW.
Apparently, OHS has been infiltrated by Communists agents. They apparently plan to infect Communism into 'murican society by making Mao Zedong books seem to be contraband. This will obviously attract troublemaking kids into becoming communist terrorists!
Ridiculous? Only if you think that reading Mao's babblings from the 1950's will create American terrorists. Why else would OHS investigate them?
Not that it really changes the point of the story, but the post is slightly misleading. It was a UMass Dartmouth student - a school in Massachusetts. When most people hear Dartmouth alone, they think of the school in New Hampshire.
UMASS, Dartmouth is located in (of course) DARTMOUTH MA.
is not the same school as Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755
Ivy vs. State Institution
Same results. Say, what? :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The parent poster's unlikely premise of college students starting a peasant revolt, as the basis for Dubya/CIA/DHS/FBI/NSA investigating a student for wanting Mao's "Little Red Book" evokes !WTF!.
If I didn't know any better, we have corporate national socialist running the USA these days, and what is good for GM or WAl-Mart is good for the country. Considering that China is one of the USA's largest suppliers, largest customers, and largest creditors, you would think that the PRC (China) is the USA's newest bestest friend.
What's next? Any college student caught studying Taoism or Confucianism will be turned over to the neo(Con)artist religious fundamentalist Inquisition and put on trial for blasphemy?
The real reason this kind of thing is stupid in general is because it prevents us from studying our enemies. If you can't understand what your enemies are thinking, then it is much more likely that they are going to be able to blindside you.
I'll give a concrete example that is actually related to real threats. I have a number of friends and acquaintances of various Islamic persuasions. They would naturally have different perspectives on the real threats of Islamic-based extremism. However, given the ideological climate of America as exemplified by this kind of incident, I'm certainly not going to risk causing them any problems by asking them for their insights.
On the other hand, worrying about potential communist sympathizers at this time is just plain stupid. You'd think the president who'd allow such a thing would have to be some kind of moron.
Oh, wait...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Yeah, the NSA spies on you illegally under Bush's orders. The DHS checks what you read. If you don't think that means we are living in a police state, then I think you definitely are sheep. Next thing you know you won't be able to check out Locke at the library, you might get revolutionary ideals somewhat like founding fathers...
Americans always talk about democracy as if they were the only country on the earth that has it, "you're on the United States of America and because of that you have freedom of speech". I laugh loud everytime I hear it. It seems you have freedom of speech, but not freedom of thinking. What a pitty.
About 50 people before you have already mentioned it, with each person thinking they were the first to point it out, or that it somehow tarnishes the reputation of the "better" Dartmouth.
by not reading the countless number of other equally as inane and arrogant posts as yours pointing out the SAME FACT as if anyone cares beyond the minor correction that we are already aware of that were posted before you.
Seriously.
The only way to teach these crooked cops is to make them actually do real detective work instead of taking the lazy route by trying to harass a large number of people to get their information.
No sane judge is going to sign off on a search warrant for the entire customer list of a company that sells joysticks that look like real cockpit controls.
The five golden words: "I have nothing to say" also come in handy.
Stuff like 9/11 happened because of this type of lazy and slacked police work that targets the wrong people when instead they could have connected the dots and got the RIGHT people.
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
I doubt it. You didn't bother to actually contribute any useful information to the discussion that couldn't be gleaned from the article. Neither did you bother to check to see if someone else had posted this already either.
If it's entirely true...
I bet the professors have alot to do with this. From Williams' website you can see that he is knee deep in Islamic terrorism research. He doesn't seem to be a radical at all, but people with that knowledge will, of course, be on the DHS radar.
Unfortunaley, the DHS probably monitors the students of these professors to catch those 'confused' kids like John Walker Lindh, who get too deep and may jump to the dark side.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
You are clearly an educated, enlightened individual. See you in lock-up. :(
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Another left wing cliche from you?
I think this is just our retarded and ineffectual homeland security at work.
This is coming from the same idiotic line of thinking where they interrogate people who are snapping photos of landmarks or ask a woman on a transit bus to show her or or face more retarded treatment from authroity.
Do the cops get a kick out of fucking with the people? Sure they do, but its not really part of a larger conspiracy, is it? Out of the entire USA population - how many of us are radical leftists? Not all that many. They might be some of the most vocal - but in terms of threatening the grip of the two party power system, they have zero to worry about from them.
At least when you look at other toltaltarian states - i.e. Nazi Germany or USSR, their governments worked with far better efficency and effectiveness than ours at controlling the sheep.
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
I've checked out every book in my school library by or about Nazis. I frequent both ultra-left and ultra-right wing politcal websites. and I have guns. I publish all kinds of seditious stuff all over the place, and I have never had a problem. Except with the British who think I am an IRA terrorist just becuase I know some. and they didn't bother me all that much.
Ok, all my bullshit meters went off when I read this article. It might have happened, but I'm laying odds that it's either a hoax, or that the professor is studying to see how neo-anarchistic sites like Slashdot can uncritically accept stories about our government, or that the student successfully bullshitted the professor. Or it could be our government is actually somewhat retarded (Chairman Mao is a threat in the era of the War on Terror?) and somewhat fascist. I wouldn't be surprised either way.
...which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Random points, in no particular order:
1) It's too coincidental. It happened (or was published) a day or so after secret eavesdropping policies from the administration made front page news in the New York Times.
2) Why the hell would agents bring the book? Can you imagine NSA agents walking into a remote library (and not the local library, because he needs the extra-special "Peking" version of the world's secondly most commonly printed book) and checking out this "rare" copy of a book? *How* did they check it out? Do they keep library accounts with all the universities in the state? And, why? Just so they can wave it in his face? What did they do with it after? Just toss it in the mail? Drive it back across town or to another city to return it? It makes no sense.
3) As best as I can tell, there's no such thing as the extra-special Peking Version of the book. My fiancee is Chinese, she's never heard of it (though she dislikes Communism, and isn't an expert on it either). Google '"Peking Version" Quotations of Chairman Mao' (or Little Red Book) and you get no results. Even the name is a bit suspect since Peking is the British name for Beijing, and the communists worked to change the name on everything to Beijing (via the uniform adoption of the standardized Pinyin system). But it's an older book, so it could be legit (the Pinyin reforms didn't happen for a while during Mao's reign). But neither does "Beijing Version" get any hits. Even the 1st edition was published in a variety of places, not just Beijing, so it would be a misnomer to call it a Peking Version.
Here's quotes from the article:
'"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."'
and
"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."
There is a rare-ish 1st edition, but it's only two chapters shorter than the common 2nd edition, and the text isn't different in any meaningful way (I think there was a typo or two fixed.) Having the student request a rare 1st edition wouldn't make any sense since (beyond the obvious fact the English versions aren't rate), he doesn't speak Chinese, and there's no textual changes between the English versions based on the different editions (2 chapters were added for the 2nd edition, and one for the 3rd).
4) The Little Red Book IS the bloody abridged version of the multi-volume Selected Works of Chairman Mao. But in the article it states the kid wanted the 'unabridged' version (of an abridged book??), and one that was "translated directly from the original version". Heh, I didn't know the Quotations of Chairman Mao (again, 2nd most published book in the world) was so rare that most American versions were, what... translated from the original Japanese? This request of the student's is nonsensical.
