Feds Question Student, Frighten Darmouth Faculty: Why are You Reading that Little Red Book

The book being watched? No, not some Islamist tome, al-Qaeda training manual or technical work on explosives, but a well-known book the whole text of which you can find online or order from amazon.com. It's Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung, also known as the "Little Red Book," a book once rivaling the Bible in circulation. To really monitor its readership would involve watching all internet access to the text, purchases of the book, and library loans of it. A formidable task and insane waste of FBI time, surely. But these are mad times.

The book is available in various western editions, but Prof. Pontbriand apparently suggested to the student that he use the edition published in Beijing, and since that wasn't available in the university library, he ordered it from another institution. Again, you can buy this attractive little volume in its durable red plastic cover any time you want. I have a copy in my office. Plus a copy in the original Mandarin, and another in Japanese, both published in Beijing and gifts from friends. It's all legal, I believe. But this student, having ordered the library book, and thereby fallen under the investigative gaze of the feds, got a knock on his door at his parents' house in New Bedford, Massachusetts, my state, the most liberal state in the union. Its Senator Kennedy was saying of President Bush's illegal surveillance practices, just as this story was coming out: "This is Big Brother run amok."

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http://counterpunch.org/leupp12192005.html