Just a quick pointer to this jawdropping news story about a college student in the USA who was visited – actually visited – by agents from the Department of Homeland Security, for requesting Mao’s Little Red Book on interlibrary loan.
The unnamed student is a senior at the University of Massachussetts, and he requested the book for an assignment on communism for a History class, according to the press report. (There is a second level of interest in the fact that the article takes care to mention this ‘legitimate’ academic reason for interest in a particular book, presumably more fundamental freedoms aren’t important enough to be worth defending.) It seems the story came out because the student’s professor was asked for comment on this National Security Agency business.
If you think this is a trival case of over-zealous bureaucracy with no real consequences, consider that one of the professors involved is reconsidering teaching a planned course on terrorism because of the possible effect of government monitoring and data collection on his students.
Sheesh! Luckily US librarians are so vocal and active in defending freedom of speech!
The for-all-that-we-know-possibly-very powerful forces of American Maoism must be a big concern for the US Dept of Homeland security.
It’s really scary just how the citizens (or should I say sheep?) of the US and Australia (both state and federal) are allowing their freedoms to be eroded.
What’s more disturbing to me is that a library in a university that teaches the history of the twentieth century doesn’t have a copy. I thought the University of Massachussetts was one of the big impressive ones?
Reminds me to avoid writing any papers on terrorism in my future academic career. Really quite absurd stuff.
And thirty or fourty years late? Err… the cold war is over guys.
C’mon Sacha
Everyone knows by now that the Maoists are in cahoots with the Mohammadeans. They’re joining forces to undermine civilisation, then they’ll divide up the spoils between the two of them. Flick of a coin which half Australia will end up in.
First they take Manhattan, then they take Berlin …
Consider Mao’s rotten views on the place of women!
That’s sooooo twentieth-century.
When I was in high school I read the The Communist Manifesto. ASIO, got that? I’m not a marxist though. Okay, I’m a little bit of a marxist.
What was really astonishing was that The Communist Manifesto was stocked in my high school library, where any radical young country yoof could have stumbled upon it.
Pity, Kate, the yoofs might have learnt something about globalisation. I shall be subversive and seditious and link to the text of the manifesto. Is Dr Nelson aware that it’s publically available via the ANU Website????
It shows how powerful fear is. I suspect that the general milieau of fear is becoming weaker and that its power will be much diminished in a few years time.
I actually used to go to the library to stay away from the yoofs, but that’s another story.
That’s optimistic, Sacha.
Does anyone know how much our library borrowings are monitored by the government?
What about book sales in general?
I don’t know, but you’d assume, Kate, that the information would be protected – and that they’d need a warrant to get it. Be interesting if anyone could clarify.
I’m optimistic by nature – but I just think that people adapt to a situation and aren’t as fearful as they were a few years ago. But I could be completely wrong.
Lucky that this sort of thing wasn’t happening 10 years ago – or I might have been visited by some friendly agents of the state asking “What exactly is the Labour Victory Front – and what is the eight-legged essay?”
Since we’re on the subject of the Little Red Book, some sage advice for us blog commenters:
Dont forget that a similar event has already occured in Melbourne. An honours student at Monash who was borrowing and buying books from a reading list received a late night visit from ASIO.
The library has denied that it keeps a record of student borrowings, saying that they are destroyed or erased, however, in my experience talking to the library staff, they do have at least a general record of each students activity (or mine at least).
I think that the more likely source of that lead was the decision of the student to purchase some of the harder to find books from an online bookstore, making it an international transaction, and perhaps alerting US authorities.
As a Librarian I know that some sort of borrowing records are kept. That is not the issue. The issue is how do the spooks know what the students borrow? Hundreds of books are borrowed every day, they have must requested that the library gave that information which raises serious implications for University Libraries everywhere.
I just did a keyword search using the terms Islam and terrorism…returned 138 items….oh dear!
I thought the same as you Chairman Liam about it being strange that the book wasn’t apparently in the library already. The article says the student wanted the “offical Peking version”. Ok, but even so, you’d think most big research libraries would have the LRB.