5) The professor is up for tenure. Which may or may not make a lick of difference, depending on the professor. He seems cool enough, though, doing some sort of extreme history thing in Afghanistan.
http://www.brianglynwilliams.com/
6) Another quote: "The professors had bee
That's just a book.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Why? ... Because he said nothing AGAINST those laws!
... encroaching on the freedom of ANY PERSON destroys freedom for ALL PEOPLE. This whole incident proves that freedom of speech is dead ... in addition to the 3 or 4 other parts of the constitution that the Patriot Act breaks, and that your judges don't have the balls to deal with properly.
... yes, there are exceptions, no, the system isn't perfect, but at least our system does something to protect people's rights. ... You'll wish people had read my snide comments and done something about your Orwellian government when you 'accidently' are held without charge, with no contact to a lawyer or your family simply because you read a certain book or your name was similar to some one else's.
None of you seem to get it
In Canada, when The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is infringed upon, when the constitution is broken by a law, the courts disalow the law
It's already happened to hundreds in New York when your government decided to crack down on the bike protest rallys. In several occurances there, people spent 3 days locked up without charge, not allowed even to tell their families where they were. The people had simply vanished.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
As noted yesterday by Onan. You know that anti-torture thing McCain passed a day or so ago? It has dependancies on the Army Field Manual. Loophole in the law: change the field manual and classify it. Done. (Yeah, you can still buy the field manual online but not the classified "How to beat your prisoner to death without leaving any physical marks" section)
The interesting thing is that under the so-called USA PATRIOT Act the library is forbidden from confirming that the incident took place. Not only do the police get to review your choice of reading material but the librarians will go to prison if they tell anyone that an investigation actually happened. That way people like you can say "well, there isn't any confirmation so it probably isn't true". Isn't that nice?
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Two bits of american history that should be studied very carefully. It scares me when people don't know about them, especially since it was so recently.
i vities_Committee
McCarthy Era:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthy_era
Committe on Unamerican Activities:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Unamerican_Act
plus-good, double-plus-good
understand something: the title of my post dealt with the PUBLICITY/MEDIA COVERAGE this coverage was getting. You can tell what I was talking about by reading the TITLE of my post. When you respond to a post, please respond to what the person actually wrote, not what fits into the script the media fed you.
Decisions to publicize a police action does not typically rest with officers who worked in the field, as you state. Instead, these decisions are made "on high," and therefore reflect the mindset of those who are situated well in this society.
Guess what? Those who are situated well in society have a different outlook from everyone else. Their decisions reflect more or less their own interests and outlook. Within bounds, their actions reflect their own upbringing and those of their own subsociety--the upper middle class or the upper class.
Guess what? Letting this story serve as an example serves the interests of those who are best served by maintaining the status quo. Those who read Mao are generally less likely to approve of the status quo than most.
Those, these forces of the upper class and upper middle class str more or less aligned when it comes to certain views, as compared to those near the bottom. So not surprisingly, these forces form net force vectors. And the upper class vectors tend to be of greater magnitude and be better organized. Thus they have a greater effect. Well, anyway, you're an idiot. But you knew that anyway, right?
Anyhoo....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Gee, I wonder if they should have come and visited my history class entitled "Imperialism", where the textbook was Imperialism by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, printed by the Export Press of the People's Republic of China? Oh, by the way, that class: it was at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland. (By golly, I sure love irony.)
I'm wondering what exactly gave DHS the authority to do this. I've read about National Security Letters, which are approved by the Agent in Charge of the appropriate field office. Is that what the agents needed to come to talk to this kid and his parents? I'm wondering, if that ever happens to me, if that letter is what I should ask to see before I talk to them. Not that I'm loading up on revolutionary reading material, I just don't think Homeland Security should be able to invoke the vague words "Patriot Act" and proceed to do whatever they please.
Me being a socialist and all i've been keeping tabs on what fringe fringe leftists has been up to to some extent. Several facts point towards maoism being intresting still: 1.The CPP (Communist party of peru, AKA Sendaro luminoso) is still active, waging a low profile war, and they are on the US terrorist org list. They are Maoists. 2.The nepalese maoists are still waging peoples war, they are also on the US terrorist org list. 3.You have domestic groups supporting BOTH these groups, namely the RIM (Revolutionary international movement), MIM (Maoist international movement), the RCP (Revolutinary Communist party, with chairman Avakian in exile) and their magazine Revolutionary Worker Online. Now; I honestly dont know why the nepalese maoists are considered terrorists, as they have never laid hand on americans, and the repression they fight against is by far worse than most of the hoohah a maoist could do. Sendaro on the other hand is perty wacky in the head. Thats why the feds are tracking those books, i aint saying its right, but that probably why.
UMass Dartmouth is in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. That's where this happened. Dartmouth College is in Hanover, NH. That's the place people normally refer to as "Dartmouth." The difference is a matter of about $20K/year in tuition. Dartmouth College: $31,965 . UMass/Dartmouth: $17,536 out of state, in state $8,036.
is that his library will probably STILL charge him for a missing book.
There's nothing like a good gunfight to uplift the spirit--Calvin
And keep in mind UC Extension is really a glorified version of The Learning Annex
In a free society it should be one's choice to read what he finds relevant or interesting. Propaganda or not it is his choice to read it. Now whether or not he should be informed of the bias on the book, well any university student always takes into account the source of one's information. Mao's book would be no different.
the other thing that's bugging me about this is that everyone is assuming that Mao's ideas are "evil". Communism is not inately "evil". Properly represented in the way Marx wanted it to be, it is far more just and fair than a system where corruption of the executive and decepetion of voters is not just prominent but widely known and accepted. Maybe Mao didnt have it so wrong after all....
Today's China doesn't resemble Mao's vision much. They have moved away from Maoism.
To be perfectly honest, and I know this OPINION won't be popular on slashdot, I still rank Communism as the biggest threat to the US. That's my personal opinion.
But that being said... hassling someone because of a book they read is like losing our freedom to defend our freedom. Oh yea, forgot for a second whose in the whitehouse...
Seriously, I'm one of the biggest commie haters I know, but I do not believe any form of McCarthieism is the way you defend against that viral philosophy. The way you defend against it is to ensure the freedom and liberty of your people and strive to wipe out corruption in high places.
It is my heartfelt belief that a capitalist society with it's heart set against corruption, is the very best possible society. It will never be perfect, and neither will any society ever be "perfect" in the utopian sense of the word. But IMO, it will be the best we can hope for. Too bad we don't have the whole heart set against corruption thing right now. If we did, there wouldn't be another democrat or republican elected to public office.
There is a form to fill out for such losses. In my case the conference proceedings book they removed from my baggage was never returned to me, but I complained and filled out the form, and they sent money and a polite note to compensate for the loss. (My more paranoid suspicion is that they are using the book to investigate others who spoke about terrorism at the conference.) If the value is under $250 they don't even ask for receipts and my sense is that the compensation is issued routinely, so if you do lose something in a TSA search like this, it is worth complaining about it. I only wish I knew this when the guys working for airport security stole my iPod three years ago (coincidentally enough, also on my trip to Utah; but those guys took it at LAX).
Seen on Slashdot:
All right, all you college types. Time to give something back to the society that has either given you so very very much or at least failed thus far to kill you. Go to your university library, and try to order Mao Zedong's Little Red Book. Preferably using inter-library loan, and preferably order it in the original Chinese. Knowing a foreign language has to be a red flag, right?
Response:
I'm going to go request it tomorrow! Everybody join in, and let's watch DHS crumble under the weight of a rather unusual slashdotting...
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Allegedly, the DHS took the library book with them. It is not illegal to own that (or any other?) book, and the book was not evidence of any crime.
Communism: A political theory which states that, among other things, everything within national boundaries belongs to the government, and can be seized for the good of the people.
Soviet Communism: And we get to spy on you, too.
DHS: "We came down here to see what you're up to, so we're gonna take your library book."
The Bible, The Hadith, The Torah: "Thou shallt not steal."
The U.S. Constitution: Governemnt can't take your property without compensating you.
The Law: Stealing is a crime.
Ironically the DHS comes out looking like the communists whose book they allegedly suppressed.
Protecting the U.S. Constitution does not authorise the government to suppress political opinions. Such a suppression would be unconstitutional.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
For a body who throw around so many 1984 references, Slashdot users certainly demonstrate a whole lot of groupthink.
...but is it art?
What a joke and a waste of taxpayer's money. Bet if he checked out Mein Kampf he would have avoided a visit from Laurel and Hardy. Time for my lazy ass to start using a proxy server.
"The Feds turned up and took away my book."
Consider your sig: Stop censorship, eliminate the SLC funding that enables CIPA. You wish to Kill SLC to stop CIPA, apparently with the intent of ending some form of censorship. And yet, you talk essentially classify anyone reading this particular book as a "retard", unless they're reading it for purely educational purposes or for the sake of completeness.
Perhaps I'm being too extreme, perhaps I'm simply not understanding your enlightened position. Whatever the case may be, to "answer their challenge with a bullet" sounds like a pretty strong form of censorship to me.
This demonstrates that no matter how old you are, where you work, or how low your Slashdot UID is, you can still be a full blown douche bag.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this margin is too small to contain.
Librarians!! A blight on our great nation, they provide books that could be used for evil against gods people, the republicans.
This is probably a book that was placed on the list years ago when it was more relevent. Just like laws, it is probably easier to enact them then to repeal them. This book, once on the list, probably wouldn't be taken of the list.
As for Dubya/CIA/DHS/FBI/NSA investigating a student for wanting Mao's "Little Red Book". I would bet it is a cover your ass time. Because the book was on the list, I bet no one wanted to be the person over looking the flag that doesn't seem to be relevent and then have a finger pointed later if this kid did some terrorist act. Could you imagine the fallout from this kid exploding a carbomb at a crowded shoping mall and then it is determined that he checked out a book on a watch list but on one checked up on him. It would be worse then the remarks being made about this book still being relevent.
I don't believe this actually even happened. There's nothing in the story that makes it anything more than hearsay. The reporter allegedly knows the name of the student, but the student thinks something bad would happen to him by coming forward? BS. It didn't happen, this is likely made up by the professors interviewed. I'm surprised at the low level of critical thinking exhibited here on Slashdot when it comes to matters of politics. (Flame suit? Check!) If MS comes out and says the sky is blue, four thousand posts (or more) will argue, analyze, nitpick (it's actually periwinkle!) in an exercise of critical thought (and more acurately, critical talk). But the minute any liberal shill comes out with a statement that plays to a grand conspiracy orchestrated by (the government, george bush, karl rove, "insert your least favorite conservative here"), you all jump on the bandwagon with nary a wink at the facts, common sense, or anything remotely representing critical thinking.
Here's an example:
The anti-war left loves to chant that Iraq is a war for oil. Okay, let's assume that statement is true. Now that we "occupy" Iraq, why haven't we gotten our greedy, American pig-dog capitalist hands on it? Why hasn't the worldwide market for oil reflected (via lower, not higher prices) increased supply of oil flowing out of Iraq?
The answer is, because the premise is false. Anyone who takes the time to understand a nit of oil production learns that Iraq's oil reserves are largely untapped because of the difficulty extracting it (Financial Times did a wonderful piece on this in May 2003). At a cost of trillions of dollars to simply prosecute the war and secure the country, if you could somehow extract the oil, it would take decades to earn a return on investment. In short, it would a) financially cheaper, and b) politically more expedient to piss off the environmental kooks and drill in ANWaR than go to war in Iraq if the goal was oil.
But most of you Slashdotters, who otherwise pride yourselves on your smarts, hipness, contrarian thinking and general exclusiveness are eager join the chorus "No War For Oil". Well, all I can say is that is simply lazy thinking. Next time you hear a story about the big bad (the government, george bush, karl rove, "insert your least favorite conservative here"), maybe you'll take a minute to check the facts - apply a little common sense - think about the story, where it's coming from, who's involved and ponder what motivations they might have for furthering that story. And then, God willing, maybe you'll post an intelligent thought about it on Slashdot for others to ponder.
It seems to me that it is men and women, not ideas, that are dangerous, though the latter can inspire the former. But when we are afraid to think, then we do not question authority, and it (and those who control it) becomes corrupt. This is why this article makes me shudder. Our government was founded on the principle of NOT being the thought police. Perhaps investigating and intimidating kids to study communism is a necessary evil, but there is no denying it is an evil all the same.
1. Build a Dirty Bomb the Al Quaeda Way
2. Map of the New York Subway
3. Sleeper Cells for Dummies
Thank you folks, I'll be here all ni--+*@#!#@$_@#$_#X(&^@~.}}}}}
The willingness of Slashdotters to believe anything they want to believe is almost astounding. Listen up, kids. There are things called 'facts' to add to the discussion.
There is no such thing as an 'agent' of the Department of Homeland Security. So tell us, professors, were these agents from Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, TSA, FEMA, Citizenship & Immigration, the Secret Service, or the, uh, Coast Guard? No genuine federal law enforcement officer would identify himself as an agent from DHS. Moreover, any agent will identify himself by name. To make any claim to credibility, the student should be able to name the agents and their agency. None of DHS's agencies have any jurisdiction anyway, or the desire to spend time and resources on this kind of nonsense, unless, and this is very important, the student is a foreign national. Otherwise, this sort of thing is FBI's business, as if they'd care.
Little niggling things like jurisdiction do matter because federal agents do not answer to President Bush, or Karl Rove, as so many people seem to think they do. They answer to some grouchy-ass petty bureaucrat who has no time for this crap.
More likely explanations?
1. The original student is lying.
2. The original student is confused.
3. Somebody at the library is pulling a prank on the student.
4. Somebody at the library is pulling a prank in order to drum up false 'abuses' (Not uncommon these days.)
The real story here, is that UMass Dartmouth apparently didn't have the Little Red Book in the collection already. (I just checked, and didn't see it under the usual names.) Some librarian oughta be fired for that rather egregious oversight.
Speaking of which, I read that as they end up borken. Now I fear I might be borken somehow, maybe it's some new virus that infects boxen first and has jumped to hunams? Ack!
