BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Mar 03 - 12:49 AM

lepreconning? Not sure I understand what you mean? :->

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: leprechaun
Date: 21 Mar 03 - 12:15 AM

Katguffawing - That lady isn't a heroin. In this case, she's a methamphetamine. And it appears the Colorado Supreme Court is as full of shit as the Oregon Supreme Court, and the ninth Circuit Court.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: DougR
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 01:55 AM

True, Dave, true.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 10:20 AM

If the FBI really wants to find out the views of most 'catters, they'd find it easiest to surf the forum.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 07:42 PM

I don't remember much about it, but I recently read an Associate Press story on a bookstore in (I think) Boston which trashed all of its "who bought it" records so that the FBI couldn't get the info. Now they will keep such information ONLY if the customer asks that it be kept. Most bookstores (all that I know of) don't care who bought what.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 06:19 PM

Oops, yes, I slipped, doing a passing parody of a mike myers "babes of all time" bit. Thanks Don.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 04:43 PM

So far booksellers are safe, due to the heroic stand of Joyce Meskis, owner of the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver. You can read an article about the court finding in her favour for refusing to hand over records when police handed her a search warrant by clicking here. Also, if you put the bookstore name in google, you will see her website, plus another one, I think it is IOBA's site, whcih has an extensive interview with her. She is truly a hero(ine) of the First Amendment.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 04:03 PM

In theory, yes. That's what the law says. But although most of the bookstores I shop in keep records of what they've sold for purposes of knowing what, when, and how many to re-order, they don't keep records of who bought what. You pick up the book you want off the shelf, take it to the cash register, hand the clerk your money, they put it in a bag, you thank each other, and you walk out. Unless you shop with a credit card or pay by check, there is no reason for you to give your name. Some of them don't even know the names of their regular customers. If you special-order something, they might ask for you name, address, and phone number so they can notify you when your order comes in, but after the transaction, there's no point in their keeping any record of it.

I don't see how the FBI can enforce this without putting a huge record-keeping burden on bookstores. Most of the bookstore owners and personnel that I'm acquainted with are very much into First Amendment (freedom of speech and of the press) issues and would dig their heels in. Attempts at this kind of snooping is bound to meet heavy resistance or outright civil disobedience. The same with libraries and librarians. My wife works in the Seattle Public Library and a good friend owns a bookstore, so I think I have a finger on the pulse.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 03:15 PM

Do bookshops have to give the FBI details of all their sales as well?

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 03:12 PM

"One ringy-dingy . . . Two ringy-dingies. . . ."

There. That's better.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 03:09 PM

More on Hedy:— If you're driven nuts by people around you and their damned cell phones, blame it on Hedy. She wasn't just a sex-pot. < a href= http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/didyouknow.1.html>"One ringy-dingy . . . Two ringy-dingies. . . ."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 03:01 PM

Thread-drifty nit-pick:— Silent film babe? Babe, yes, but Hedy Lamarr (b. Nov. 9, 1913, d. Jan. 19, 2000) was considerably after the "talkies" came in. Voici!

Hedy's credited invention was for a radio guiding system for torpedoes which was used in WWII. She supposedly gained the knowledge from her first husband, Fritz Mandl, a Viennese munitions dealer who sided with the Nazis. Hedy drugged her maid to escape her husband and homeland.

I'll never forget her performance as the steamy "half-breed" seductress in White Cargo (1942). To bring it back to the subject of the thread, you might be able to check the video out from your local library. I wonder what the thought-police might make of it. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Sam L
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 10:15 AM

Wow, this turned into the olde What is a conservative? thread.

I was going to mention about cell phone privacy that I'd heard Heddy Lamarr's old patent might be revived by some companies to shift frequencies in irregular patterns. A silent film babe, she invented a national security technology to scramble radio messages in shifting frequencies, tracked on ribbons of paper. I read about it in the library. And they also have pictures of her in old film books wearing these coiled snake-things on her breasts. Yow. Hard to tell whether I was being subversive or perversive, checking her out.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 05:49 PM

Well, I like to think I'm liberal, but I don't think I'm " A Liberal." I'm also conservative about a lot of things, but I don't think I'm "A Conservative."

I am, amazingly, with DougR when he says "I think it is a waste of time to try to pigeon hole either."

Terms like Liberal, Conservative, Art and Folk music are useful for discussion as long as the discussors (is that a word?) can agree on the definitions beforehand. Arguing about what a word "really " means is futile. Look what's happened to "gay" over the centuries.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 11:16 AM

Okay, I'll toss this
into the discussion of "liberal" and "conservative." (After all, part of a library's function is to help ensure an informed electorate.)

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Forum Lurker
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 11:03 AM

MMario-when I say restrictions on free trade, I mean that liberals dislike a laissez faire approach, and want constraints that prevent businesses from exploiting the citizenry.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: MMario
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 10:54 AM

I'd agree with liberal = in favour of change - but not on the restriction of free enterprise -

from where I sit that is far more often the pervue of conservatives.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Forum Lurker
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 10:50 AM

DougR-I have never seen a definition of liberal which varies considerably from that used in the context of American politics. I don't think it's particularly presumptious to say that a definition most people agree with is a fair shot at a usable definition.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: DougR
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 03:24 AM

I think it is a bit presumptious, Forum Lurker, for you to say what "America" defines a liberal or a conservative as. I stand by my statement that I don't think that either, in today's politics can be defined as Webster defines it. Some would say Senator McCain is conservative, others would say he is "moderate" (whatever that is) and others liberal. I think it is a waste of time to try to pigeon hole either.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Forum Lurker
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 11:18 PM

McGrath-That depends on your side of the pond. America views liberal as meaning in favor of change, which in our case is more restriction on free enterprise.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 06:39 PM

And a classic liberal is someone who believes the job of government is to hold the ring, so that free enterprise can do as it wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Forum Lurker
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 06:14 PM

DougR- the basic definition of a conservative position is being opposed to change. To have a conservative outlook, you need to be opposed to most change, usually on the basis that things are just fine as they are. If not that, how do you define conservative?

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 05:23 PM

The Oxford Dictionary written by a liberal? You're joking.

Now if anyone is a dyed in the wool liberal, Doug...

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: DougR
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 05:15 PM

'Swat I've been trying to tell you, McGrath. You liberals depend too much on the definition of a conservative as printed in some dictionary or other. I suspect it was written by a liberal. :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 04:40 PM

Are you sure you're a conservative Doug? What I mean is, you don't really seem to have what I'd see as the essential factor - distrust of innovations.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Gareth
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 03:16 PM

Hmmmm ! In present circumstances would C S Forrester's "Death to the French" be subversive or patriotic ???

Gareth :-)

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 08:56 PM

Oh, okay Ebbie.

I could tell them your name, address, phone number, work phone or other phone numbers, possibly your email address, what you have checked out, whether or not you owe for overdues and how much, what items you might have said you've lost or claimed to have returned and not paid for or otherwise settled, various notes about you that the staff might have put in ("Likes to read romance novels" or "One really nasty person" or "Says to let her daughter use her card"), and possibly your date of birth, patron type (resident, nonresident, juvenile, etc. -- not mean, nasty, nice), what items you might have on reserve, if a juvenile what school you go to, and this sort of stuff.

Different libraries collect different info, but this stuff is pretty common to all of them.

I could NOT tell them what items you've checked out and returned in past, nor could I tell them if you had checked out a particular item (unless you had returned it within a few days and no one else had checked it out).

Hope this makes it clearer.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 08:43 PM

Just to let you know, the person at the library's server can also see every single website visited from any of the library's computers, public and staff.

Using Solaris, for instance, you enter the command "snoop" at root, or, if you can't read that fast, "snoop | more" and periodically press the space bar. Or enter "snoop > filename" and save it all to a file. Or do any of a bunch of other things.

Why I would want to do this, though, is beyond me. I can look at enough junk websites all by myself.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 08:36 PM

I'd provide whatever records the warrant or court order specified **to the best of my ability.** If the data doesn't exist it can't be provided and nobody can wish it into existence. And with most (all, as far as I know) library autormation systems not collecting a history of what a patron checks out, the data wouldn't be there to provide.

Check out your state laws: most have laws which protect the privacy of library circulation records (such as those records are).

