Student Gets Homeland Security Visit After Checking Out Book By Mao --

[chookie]

" 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

What -- you can't STUDY communism? You can't STUDY terrorism? DHS thinks Mao is dangerous?

THIS sort of thing is what the secret spying has been all about, I conjecture.

[Porcupine]

1. Dupe-posted earlier. twice already. GD and LBN

.

[newswolf56]

4. This is a story so damning it cannot be reported too often:

please therefore provide links so the postings can be cross-referenced.

[SkiGuy]

5. Links here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5637348

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5634918

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5639117

[newswolf56]

7. Thank you!

[newswolf56]

2. From the perspective of capitalism -- for which Bush is the ultimate...

achievement -- Communism is THE greatest danger: especially now that Bush has peeled away the velvet slipper of "compassionate conservatism" to reveal the fascist jackboot beneath; especially now that outsourcing, downsizing, pension-looting, wage-reduction, methodical destruction of the social safety net, re-introduction of indentured servitude disguised as "bankruptcy reform," skyrocketing prices and unprecedented concentration of wealth all show that capitalism is as savage as ever; especially now that the aftermath of Katrina shows us what all America will look like tomorrow -- especially now that all this proves Marx is even more relevant today than in 1917.

Expect much more such oppression from the Bush Administration, and many times worse.

The modern-day Sicherheitsdeinst are everywhere, and I will guarantee that not only is Democratic Underground under constant surveillance, but if you so much ask for a book on Marxism -- not to mention actually buy such a book -- you'll be placed on a watch list accordingly. And remember Trotsky's maxim: "in any gathering of radicals, one in every three is an agent of the Okhrana" -- the Czar's secret police.

Welcome to the Fourth Reich. The domestic spying disclosures are indeed a wakeup-call -- but thanks to The New York Times' unforgivably traitorous decision to collaborate with the fascists and suppress the story for at least a year, America overslept -- and (just as this terrifying Red Book story proves), it is now far too late. I say again: welcome to the Fourth Reich.

[RagingInMiami]

3. I urge all liberals to buy guns

Seriously. It won't be long till we're being carted off to concentration camps.

[SkiGuy]

6. This NEEDS to be a national story!

I called a local (RI/SEMAss) radio talkshow host. She (Arlene Violet) said she was going to air it. What else should I do to get this out there? I am a little concerned with invading the student's privacy though. But this is an example of how the Patriot Act affects us all.

[cantstandbush]

9. You bet it does. Send it to all MSM outlets. This is what domestic

spying means. It won't be long before they will be burning most thought-proving books. Oh, I forgot, most Americans don't read such trash. Who wants to be provoked to thinking?

[0rganism]

8. "I tell my students to go to the direct source"

Research on totalitarianism just don't get much more direct than a visit from Uncle Sam's Spook Patrol, courtesy of the inter-library loan program. Professor Pontbriand should be commended for facilitating this rare instance of "lab" activity in a college polisci class.