Anyway. The book in question was ordered through interlibrary loan, for which very detailed records are kept, I understand, so they know who’s responsible for books that belong to other libraries.
This story reminds me of the bit in Se7en where poor dear Brad Pitt has to try to figure out the unknown serial killer’s M.O. by attempting to get his head round Dante’s Inferno, even Cliff’s Notes doesn’t help, but in the end the specific content of the book turned out to be irrelevant, all they had to do was figure out who’d borrowed the book from the city library.
And yeah. Tim Dunlop’s post today on the ‘national security agency’ bizzo asks what kinds of information the Bush DHS wants to gather on US citizens that’s so crazy that even the normal courts wouldn’t allow it. I reckon this is the kind of thing we’ll be hearing more of.
It seems the guy never got to borrow the book in the end, either.
*Cliff prudently clears his bookcase of all literature bar “The Road to Serfdom”*
Ironic thing is that it’s getting to the point where anyone in China would be under suspicion for borrowing the book
Very scary stuff – I’m surprised that Mao’s Little Red Book attracted this attention. Didn’t Maoism cease to be a threat many years ago?
Are Americans to be restricted to reading only whats on the George W Bush approved reading list? (It would be interesting to speculate what might be on this).
I note that the student is un-named in the press reports – wonder if he might have had an Arab sounding name and hence was subject to a bit of the old racial profiling in being picked out?
speaking of sage advice, ‘Chairman’ Liam, you forget your place – all hail our true leader! We await your supreme directives! May I humbly suggest the title, ‘Little Purple Coffee Table Book’
What is the big deal about this story, didn’t you know the leader of the free world President Paranoia.
“Does anyone know how much our library borrowings are monitored by the government?”
Dunno, but a little bird told me the other day that one of the largest library groups in Melbourne are planning RFID tagging for all books and also for customers Library Cards… think of the posibilities…
Just visited dk’s picture of Comrade Mark
I love it! When can we buy the T-shirt? (PS does the T-shirt come with cake?)
The original newspaper story has been met with.. quite some skepticism.
No-one has been able to confirm this with the student involved, nor with the professors, and there are other holes in the stories – for instance, some of the details the student supposedly provided in order to request the ILL are actually things the library’s policies forbid it from collecting; also, the supposed source of the book isn’t a particularly likely place to it have come from
cf http://www.boingboing.net/2005/12/18/dhs_agents_visit_stu.html and the American Library Association’s mailing list at http://lp-web.ala.org:8000/guest/archives/ALACOUN/log0512/
Thanks for your input Zhasper, but the updates at BoingBoing (which you linked to) don’t seem to me to throw serious doubt on the main facts as reported in the original article. It appears that a hoax / imitation of the orignal story, transplanted to another institution, has been circulating on the internet, and that is the version which is unconfirmed. The book was requested through a different library too, it appears.
Anyone still thinking about this might be interested in reading this article in Inside Higher Education. The writer of this piece has clearly been back to the sources at UMass Dartmouth. The comments thread is worth a read too.
Indeed, the comments there don’t throw much doubt at all..
In fact, there’s a further post at http://www.boingboing.net/2005/12/21/update_dhs_visits_st.html which basically confirms that most of the story has been independently verified…
Of course, this whole issue seems almost minuscule compared to some of the other dictatorial revelations that have been made this week..
(I was about to ask if you had a comments feed, but as I’ve seen the light^H^H^H^Hink I’ll just go click on that and subscribe now..)
It seems it was a hoax – which UMass Dartmouth has confirmed.
“Federal agents’ visit was a hoax
Student admits he lied about Mao book
By AARON NICODEMUS, Standard-Times staff writer
NEW BEDFORD — The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for “The Little Red Book” by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story.
The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account.
Had the student stuck to his original story, it might never have been proved false.
But on Thursday, when the student told his tale in the office of UMass Dartmouth professor Dr. Robert Pontbriand to Dr. Williams, Dr. Pontbriand, university spokesman John Hoey and The Standard-Times, the student added new details.
The agents had returned, the student said, just last night. The two agents, the student, his parents and the student’s uncle all signed confidentiality agreements, he claimed, to put an end to the matter.