Were I one of the nasties, I'd worry more about the web-based email I sent from the library's public computers. THAT can be intercepted and read from servers outside of the library, or, WITH THE PROPER WARRANTS, copies diverted to the authorities as it is sent from the library's servers (picture a Y, with one branch going to the FBI and the other to the person addressed).

There is NO privacy on either the World Wide Web OR the Internet in general. NONE. ZIP. NADA. ZERO. Even encrypted messages can and have been broken. If you want to send a private message, send it via the post office and put cello tape over the envelope flaps (might not keep it private, but makes it much more difficult to open undetected, according to MI5).

And, by the way, cell phones are one of the LEAST secure means to send info. Use a land line -- but even there privacy is relative.

Lep is right: local cops, even state cops, aren't likely to want to check out library records except in extraordinary circumstances. A gung-ho FBI rookie is a different story, however.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: leprechaun
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 08:08 PM

I think what Rapaire was saying was the library doesn't keep a database of books checked out by patrons. I can only thnk of very rare occasions when such a databse would be useful to investigators. For instance, when a suspect is known to frequent a particular library, and there is independant evidence to suggest that his or her reading habits are relevant to a specific crime.

Like maybe: "The witness advised the assailant was quoting Dr. Suess."

With computers being used as they are now, it should be as easy to keep such a database as it is for Home Depot or Safeway to have a record of all their customers' sales transactions. Rapaire says libraries aren't doing that yet, so any subpoena for records would have to be satisifed with biographical information, phone numbers, possibly addresses, and currently checked out materials.

As far as using such a (as yet non-existent) database for a random fishing expedition, to find out who's checking out the Anarchist Cookbook, for example, that would seem to be a waste of time in any event. For the very reasons Clint mentions, you're just as likely to snag a curious Republican, or a slightly confused chef, or student with a research project.

If your assignment is to look for subversives, there are just too many fishing holes that would be more productive. The local health food store for instance - "I have a Duces Tecum subpoena for your list of all the people who have purchased alfalfa sprouts in the last six months."

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 05:54 PM

Rapaire, "And if the police were to come in with a warrant for your records I'd provide them ". What records? I think you were saying that the library systems doesn't keep records? Do you mean library card information: Date of first use, social security number, home address and phone number? Or do you mean, frequency of use, type of checkout subject(s), public demeanor?

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 05:30 PM

leprechaun,

My presumption is that the feds are trying to influence public opinion, and thus, perhaps, the judges. It didn't work on the judge who refused their request to hold the student without bail. I do not criticise the judge, or assume that the student will be tried unfairly. (By the way, I believe he is still being held by the INS.)

But I wasn't primarily talking about that, even. I was criticizing bad thinking, and using the news releases as an example. I could have use the words of an American Legionnaire I read in the 50's who said every American should hate anyone accused of being Communist.

Accused of being. Note that.

It's not just the courts that should assume innocence; any decent person should assume innocence until proven wrong.

As I said, "What I was getting at was that both innocent and guilty people (or Republicans and independents) may read the same things. Not true?"

Rapaire says "the police... do not assume guilt or innocence" and it seemed to me that the FBI was violating that principle and assuming guilt on scant evidence.

Again, I was criticizing bad thinking, criticizing confusing the map with the territory as the semantics people say, criticizing the confusing of fact with opinion, criticizing the claiming of guilt by association with certain words & pictures.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 04:37 PM

It looks to me (and I'm only a librarian) that for a long time we've been making several mistakes.

First, "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't apply to the police. It applies to court proceedings, and only in criminal cases. Defense attorneys will work with every (legal) means they have to prove their client not guilty; the prosecutor, representing the people, will do the same for guilt. The judge is there to referee and insure fair administration of justice.

Secondly, the police enforce the laws. They do not assume guilt or innocence, but follow the trail of evidence to its logical conclusion. At that point, the prosecutor and the defense attorneys take over. If you think the law is wrong or a bad law, change it by legislative action or judical review -- cops, prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges have as much say about the content of the law as the checkout clerk in the supermarket has about the prices the store charges.

Thirdly, the fact that I wouldn't provide the police of any sort with certain library records (and not all library records are privileged) UNLESS they had a warrant or court order for the records doesn't mean that I wouldn't work with the police in other matters. I can and I have. And if the police were to come in with a warrant for your records I'd provide them -- just as you would provide tax records if the IRS came 'round with a warrant.

