Librarians turned snitch?

[Moonliner]

Welcome to Bush's America. The NSA can spy on you without a warrent of any kind and just checking out a book from your college library is enough to get the trench coat thugs knocking on your door. I hope all your papers are in order.

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."....

[€uroMeinke]

Good thing I own my own copy...

[Betty]

The line has clearly been crossed. When will the police be coming to visit you for the thought crimes you have committed?

Un-f-ing-believable... well not really. With Bush around, it's not even really surprising. Somehow though - I didn't think it would ever really come to this.

Just how long are going to sit around and let this sort of crap happen? Until it actually involves each one of us?

[Not Afraid]

OK. Who is responsible for McCarthy's reincarnation?

[wendybeth]

Gee, I haven't even seen too many conservatives defending Bush on this one- think the Peter Principle may be in effect, finally?

We live in very weird times.

[scaeagles]

I will not defend Bush on this. Not in the least. However, I will also hold dems responsible. I firmly believe the reports of the White House saying that many, many senators were aware of this - I don't know if it was some sort of committee thing or what.

Personally, the timing of the release of this info is politics. Should we be made aware that this is happening? Absolutely. But if the various members of the senate knew it, why is it just coming out now? I would think this info would come out immediately so that it would stop. It was released at this time to overshadow the Iraqi election.

Now, politics is fine. It's a dirty business. But why not get the info out immediately? If it's been going on for years, those who knew and said nothing are complicit.

I also, however, do firmly believe this has been going on much longer. I believe that most, if not every communication over wire via radio communication has been monitored by computer and with certain keywords flagged for review later by analysts.

Does this make it right? No. Is it new? Hardly.

[wendybeth]

So, the Dems- who have virtually no power in this administration- are also at fault on this? I'll wait until the minutes from the meeting are released before I'll blame them for not reporting on it sooner. This could have been released at any time and accusations of political motivation would still happen, so I don't believe timing has jack to do with anything. It also doesn't make what King George has done any more legitimate. Saying the Dems are responsible because they may have known is a bit of a stretch- as we all know, and Bush has said himself, the President has the ultimate authority to do whatever the hell he wants.

[Alex]

Attempts at monitoring library usage are a very long tradition in this country. While I certainly don't condone it at all, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that whatever triggered this monitoring is a program that started under Bush.

It should, however, be opposed at every opportunity.

[Alex]

As an example of older (and perhaps suspended, though triggering a visit off of communist books seems so 1980s) program, I recommend reading Surveillance in the Stacks, which is about the FBI's Library Awareness Program.

Here is a historical recap of the national security argument for reading habit surveillance. And here is a page at the American Library Association web site that compiles information on this topic.

I want to be clear that I am not bringing up all these other examples in an effort to dilute this incident but rather to show that it is a long-standing issue and that usually only creeps into the pubilc conscience with specific incidents and then quickly fades.

Here (facetiously) is the horrifying thing for me, that an academic library system as good as Dartmouth's wouldn't have a Chinese copy of the book on site and the student needed to use ILL to get a hold of it.

[Prudence]

Here's the part that worries me: "They brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student, the professors said." Is that because the student no longer wanted it? Or because Homeland Security agents decided he shouldn't be allowed to use it?