Imagine if the student had visited a Chinese Pr0n site. The visit would have had Homeland Security and the Department of Justice!
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
You're being way too overt to be the REAL NSA. We have standards, you know.
Freedom: "I won't!"
I can't believe you fell for that crap. The comments made were nothing like you make them out to be. Paul Martin is just playing off resentment/hatred toward America by playing up his level of independence. Wilkins is right either way, bashing another country is no way to win an election. What if we chose our Presidents by who hated Canada more? You'd like that?
I think the softwood stuff is BS. It's worse than the steel tariffs Bush put on knowing full well they were illegal. And then when Bush was forced to remove them, he justified illegal tariffs by saying "they gave our steel industry time to recover". But I don't see how we owe you the money. The money was collected wrongly from Americans. I don't see how it is thus owed to Canadians.
Did I light into you over illegal rebates/bribes? Did I respond to your comments that we have no freedom of speech by mentioning that your government can dictate which stories the media cannot cover? That the government was confiscating newspapers at the border because of the Homolka stories?
Your house isn't clean. Thus, it would be both polite and prudent for you to be more civil and not make silly statements like government prying and restrictions on freedom are "The American Way".
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
His statements are not correct. If he spoke of the current situation in the US, that'd be one thing. But to portray these things as "The American Way" (like the American Dream) is to put forth an incorrect stereotype. This is the Bush way, and sadly, he's our president. But that doesn't mean it represents America, or even the overall feelings of Americans.
Now, if this had been that way for 10 years, and the enforcement of such didn't seem to be hurting our leaders in the court of public opinion, then I would agree, this would seem to be "The American Way". But that's not the case.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Not on 4 times regurgitated information.
The offender David Wilkins in no way expressed an endorsement of a political party.
Get to the source, get real info. Don't form opinions (especially negative ones) from sketchy information and your own built-in biases.
link
Canadian link
Decide for yourself if what he did was wrong (preferably by getting even more info than this), but don't jump to the mistaken conclusion that the US was telling the Canadians which party to vote for.
Sounds like the situation was different in Australia though. This isn't the stuff from back to the 70s, is it? (Not that the passage of time excuses such a thing)
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Dude how do you know it was the TSA?? I have gotten stuff stolen before the TSA started going through bags. More likely it was baggage handler. Never put anything valuable in a checked bag. My dad thought it would be a good idea to check his laptop. It is probably good somebody stole it because it would've broke if someone didn't steal it.
But reading e-mails and web logs is easy and can be done while sitting on one's enormous ass, drinking Starbucks and eating Oreo cookies, whereas doing surveillance is hard, requires physical strength, footwork, intelligence, persistence, calm under stress, and knowledge of foreign languages.
IOW what we have is an administration and bureaucracies that prefer to do the easy thing (monitor all citizens' e-mail and browsing habits) rather than do the right thing (find those who truly pose a terroristic threat to the USA) because the former is easy and the latter is difficult.
I would like to see a GSA audit of HSA that determines the cost-effectiveness of various anti-terror activities. It can be done, it should be done to show what works, what doesn't and exactly why. It should be a transparent audit and reveal how cost-effectiveness was calculated.
They kept books by Lenin and Mao under checkout reference, so you were on notice to have a _damn_ good reason to want to see them.
I'm going to forget some details about the incident, because it was about a year ago, but:
8 8401910314+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve
One morning a group of students went around and posted copies of California Ed Code 51530, which forbids advocating communism, on several professor's doors. It turned out that it was the campus Republican club, and it had been instigated by an outside group. One of the professors that was targeted taught a class I was in, and she believed it was a threat, because she has received personal threats in the past, and figured this was a threat against her job.
This became a huge deal, and she was pushing to get the students expelled, the Dean wasn't happy, and it was in the papers for a while.
CA Ed Code 51530:
http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=
Bush did this so now they'll like us more!
Say hello to my little sig.
Again, a good point. But remember - a lot (?) of people reading militant Communist propaganda are millitant communists, and hence the concern of the government.
DATABASE WOW WOW
That student just got a whole lot of first hand experience in totalitarianism. The kind that you just can't get from a book or a classroom.
He even refuses to give his name now because he "fears repercussions".
You just can't get that kind of gut-level understanding without a visit from the authorities. That is one kid who will have a deeper understanding of the material now than anyone else in class.
The Coast Guard deployed in Iraq, a fact which surprised me.
I'll check in battery chargers and the like, they're easily replaced, but anything containing data flies with me.
A friend lost a camera bag due to a TSA inspection. The camera bag contained a jar of vegemite he was bringing from home. The TSA inspector obviously thought it contained a camera. I think it's just pathetic that the TSA employs thieves and they have no procedural controls to prevent theft!
I don't even know whether I believe that this person is telling the truth, and like a lot of slashdot is a waste of time reading. But by any means, all idealogies are interesting to read about, because they give us further information on other ways of thinking and looking at the world. For the most part, our worldview is too closed. A sign of the fact that we are actually a totalitarian or fascist society ourselves, is that we fear foreign ideas. If we were truly a free and democratic nation, then we wouldn't be afraid of ideas, because democracy is supposed to be about the realization of the ideals and ideas of the people. What we now see is media control and manipulation of the highest form, etc. (i.e. propoganda)--basically democracy gone wrong.
Though I wonder whether there are now federal files on me, and whether I'm being looked at funny at the airport.
If you are worried about it, then request your file.
Learn to love Alaska
"Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless."
Tell that to tibet, and any student that's been chased by a tank
I am one of the professors mentioned in this 'conspiracy theory response' (Dr. Brian Glyn Williams). With all due respect I wanted to add a few comments. A. The incident with our Univ. of Massachussetts history student happened several weeks ago, I was asked to comment on President Bush's sweeping surveillance activities only yesterday. I innocently cited this incident as an example of the White House policies' very real applications and how they trickle down to the university level. My description of the incident was in response to an inquiry from a reporter at the Standard Times, New Bedford who called requesting a commentary and I thought it was appropriate. B. There are several key sections omitted in the version of the Little Red Book here in the USA and we are proud of our student for probing the issue. C. I have tenure and I do not know how you came to the assumption that I do not, my webpage brianglynwilliams.com clearly states that I am Associate Professor of History. But I do appreciate your reference to the field work I do in Afghanistan and Central Asia in trying to understand the roots of jihadism and terrorism. It is precisely this sort of cutting edge research and teaching I hope to protect by bringing this issue up. D. I know this student well. He is the real thing, he is mature, honest, reliable, hard-working and genuinely interested in getting to the truth on issues, i.e. he is everything we train our students to be. The fact that Dr. Bob Pontriband who is by the way a passionate educator who seeks to instill just this sort of above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty research in his students also vouches for him lends two voices to his defense. I sincerely hope that your questions are meant to be the sort of critical inquiry we expect from our students and not some reflexive attempt to delegitimize was our reporting of what it is frankly a rather disturbing act of surveillance that does not seem to be an example of productive, preemptive counter terrorism. Sincerely, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams Associate Professor of History University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
The book was on the list at one time. What list? So if there's a list somewhere, i'd like to see it!
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
Unfortunately there are still plenty of chinese, including some with Slashdot mod points, who are simply too indoctrinated to face the extent of their regime's crimes.
Do you think that China loses less face if fewer people know about those crimes? Does the little red opus of communist slogans represent harmless fun to you, perhaps even something glorious? Even China's own historical heritage, not to mention the ethnic chinese populace, suffered from the brutality and excesses of the fervent book-waving masses.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
I used to work interlibrary loans for a county public library system -- for those of you familiar with ILL, I came in about a year before the transition from the telnet-style text-based OCLC system for doing everything to a web-based system, ILLiad. I never, ever, remember anything other than a patron's name entering the OCLC system for the lending library (the library which the book was coming from) to see.
As many ILLs as we did in a year, I don't see how a title and a name could set off a red flag at the offices of our good friends at DHS. If the story is in fact true, I'd be more inclined to believe that there was a larger reason behind the incident; whether that reason is valid or not, I have no idea.
ILL is a great service, by the way. If your local library offers it, consider looking into it. It's an invaluable research tool if you can wait 2-4 weeks for a book to arrive, and it costs you nothing.
You must be feeling ill, speaking such... malcontent.
:) 451 and 1984 great books... read "We" and "Brave New World" sometime :)
Remain where you are, a team of highly trained members of the Ministry of Truth have been dispatched to your location to rectify the issue of you believing in this "freedom" nonsense. The Party has seen to it that Bushism is the way, and will be given further terms. Conservatism is irrelevant, it is only one of our tools to help you see the Truth.
Your brothers in Truth,
~The Party
PS - Sounds like it wouldn't happen... heh. yeah right, we who are geeks and READ the words of our wiser ancestors, know better
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Wow, I didn't realize any of the Feds still cared about Commies any more.
The Maoists caused a LOT of trouble in the '60s and '70s - as did other anti-government factions.
The number of terrorist actions - bombings, riots, sabotage - in that era dwarfed anything on the domestic front in the current "war on terror" - with the exception of the single large hit on New York.
The "little red book" weilding mobs were very photogenic and very effective at taking over other groups. While it's not entirely clear how many (if any) of the bomings and the like they actually committed, they got credit for much of them.
There's definitely a major major threat that college students reading Mao's Red Book are going to go out and start peasant revolutions [...]
A thing to remember about communist revolutionaries in the US (and most developed countries): Regardless of the rhetoric they're not farmers, or city kids who go out an organize farmers. They're primarily children of the affluent, with time on their hands and elitism in their minds. The memes of revolution are attractive to them, and they think they know what's good for "the workers" and that the workers are "unenlightened" (and - though unsaid - unintelligent) victims of "false consciousness".
So they don't waste time actually trying to organize "the pesants". Instead they go out and commit the violence all by themselves.
Fortunately they tend to blow themselves up, too, which limits their effectiveness.
Meanwhile, it does not surprise me in the slightest that the Department of Internal Security would consider the Little Red Book to be a little red spore. Each book would appear to them as a live-but-encysted instance of the violence-generating ideology that blew up schools and research institutions in the mid-century and killed tens of millions in China. A spore that's just waiting to sprout in the heads of another generation of college kids with money in their pockets and time on their hands.
Which is not to excuse them. But just to understand them. They're charged with stopping this stuff from getting far enough along to be blowing up buildings. Don't be surprised if they decide that keeping it from getting started at all is a safer and more effective way to do that than to wait until the latest clone of the Weather Underground is planting a bomb.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"If you can be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you can be told what to say or think." -Boards of Canada
Perhaps the fact that you're a professor and I wouldn't dream of being one has something to do with my interpretation of your events. Seems to me you failed to talk to the stewardess in a reasoning conversation when it would have done you the most good. You became aware the stewardess was interrogating you, but you didn't go far enough to explain your circumstances, nor explain the purpose of the Air Force material. If she had been a cop, you might have volunteered information to satisfy her curiosity and end the matter.
"making trips to the US, holding conferences and denouncing domestic politics."
The whole world (including foreign politicians) doesn't see any problem with ripping the US (Bush specifically) a new one over Kyoto and they don't confine such complaints to when they are outside our borders.
For that matter, there was plenty of international condemnation (mostly by non-politicans) over the execution of Tookie Williams last week (somehow missing the vastly higher rate of executions in Texas, BTW). I do believe I also recall a few Australian politicans telling Singapore how to conduct their domestic business a week and a half ago over a similar issue.
I don't mean to say much here other than things in this vein happen all the time, in all different directions. Which is a great reason not to get over excited when something like this happens (not referring to you, but the other poster).
I have to say that the situation you describe sounds similar to this current one between the US and Canada, although the US/Canada situation is somewhat less severe. So perhaps you would reach the same conclusion, that David Wilkins was expressing a preference for one political party by criticizing Paul Martin over his comments. I don't happen to agree, but it's not a black and white thing, I could see how someone would say it was the case. I would note though that the opposition parties in Canada seem to think it's very much a case of grandstanding.
As to my comments about the 70s, there is some evidence of CIA (US foreign intelligence agency) involvement in overturning the Whitlam government during the Australian constitutional crisis in the mid-70s. The evidence isn't strong, but the case, if true, is far more damning. (Perhaps this is common knowledge in Australia, I don't claim to be up on Australian politics.)
I can't say that I find the idea of politicians running on the idea of hating a foreign country/political figure very savory myself. Without invoking Godwin's law, I can just say it doesn't lead in a direction I'd like to see the world heading.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
A few years back on 9/11 a group of people with twisted interpretations of a certain book destroyed more than just a single plane, I am all for reading political and religious works, some works might require a broader perspective on life before reading them though, and any paranoid/protective government will try to control and monitor any such activity, don't forget that Mein Kampf is banned in most European countries.
At least they don't have to worry about anybody reading "Das Kapital" and believing Marxist economics - it's a really dull read and the economics are transparently bogus
Well, I thought so until RIAA lawsuits, IP lawsuits, patend sharking, and all that big brother staff, but after that I remebered some quotes:
"Property is a form of violence"
"The state is a band of armed people"
And retruning to the Little Red Book:
Political power grow out of the barrel of a gun
I can have a blind man run down by a car in two ways:
1. Get in the car, drive it over the blind man.
2. Not warn the blind man that the car is comming while leading him into traffic.
Fight Spammers!
I don't know about your crappy country, but here in Canada, our history books actually include bad stuff. We all learn about Louis Riel, the Korean War, the Holocaust and our role in successfully ignoring it, the FLQ crisis and how retardedly people reacted to it, etc. Most western nations are honest about their histories. America is the principal offender about rewriting history, at least among the nations that don't AGGRESSIVELY censor their media and literature.
Here in Europe (Finland, to be exact), we can just go to our local library to read Mao's book. No forms of requests are neccessary. The local library seems to have Hitler's Mein Kampf too. So, should we bash US for censorship or bash Finland for allowing evil dictators to preach their hatefull drivel ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
It's better transposed. If you think a bit about it (in a cause-effect way) you should instead say:
Peace is War - we're at war but most citizens live in peace, there has been war in peace since 1945 and it will never end because mostly it removes the necessity for largescale physical war
Slavery is Freedom - earning a living no matter to what degree prepoposes more or less voluntary slavery, to have freedom you must "enslave" yourself to the basic tenets of whatever society you live in (has always been the case but scales naturally along with population size and maximum density/average density)
Strength is ignorance - two parts; if you're strong (economic, military, or political might on a personal or national level) you have the ability to be more ignorant without overly adverse effects, and if you predominantly believe in strenght at the cost of other things you are increasingly likely to be ignorant (applies to both economic and military strenght as well as "the mob" of political wannabees at every level ranting for their "cause").
Not exactly what Orwell intended and thought about when writing 1984 but more descriptive and correct for the present situation than repeating Orwell.
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_ jeff.html
It's hard to keep yourself sane and rid of paranoia and seeing conspiracy theories everywhere, when this sort of news pop up at frequent intervals. I'm afraid to enter this country, which used to represent all the good. Now, the freedom can be found elsewhere. I wish I had an answer from which place to seek, but one thing is for sure, the USA is losing all resemblance to a democracy and values to free speech. The Congress' decision to continue with the Patriot act speaks for itself.
Now the fact that American history books as taught in our schools will only go into detail on the first two (non-American "bad guys") and gives only token treatment to slavery and usually don't mention the Native American genocide is an entirely different problem...
It's not a different problem, it exactly proves the point of the parent post you replied to: because in general americans believe they're doing good in the world and are a good country, exporting a good way of life, they can't do bad things, because... how can a good guy do bad things, right? You proved that the image americans have of themselves (being good guys) is flawed, with the example quoted above.
Resolves in: a mix of greys.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
An aspect of this case that I've not seen mentioned in the commentary is that the student in question was required to give his State Security Number (some form of American national ID code? Is it what you get put on your passports
Things may have changed since I was a student, but way back then, ILL was only available to registered students (FT or PT didn't matter), and the only ID that was needed was to write down the 16 digits of your matriculation number, sign the form, and pay the money (IIRC £2.50 - over two pints of beer worth!). After all, we all know the difficulty students have remembering 4-digit numbers like the "09:00" in the phrase "the lecture starts at 09:00", so the chances of one student knowing another student's matriculation number were
--
I am not a number! I am a Free Man!!
From 'The Collected Thoughts of No. 6'
(Before the Yanks knee-jerk : I do know what "SSN" means in American English - I'm deliberately misconstruing the acronym to reflect the changing use to which this UPI is being put.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Looks like the US government gave him some material for his paper about totalitarianism in his own country.
The fact that you weren't there probably has more to do with your interpretation of events. I was completely up front and honest about what I was doing to the flight attendant but I didn't see the need to bore her with details and she didn't ask about them. I'm not blaming her though -- I found the whole thing terribly disconcerting, and that certainly showed, and I can't say I was giving my best performance as a cooperative sheep. I was running on about 2 hours of sleep, a lot of caffeine, and I was also terribly annoyed by the whole situation; I tried to be on my best behavior but I was also fighting the urge to be confrontational. When I was ten years younger I probably would have made a stand, and that would have been worse. But in any case I don't think there was anything I could have done to make things turn out differently; even though they were reading over my shoulder none of these people seemed to really want to know what I had been reading. Even when the US Marshals interrogated me they pretty much glossed over when I talked about any details of my work (the quiet cop spent a good twenty or thirty minutes reading some of the article while I talked to the other cop, but I got the sense he was actually just looking at the pages and listening to the interrogation) and seemed far more interested in my body language and vocal intonation than in anything I actually had to say about it. I think the sad fact is, most people don't really care to think too much about such things and would rather cling to superficial opinions without further understanding of them.
Fake quote.
... will, if one didn't exist prior to the request, force the creation of the file itself.
IOW, anyone who requests their FBI file WILL HAVE A FILE.
With such little effort needed to start a file, we can be assured that our Prof. (from this thread) here most certainly does have a current file.
The core of Communism is a very old system of government, called slavery. When slavery and communism are implemented, citizens lose the right to own property, choose their occupation, and take public office. They become property of the State. Communism is just a modern way of selling this type of slavery to the people, who somehow imagine that it will be fairer than living under capitalism, a view that is based on a misunderstanding of both systems.
For more facts about communism, read the fascinating online Museum of Communism, which is a brilliant read, although rather dated in terms of presentation.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
i myself have taken pictures around my old office and a couple hours later homeland security came by looking for me.. not joking.. i asked my boss as well what kind of buisness the others companies in the building did.. he tried to assure me that noone did anything "of any security", i am led to believe by my experience that this is incorrect and someone had to have called DHS. Suspsicous man with beard taking pictures, yeah i was taking pictures of a '92 plymouth colt front end.. not even facing the building.. maybe this time its the company employees being paranoid.. but from direction they probably got from DHS on how to react to this sort of thing..
i have also had an aquaintance of mine be red flagged on a plane he flew on regurarly for buisness, pulled off and questioned for hours as a "terrorist", he's a a normal white kid.. kinda goofy.. likes electronic music.. farthest from a "terrorist" that i can imagine.. of course when he demanded to talk to someone, and demanded that it was not fair and that he had rights.. they remided him of the Patriot Act, in which he as a suspected terrorist has no rights at all..
anyone want to join me on a small island with some generators? this is all getting way out of hand.
I think Jesus advocated forms of communism. Granted, just the basics, nothing on the economics. So, yeah...I'm thinking Jesus would make a pretty good communist leader.
What I would find hilarious, is if Jesus comes back and his paradise on earth is communism. Man, the republicans would kill him again. And they'd probably wait by the cave this time to kill him yet again.
Capitalism is based on egoism which is an evil trait.
Communism is based on sharing which is an good trait.
In reality things are never as black and white as "capitalism/communism is evil/good". That's retarded and unintellectual thinking. Both systems has pros and cons. One important thing is that many people think capitalism represents democracy and freedom. That is totally wrong. Capitalistic dictatorships has existed and exist still today, the modern China is an example. Capitalism only describes the economical model. It represents economical freedom and corporate power. Capitalism only moves power from the state to the corporations.
Capitalism is a good way to get results since it is a competition between corporations. The problem is that the workers and the environment are harmed by the competition. And if we compare the "crimes of capitalism" with the "crimes of communism" the difference is that capitalism mostly harm people in foreign nations while communism harms people in the own nation. Capitalism is the only reason US foreign policy has done so much harm. It's all about corporate greed.
The problem with communism is that most people only care about themselves. Because of that true communism can't exist. But if you take a look at the definition of communism both China and the USSR was very far from communism. If we take a look at USSR the real communists (the jewish communists and Trotsky) called Stalin a non-communist (and they where executed). The mass murders in USSR was not caused by communism it was caused by dictatorship. The use of Communism was only a way to gain power and fool the people.
Nations like Norway and Sweden are more communistic. And if you take a look at the OECD-charts you will see that both Sweden and Norway are above the capitalistic USA.
The way the US handles a student reading about communism only shows that the US itself is turning more and more towards a totalitarian state.
A quote of truth:
"The greatest crime since World War II has been US foreign policy" - Ramsey Clark
Americans please wake up!
it's just "a few bad apples". USA rules. USA! USA! USA! I love being fucked in the ass by the USA. It's Freedom (TM).