Yeah, yeah, I know that there are bad cops and bad lawyers and bad judges. I've aware of King Richard I's remark that "the police aren't here to create disorder, the police are here to PRESERVE disorder." I've aware of railroaded prisoners and that Joe Hill was innocent. But unless we work towards an ideal we'll never achieve anything except to trudge around in the same old vicious circles.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: leprechaun
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 03:10 PM

If you think the fellow won't get a fair trial, you are directly criticizing the judge, whose responsibility it is to ensure a fair trial.

If the charge is an immigration violation, then photos of Bin Laden won't be relevant, and the judge won't allow it to be presented to the jurors.

The presumption of innocence is for courts, judges and jurors, and I don't understand why you think it isn't being applied in this case. Cops and prosecutors do not have to presume innocence, or else nobody ever gets charged with anything.

It looks like you've presumed the court there in Idaho is guilty of trashing the constitution.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: GUEST,clint keller
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 02:46 PM

leprechaun--

Haven't made up my mind about guilt or innocence. Don't have enough information, all I hear is things like "He has pictures of bin Laden" on one side and "The community likes him," on the other. Neither of those statements are evidence for or against visa fraud, or any crime. Are they?

Have made up my mind about the difference between evidence and opinions/propaganda.

Wasn't criticizing judges, was criticizing the FBI & the media.

But I do recall the courts in this country used to consider people innocent until proven guilty, back when I was a boy. You don't like that? It was one of the ways we considered ourselves superior to the French, who presumed the accused were guilty.

I don't quite follow your reasoning about the magazines. Are you saying that if I were Republican, reading the National Review would be evidence of it, and if I were not Republican it wouldn't? If that's it, I think that's close to my point, though I'd say something like "symptom" instead of "evidence."

What I was getting at was that both innocent and guilty people (or Republicans and independents) may read the same things. Not true?

clint

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: leprechaun
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 03:22 AM

Well, Clint, maybe there's a judge in Idaho you need to straighten out on how things are supposed to be done. It's damn nice of you to give that poor Saudi student the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he'll luck out and get a bunch of folks on the jury who've already made up their minds like you.

Bullshit, you have too.

But if you take one of your guns and go hire yourself out to kill somebody, that Soldier of Fortune magazine you subscribe to sure as hell is gonna be evidence whether you think so or not.

So what if you don't subscribe to Soldier of Fortune magazine and so what if you don't hire yourself out to kill people. If you're growing marijuana, the stack of High Times magazines is evidence. If you're buggering little boys, your NAMBLA literature is evidence.

If you're not doing anything to draw the attention of your hated authorities, I know this will break your heart, but nobody's gonna pay any attention to you or your reading list. You're just not important enough. You'll have to find some other way to satisfy your oppression fantasies.

The hell you don't.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 10:08 PM

Sorry DougR, I just got back. You ask

Clint: Well? Is the student guilty of visa fraud?

He hasn't been tried yet. He may be. He may be guilty of worse. Or he may not even spit on the sidewalk.

But that's not the point. I'm talking ethics: fairness. I'm just an elderly country boy but I believe the United States is supposed to be an example of justice and liberty; we are supposed to be better than the bad guys. We are supposed to give the bad guys a trial according to the rules because we are the good guys.

I subscribe to the National Review, I've got some guns, used to be an NRA member, but it don't make me guilty of being a Republican. I also subscribe to the Progressive, and write these anti-administration posts but it don't make me guilty of being disloyal to the country. What I check out of the library, subscribe to, or watch on TV or the 'net don't mean I'm guilty -- or innocent --of anything and is nobody's damn business but mine.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: GUEST,Fred Miller no cookie
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 06:52 PM

Well, some of the stuff I've checked out would make your hair stand on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine, and since the library can't keep track, I'll have to recall as best I can, so I can tell anyone who wants to know. Maybe I should keep a list to post in my trash. If anybody cares, let them. Somebody tell me the worst thing I could possibly get, and I promise I'll try to find it--if I don't have it already.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Hollowfox
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 03:53 PM

Yeah, Ka. Just another reason to pay cash an avoid credit cards. *g*

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: MMario
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 12:54 PM

Mylocal bookstore wouldn't know who had purchased what book anyway!

