Agents' visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior

[IndianaGreen]

Agents' visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior

By AARON NICODEMUS, Standard-Times staff writer

NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."

Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

The professors said 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.

"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."

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-17-05/a09lo650.htm

[Punkingal]

1. Good grief!!!!

This is absurd.

[KamaAina]

2. Less than two weeks 'til sunset

of the odious, patently unconstitutional provisions of the "Patriot" Act that gave DHS the "authority" to conduct this kind of a Gestapo raid in the first place. Thank you, Sens. Feingold and (gulp) Craig; here's hoping Cat Killer Frist doesn't get away with some kind of an end run.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[wtmusic]

3. It will get extended

and likely will get renewed; hopefully watered down enough to prevent these criminal invasions of privacy from occurring.

[adarling]

4. It is the gestapo

we are becoming what we hate. This is so damn scary

[Miss Chybil]

5. Now, I'm sure terrorists spend a lot of time at the library leaving

their names, addresseses, phone numbers, and social security numbers to read books on communism. So. what are they saying? Are terrorists out to promote communist ideology now, too? I thought they just wanted to kill infidels. God, this is getting so confusing!

Maybe, I should work my way from the beginning. I know there were some guys who threw some tea off a boat and George Washington cut down a cherry tree... There was the liberty, or death thing. Something about truth, justice and the American way - or, was that from a cartoon? We got the one nation under God, land of the free, home of the brave... I cannot tell a lie. Freedom of the press and speech, belief and assembly.... Nah, I'm getting lost again.

[CoffeeCat]

6. I wonder what would happen if someone...

...asked to check out a first-edition copy of "My Pet Goat?"

After all, reading this book causes extreme stupidity and renders a person catatonic and
incapable of behaving accordingly during a national crisis.

One would think that this book would surely trigger some sort of four-alarm investigation
pointed at anyone who dares to read this book.

History shows that "My Pet Goat" is just as dangerous as "The Little Red Book."

[Rich Hunt]

7. the DHS is monitoring interlibrary loans...

How is this technically possible?

[newscott]

8. I think a lot of inter library loans are done electronically

through third parties.

We have a system in SE MA called ABLE. As far as I know it's a database management firm that manages the flow of information between all the libraries signed up for it's service.

That must be where the NSA or whoever, is getting the info. Not necessarily directly from campus libraries.

[Ruby Romaine]

9. Interlibrary Loan Monitoring Story Smelling Fishy

There is now another version of this story about a Dartmouth student who received a visit from Homeland Security after requesting an original version of Mao's Little Red Book. The latest version takes place at University of California/Santa Cruz and mentions History Professor Bruce Levine. I emailed Levine to see if he could verify the story, but my email was the first he'd heard about it. He was a bit amused, as his specialty is Civil War history, and curious about his name got tacked on to the story. ALA's Public Information Office is digging into the story as well. More details as they become available!

http://www.lisnews.com/