One can work with ideas, and in that sense be educated, without adopting a Socratic attitude. As evidence for this, consider that the Soviet world was well enough educated in its day; ideas that would tend to undercut the legitimacy of the state were marked off limits, and this line was seldom crossed.
there ya go, said it before, will say it again. Somalia. Complete freedom, no government. As much liberty as you want. Carry any guns you want in Somalia, buy any you want, and you got to be brave because everybody else can do too. There's the country for you. Any questions?
;-)
Only problem is all these 'rights' you are going on about. Sounds like you might need a government to uphold them
Somalia is clan based, protection of aggrieved parties partly comes from that - bad news if you are from a weak clan or have no clan apparently (I welcome more information, I am just reading up a lot on Somalia at the moment to find out what happens in a country with no government).
I am a librarian. If this story is true, I am very concerned about how the Dept. of Homeland Security obtained a library patron's records. It is a violation of principle III of the American Library Association Code of Ethics to provide a library patron's records to anyone without the patron's consent. If the story is true, I would like to see the American Library Association take disciplinary action against librarians responsible for the release of these records.
You could give the pilot papercuts on his eyes! On his eyes!
Or, for the less psychotic approach, papercut his fingers and salt the controls.
I think I know why your bullshit detector went off and the cause points to your biased "research". Perhaps your detector wouldn't go off if you weren't in the room.
& sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&o e=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:off icial
Okay, so you're a slashdot reader and you have a wife... while this in itself is hard to believe I'll go along with your story. The rest is just hogwash. If you do have a wife, you really ought to stop listening to her and start thinking for yourself instead of using her as your badge of authority.
This simple googling came up with some 112,000 hits of info on the Peking printings and direct contradiction to your bad data:
keywords: mao peking version
http://www.google.com/search?q=mao+peking+version
Results 1 - 30 of about 112,000
including this academic background on the Peking Text:
http://www.bibsocamer.org/BibSite/Han/
Prior to the October 1949 founding of the People's Republic of China there were five editions of Mao Tse-Tung's Selected Writings published in various "Liberated Area" locations around China between 1944 and 1948, their texts taken from newspaper articles and oral transcriptions but apparently none sanctioned by its author. These were filled with misprints, errors and omissions, often excluding important articles entirely and including texts by other writers incorrectly attributed to Mao. Thus, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party decided a new edition of Mao's Selected Works was needed, so following the liberation of Peking in February 1949 a committee was formed to prepare and organize an authoritative version. The text selections were made in consultation with its author and Mao also agreed to proofread everything and organize additional notes with explanations. It was produced by The People's Publishing House (Peking) and arranged in chronological sections to coincide with periods of modern Chinese history: the first revolutionary civil war (1924-1927) and second revolutionary civil war (1927-1937) [Volume One], the war of resistance against Japan (1937-1945) [Volumes Two and Three], and the third revolutionary civil war (1945-1949) against the Nationalists [Volume Four]. The first volume was printed in October 1951 to coincide with the second anniversary founding of the PRC and its additional three parts were published over the next nine years. This became the source for selecting texts used in creating the "Little Red Book", and for that reason we include proper bibliographical citations:
Anyway, I actually bought a copy of it in the 60's (or was it the 70's?) and was not too impressed. I probably still have a copy somewhere...
Duh!
It's online, of course! And just as boring now as it was 30 years ago. Really, a world-class snoozer.
I18N == Intergalacticization
This kid was a senior at a university. Barring some Doogie Howser-esque crap, he's 20 or 21. He's an adult. If you're seriously suggesting that somebody over the age of majority not be allowed to read something because they "require a broader perspective on life"... well, where does it stop? 25? 40? Retired people only? Government officials only?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Which, of course, just gave them more time to stop people just exceeding the no-wake speeds, or other rather less dangerous crimes. (At least, compared to piloting about a 40 something foot, several ton vehicle.)
Democratic People's Republic of Korea sound familiar to you?
... Political groups hate competition, similar/dissimilar beliefs don't change that.
Sure, I understand the point you attempt but you are overlooking something. He actually practiced some socialism, government control and orgranization of industry. Industrialists were tolerated due to their short term necessity. There was a generous safety net, well for those citizens deemed genetically worthy. In short you confuse the initial short term behaviour with the longer term 1,000 year plan. It's that plan which makes the term socialist applicable.
Fascists HATE communists.
Communists war against eachother, socialists war against eachother,
Whether it was the TSA inspector or a baggage handler isn't the point. The TSA requires that all checked luggage be able to be opened, and they are responsible for overseeing baggage handling security. The fact that they are failing to do their job means that security for passengers is now worse than it was before, because objects can now be introduced into your luggage. This could be a major problem if you were traveling to Malaysia and someone wanted to try and use you to smuggle drugs. It would be bad enough to wind up in a US jail for a decade for a crime you didn't commit. And as I say, this is likely how the bomb was put on the 747 that exploded over Lockerbie.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The problem with the Three Lies is that they're too blantantly self-contradictory since the first two are defining opposites as equals, and they conteract Minitruth's goal of eliminating words from the language that allow dissidents to voice their complaints.
A more accurately chilling version of the Three Lies for today would be:
War is Just
Security is Freedom
Convinction is Strength
I think that that more accurately captures the thrust of what the Party would want to say as well as the attitudes that are damaging America right now. War is a good thing that brings us Peace through the pursuit of Justice world-wide. There is no freedom more important than freedom from criminals, foreigners, etc. that wish to do us harm, and all other freedoms may be sacrificed for this safety. Strength of purpose comes from unquestioning conviction in your beliefs, and those who would challenge them are enemies who are trying to weaken you.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It's Mickey Mao! http://www.hoopla.org/KenBrown/Notes/Humor/images/ N-120.jpg
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
Looked at as an individual issue, yes, worrying about communism seems silly right now. But combined with the loyalty oaths, and the concern for stem cell research, it's obvious the Bush Administrations true goal - the war against the Commie Mutant Traitors!
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
but never attribute to partisan malice what can be attributed to attention deficit disorder... my guess is the idiot mods just read your first 2 paragraphs and couldn't figure out how all this talk of Tibet and non-violence fit in the thread.
As far as your point is concerned, I'll say this:
I feel it's somewhat unbecoming, in a thread like this, to bring up the damage that the ideas in the book might have helped those indoctrinated by them to perpetrate. Not that you don't have a point there, but without any disclaimer on your part, it makes you sound like you're condoning SECRET LISTS OF BANNED BOOKS, WITH SECRET SERVICE AGENTS COMING TO CHECK UP ON YOU WHEN YOU CHECK THE LISTED BOOKS OUT. Because that's, you know, the TOPIC of this discussion, remember? And it is what happened.