But when Dr. Williams went to the student’s home yesterday and relayed that part of the story to his parents, it was the first time they had heard it. The story began to unravel, and the student, faced with the truth, broke down and cried.
It was a dramatic turnaround from the day before.
For more than an hour on Thursday, he spoke of two visits from Homeland Security over his inter-library loan request for the 1965, Peking Press version of “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung,” which is the book’s official title.
His basic tale remained the same: The book was on a government watch list, and his loan request had triggered a visit from an agent who was seeking to “tame” reading of particular books. He said he saw a long list of such books.
In the days after its initial reporting on Dec. 17 in The Standard-Times, the story had become an international phenomenon on the Internet. Media outlets from around the world were requesting interviews with the students, and a number of reporters had been asking UMass Dartmouth students and professors for information.
The story’s release came at a perfect storm in the news cycle. Only a day before, The New York Times had reported that President Bush had allowed the National Security Agency to conduct wiretaps on international phone calls from the United States without a warrant. The Patriot Act, created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to allow the government greater authority to monitor for possible terrorism activities, was up for re-authorization in Congress.
There was an increased sense among some Americans that the U.S. government was overstepping its bounds and trampling on civil liberties in order to thwart future attacks of terrorism. The story of a college student being questioned for requesting a 40-year old book on Communism fed right into that atmosphere.
In Thursday’s retelling of the story, the student added several new twists, ones that the professors and journalist had not heard before. The biggest new piece of information was an alleged second visit of Homeland Security agents the previous night, where two agents waited in his living room for two hours with his parents and brother while he drove back from a retreat in western Massachusetts. He said he, the agents, his parents and his uncle all signed confidentiality agreements that the story would never be told.
He revealed the agents’ names: one was Nicolai Brushaev or Broshaev, and the other was simply Agent Roberts. He said they were dressed in black suits with thin black ties, “just like the guys in Men in Black.”
He had dates and times and places, things he had signed and sent back in order to receive the book. The tale involved his twin brother, who allegedly requested the book for him at UMass Amherst; his uncle, a former FBI attorney who took care of all the paperwork; and his parents, who signed those confidentiality agreements.
But by now, the story had too many holes. Every time there was a fact to be had that would verify the story — providing a copy of the confidentiality agreements the student and agent signed, for example — there would be a convenient excuse. The uncle took all the documents home to Puerto Rico, he said.
What was the address of the Homeland Security building in Boston where he and his uncle visited the agency and actually received a copy of the book? It was a brick building, he said, but he couldn’t remember where it was, or what was around it.
He said he met a former professor at the mysterious Homeland Security building who had requested a book on bomb-making, along with two Ph.D. students and a one pursuing a master’s degree who had also been stopped from accessing books. The student couldn’t remember their names, but the former professor had appeared on the Bill O’Reilly show on Fox News recently, he said.
The former professor’s appearance on The O’Reilly Factor did not check out.
Other proof was sought.
Were there any copies of the inter-library loan request? No.
Did the agents leave their cards, or any paperwork at your home? No.
His brother, a student at Amherst, told Dr. Williams that he had never made the inter-library loan request on behalf of his brother.
While The Standard-Times had tape recorded the entire tale on Thursday, the reporter could not reach the student for comment after he admitted making up the story. Phone calls and a note on the door were not returned.
At the request of the two professors and the university, The Standard-Times has agreed to withhold his name.
During the whole episode, the professors said that while they wanted to protect the student from the media that were flooding their voice mails and e-mail boxes seeking comment and information, they also wanted to know: Was the story true?
“I grew skeptical of this story, as did Bob, considering the ramifications,” Dr. Williams said yesterday. “I spent the last five days avoiding work, and the international media, and rest, trying to get names and dates and facts. My investigation eventually took me to his house, where I began to investigate family matters. I eventually found out the whole thing had been invented, and I’m happy to report that it’s safe to borrow books.”
Dr. Williams said he does not regret bringing the story to light, but that now the issue can be put to rest.
“I wasn’t involved in some partisan struggle to embarrass the Bush administration, I just wanted the truth,” he said.