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 12:53 PM

And bookstore owners, Hollowfox, ala The Tattered Cover in Denver the owner of which refused to give client info to the FBI and won her case!

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: DougR
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 12:12 PM

Lep: I keep forgetting that. Thanks for nudging me. I'll try to remember that from now on. :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Hollowfox
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 11:14 AM

Hey, Repaire, welcome to that most exaulted group, Mudcat Librarians!

Now for the rest of you lot, I'll let you in on a few things:

The Privacy of the Patron (that's you) is almost a religion to librarians; it's part of library school training. It's fused to hte idea that you can read whatever you want or need, if we can possibly provide it. We were given some examples for this:
One was where there had been a rash of cattle mutilations in Colorado (sorry, I don't have dates or locale to verify this, but it was the example given in class), and local police wanted the names of everyone who had checked out any occult books in the recent past. The library said "no", because simply checking out a book on any subject is not proof that the person is going to use the information in the book.
The other was an experiment done by a (male) library student, again, I'm sorry I don't have names or dates. He dressed himself "to look like an Anachist" (teacher's phrase. Knowing Utah Phillips, I bristled) and traveled to various libraries of different sizes. He asked for help in finding books, starting with general questions that led to his "need" for books on explosives, bomb building, etc. He found that most places had little, if anything on these subjects (no surprise), but that none of the librarians balked at the questions or withheld any information that they did have (this was checked on later).
We were also given the example that someone checking out all the library's books on suicide could be doing research on the subject, not contemplating suicide.

Remember folk, when the troops come in, the teachers, librarians and folksingers are among the first ones shot by the opressors.

Hollowfox the Dangerous *wicked grin*

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 08:48 AM

A library I worked at bought the "Anarchist's Cookbook" because they were short of materials on the governmental theory of Anarchy. They also bought, for some reason, "The Poor Man's James Bond."

The Director had a fit, kittens, and other things. The books ended up in Reference (non-circulating) and were stolen within a week.

I once had to buy books on explosives due to patron requests (an engineering company). No sweat -- I bought books on the engineering use of explosives: formulae for calculalting the charges need to cut steel of various types and forms, slurry hole configuration for various strengths of heaving explosives in road construction and so on. I think that they were checked out once in five years....

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: fat B****rd
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 06:02 AM

So the "flagging" of library tickets in the film "Seven" was accurate.Many years ago I reserved "The Anarchist's Cookbook" at my local library innocently thinking it would be full of fish and brown rice recipes. Apparently not......

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: leprechaun
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 05:03 AM

He must be innocent, or the government wouldn't be investigating him. Doug, you've been on the mudcat long enough to have learned that nobody in the government ever does anything in good faith. If you would learn a lesson from all your friends on the mudcat, you would realize that the only reason anybody ever works for the FBI or the CIA or any other governmental entity is so they can oppress innocent people and perpetrate injustice.

Why, I'll bet they even have ongoing training for that.

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: DougR
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 12:36 AM

Clint: Well? Is the student guilty of visa fraud?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 10:08 PM

I heard a song long ago. I think it was from The People's Songbook. The chorus was something like

Who's going to investigate
The man who investigates
The man who investigates me?

Good question.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 09:35 PM

I believe J. Edgar Hoover got a lot of information on a lot of people who weren't doing illegal things, and used it for his personal vendettas. Martin Luther King, and the actress Jean Seberg for two.

Trusting in the goodwill of authorities is foolish. They are very likely to use information for their own benefit; too bad if it isn't yours. That is why we are supposed to have a rule of law, not of men.

How old is that saying: "Who shall watch the watchmen?" (I forget the Latin).

There is a young Saudi student at the University of Idaho who is now being investigated by the FBI. And he is apparently not a "suspected terrorist;" he is being charged with visa fraud and making false statements.

Part of the "evidence" against him is that he has pictures ot the Trade Center towers and of Osama bin Laden on his computer. Well, so do I, and so do many of us. Pictures like that aren't evidence; they're propaganda. But they make him look bad to many people, and innocent or guilty, he's going to have a rough time.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: FBI & Your Library Card - Libraries Warn
From: DougR
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 07:09 PM

Well Don, I am one of those folks, and yes I'm scared to death.

DougR