Do you get my drift? The danger that may or may not be inherent in the Red Book's ideas ISN'T THE POINT RIGHT NOW. The point is, this is the United States of America. We love freedom. We DON'T ban books or tell people what to think, because freedom means the responsibility of thinking for yourself and not letting yourself be indoctrinated by every stupid tract you read. Therefore, we don't believe that citizens need a nanny state to protect them from "dangerous ideas". That's how we're different from Soviet-style totalitarian states, isn't it? And yet look at what's happening. And you're not worried? You think the thing worth posting about is that we should all remember how evil those guys were and what an important role the Red Book played in their being evil? Then when you get a less than flattering mod, you start frothing at the mouth imagining card-carrying Communists everywhere infiltrating the Slashdot moderation system. Oh you authentic patriot you, you brave freedom fighter!
I'm sorry man, but this is supposed to be the Land of the Free, and if you can't speak out for freedom in the face of an incident like the one we're discussing, you belong the fuck out of here, and faster than any Commie sympathizers. I sure don't like them, but the bigger threat to liberty, in this case, is you. This isn't the 50s; wake the fuck up. Open your eyes and at least _try_ to show a few real American values, other than your two-bit, knee-jerk anti-Communism.
There we go. That's the information missing from your write-up that makes it perfectly understandable to me. Their stupid attitudes plus you really not being at your best.
You realize you're quoting the "Peking Version" of the wrong book...?
The Little Red Book is, um, not the Selected Works of Mao. It's the abridged collection of the Selected Works.
I'm not sure what kind of stink you think I should have raised, or whom I should raise it with. No laws were violated. I was annoyed and felt somewhat threatened by people's behavior on the flight, but all I really lost was an hour and a half of work. On the return flight I lost the conference proceedings to the unnecessary search, for which I filled out the proper paperwork and received compensation from the airline. The US Marshals coming to my house was also annoying, but they didn't search my apartment, they didn't detain me (though I had to spend an hour or so at the coffeeshop with them), and they never seemed to regard me as any kind of threat. I was not happy with any of this, but I also don't think I went through anything worth suing anyone over or whining to the media about. It's a lesson in the contemporary paranoia that surrounds the war on terrorism, for sure, as well as in some of the pitfalls of racial profiling, but this is just not something to call the ACLU about. Frankly, there are many more significant abuses of the government surrounding the war on terrorism that such advocacy groups should be focusing their attention on. I suppose I could have sent my story to a more prominent blog like slashdot, but that's really about the only point you made that makes any sense to me.
I just listened yesterday to the C-SPAN coverage of SR1389, the Senate version of the bill to re-authorize the USAPATRIOT act.
Harry Reid, filibustering: "This bill contains no judicial oversight of section 215."
Arlen Specter in news conference after the failed cloture vote: "This bill is being misunderstood. Some have claimed that there is no judicial oversight over section 215. But there is."
John Sununu in news conference: "There is no effective judicial oversight over section 215."
Now, here's Section 215. Can you tell me what it means and whether there is or is not effective judicial oversight over section 215?!
I can't, and I have a college education and am used to reading hard things like philosophy and math texts. I can see that the bill allows for judicial review (Sections (e),(f))... but I have no idea whether the judicial review is "effective."
Honestly, even the most informed of us have no clue what is going on. I'm told by people close to the budget process that NO ONE SINGLE PERSON understands the U.S. budget. I don't know whether that's true, but ... wow.
So who do I vote for? The people claiming they are trying to protect me from the terrorists? Or the people claiming they are trying to protect me from the people who are claiming they are trying to protect me from the terrorists?!
We've long since passed the point of accepting limits on our Constitutional rights in order to protect the public good (e.g., you can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater). But now, our laws have become so chaotic that we don't know which rights we have, which ones we have unless we are criminals, and which people are classified as criminals. We are so incredibly unknowledgeable about what our laws actually mean, that are completely depedent on news sources to distill legislative actions for us. We might as well just let the newspapers vote, and forget about voting ourselves. [/cynicalmode]
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
Sounds like your really did lose more than a half-hour of work -- sense of security, hour and a half of work, missed the proceedings, the DHS at your house, another hour at the coffee shop and loss of happiness... and all that after just one trip. Can't wait to hear what happens on the next one. Maybe they'll detain you for a day or two since you're on "the list" now :D
;)
I'm joking, I'm joking
In all seriousness, I wasn't really implying that you didn't do enough. I was merely trying to explain what the grandparent's sarcasm was trying to communicate.
forget college retard, high school and middle school teachers have to sign something like that.
When do you think children are more vulnerable, in middle school or college?
26.2% californians (2000 census) are foreign born (not born in USA),
that's 11.1% of the foreign born US population, and %6.2 are illegal aliens.
You can count all those as vehemently NOT communist.
Pretty much most of california is vehemently NOT communist, save for a few locales like Berkeley, San Francisoco.
Read down the article link and they show that it is the book that later was popularized with the red cover.
If you read the article, it only referenced The Little Red Book, not Selected Works.
From the article:
The Little Red Book, is a collection of quotations and speech excerpts from Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung.
Sounds like the same book mentioned in the link. Perhaps your Google search didn't work since you were looking for the wrong title.
"reading "Das Kapital" and believing Marxist economics - [it's a really dull read] and the economics are transparently bogus"
Not entirely true...at the time it was published, Marx' view was valid prediction. It is only time which has shown Marx to be false, as the downward trend he predicted doesn't seem to happen in the manner he said.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff, December 24, 2005
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/artic
The most predictable thing about this story was that it would be exposed as a hoax because of all the nonsense and contradictions in it.
Now the student, whose anonymous allegations were the only evidence of the whole matter, has recanted.
I pitched this as another story and it was rejected. Maybe it will show up from another author, or maybe the editors prefer the story to be true.
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-24-0 5/a01lo719.htm
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-24-0 5/a01lo719.htm
:)
Sorry to ruin it for some of you conspiracy nuts.
The Southcoast Today, which printed the story, now states thatthe student admitted it never happened. His professors became skeptical when his story changed too often, and then learned his parents didn't know the part of it where they signed papers.
http://progressive.org/mag_mc122605
0 5/a01lo719.htm
The UMass Dartmouth student who alleged that Homeland Security had questioned him over his library request for Mao's "Little Red Book" has now come clean. "The student confessed that he had made it up after being confronted by the professor who had repeated the story to a Standard-Times reporter," Jonathan Saltzman of the Boston Globe reported. Professor Brian Glyn Williams told the Globe that when he questioned the student about inconsistencies in his story, the student replied: "I made it up. I'm sorry. . . . I'm so relieved that it's over."
A much more detailed account is here:
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-24-
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
Boston Globe is reporting:
l es/2005/12/24/students_tall_tale_revealed/
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/artic
"It rocketed across the Internet a week ago, a startling newspaper report that agents from the US Department of Homeland Security had visited a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth at his New Bedford home simply because he had tried to borrow Mao Tse-Tung's ''Little Red Book" for a history seminar on totalitarian goverments."
Or someone with no political sense: happy, healthy, well-fed people with a secure future just don't go around blowing themselves or other poeple up.
The only model that seems to have worked well was the middle path between capitalism and socialism as used by the Nordic countries during the 20th century, go look up how well Sweden, for example, was doing during the years it pursued the middle path. Somethings do better in the free market other things do better with oversight, by taking a middle path, the best of both models can be used. All-or-nothing models rarely work and in the cases of pursuing a purely socialist model or a purely capitalist model, they fail big time as we have seen.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.