Dr. Pontbriand said the entire episode has been “an incredible experience and exposure for something a student had said.” He said all along, his only desire had been to “get to the bottom of it and get the truth of the matter.”
“When it blew up into an international story, our only desire was to interview this student and get to the truth. We did not want from the outset to declare the student a liar, but we wanted to check out his story,” he said. “It was a disastrous thing for him to do. He needs attention, he needs care. I feel for the kid. We have great concern for this student’s health and welfare.”
Mr. Hoey, the university spokesman, said the university had been unable to substantiate any of the facts of the story since it first was reported in The Standard-Times on Dec. 17.
As to any possible repercussions against the student, Mr. Hoey said, “We consider this to be an issue to be handled faculty member to student. We wouldn’t discuss publicly any other action. Student discipline is a private matter.”
Dr. Williams said the whole affair has had one bright point: The question of whether it is safe for students to do research has been answered.
“I can now tell my students that it is safe to do research without being monitored,” he said. “With that hanging in the air like before, I couldn’t say that to them.”
The student’s motivation remains a mystery, but in the interview on Thursday, he provided a glimpse.
“When I came back, like wow, there’s this circus coming on. I saw my cell phone, and I see like, wow, I have something like 75 messages and like something like 87 missed calls,” he said. “Wow, I was popular. I usually get one or probably two a week and that’s about it, and I usually pick them up.”
Contact Aaron Nicodemus at anicodemus@s-t.com“
Same sotry as Geoff posted, different paper:
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-24-05/a01lo719.htm
In retrospect, the thing was an obvious beat-up. Why would two agents from Homeland security contact this particular student about an interlibrary loan of Mao’s Thoughts? Mao’s Thoughts? What could possibly be the ‘security’ connection here? Why have there been no similar reports about Homeland security contacts with other students over interlibrary loans? If the Little Red Book is enough to engender Homeland security concern, there must be thousands of other interlibrary loans inspiring similar interest, every day. So how many agents would you need to hire to monitor this on an ongoing basis?
When I first read about this, my assumption was that Homeland security had spoken to the student about something else and he’d misrepresented it. When there was no follow-up anywhere other than the internet – i.e the press didn’t pursue it at all – it looked even more suss.
I feel sorry for the journo who wrote the initial story. I hope he doesn’t lose his job over this.
Dumb kid!
Somewhere amongst the American Library Association mailing list posting that Zhasper linked to was a message from one Mark Rosenzweig with a list of reasons why Maoist organisations in some countries are regarded as terrorists by the US government. That made sense to me at the time.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say this was obviously a beat-up but with hindsight it is peculiar. The trouble is so many things happen in Bush’s America that beggar belief in some way…
I doubt that the journo will lose his job, Laura. Too many people were prepared to OK the story on it’s face value and as you say, so many things happen in Bush’s America…………
It does, however, point to the need for a healthy informed scepticism as the filtering portal for all nascent political “sensations.
Being incredibly wise in retrospect, this story is now quite obviously crap, to me. All I need to work out
now is how “retrospect” becomes the front end………
I wouldn’t be too sympathetic for the journo – if they don’t fact check properly…
It’s easy to say that in hindsight though. I, too, thought the story sounded quite feasible at first – as Laura said, it’s not really much of a stretch from things we *do* know are happening over there.
As for fact checking though… the poor journo had two professors who were certain it had happened, as well as the kid involved… aside from digging through trash from the DHS hoping to find an unshredded document or something like that it’s hard to think what further checking could be done..
And Geoff – if you figure out how to fix retrospection, I want to know the secret as well
Hmm, from the last few comments it seems that having fallen for one almighty “Come in Spinner” commenters are now clutching at the straw of denial?
Read back through the comments, Hahaha…. what a game of soggy sao you played with yourselves in this thread!
Your shout, mate!
Forget “hindsight” – this story was absolutely implausible at first sight. Completely unbelievable and obviously fake.
Yet we have university professors, professional journalists, and literally hundreds of left wing pundits, including the original poster and commenters on LP, all too willing to beilieve it instantly. Why am I not surprised?
Sorry folks – this says a lot more about you than anything it shows us about the present US and Australian governments and their security policies.
TFK