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UK Bookstores Found Selling Banned US Bomb-Making Handbooks (engadget.com)

Three major online retailers in the UK have been listing a number of bomb-making manuals on their websites. Engadget adds:These books were originally made back in the 1960s for US military personnel and include titles like Improvised Munitions Handbook, Boobytraps, and Explosives and Demolitions. But since the end of the Vietnam War, these books have become popular resources for terrorists of all stripes. Thomas Mair, the man who assassinated Labour MP Jo Cox, reportedly owned a copy of Improvised Munitions, for example. The surfacing of these books for sale on the WH Smith, Amazon UK and Waterstones websites, has at least one of the companies scrambling to scrub the listings. WH Smith shut down its entire website for more than four hours on Thursday to eliminate the offending material, however it appears they are still available on Amazon and Waterstones.

4 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, because banning books totally works. by Mal-2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Isn't it nice that banning books makes all the content in them inaccessible? There is no international network to carry such data from outside your borders, there is no way anyone could scan and burn existing copies, and no way anyone could buy a copy outside the country and ship it in or bring it home. Good thinking UK, I'm sure this will turn out really well!

    --
    How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
  2. And? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nothing makes me want to learn more about something than having someone tell me I can't be trusted with knowledge.

  3. Thomas Mair by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 5, Informative

    Thomas Mair, the man who assassinated Labour MP Jo Cox, reportedly owned a copy of Improvised Munitions, for example

    So what? He shot and stabbed her, no improvised munitions were involved. If we're going to start banning books, I'm willing to bet he owned a copy of the Bible as well...

    --
    "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
  4. Re:Bookburning socialists by david_thornley · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd bet that there are places with certain freedoms, like the freedom to not have a SWAT team break into my house at night and shoot my dogs and terrify my family and break my stuff because somebody else wanted to play a prank. How about the freedom to fly without worrying if someone with my name (at least it's not a common one) is on a secret government list somewhere? How about the freedom to not be shot dead if some police officer panics? The US isn't as free as some people think.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes