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12/30/2003
Poor Richard's Terrorist Factbook. In keeping with the Bush administration’s Facts Are Bad policy, last week’s FBI intelligence bulletin “warned that ‘terrorist operatives may rely on almanacs to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning’ because they include detailed information on bridges, tunnels and other U.S. landmarks” and urged police “to watch for suspects carrying almanacs...” Read it in the Washington Post.
When your laughter subsides, get angry: this is the Feds encouraging the police to roust people based on the books they buy, read and "carry" — an unquestionably anti-American idea straight from the guys who have already told us “bookstore customers have no right to privacy,” and libraries are “logical targets for surveillance”.
Buy subversive: get your Almanac here. Get fREADom products here.
Replies: [1 comment]
Be warned this could esculate. In the 80s and early 90s the Germans had a procedure known as 'beruf verbod' - profession vetting. This process allocated points for disident acts - eg being in a demonstration, belonging to 'subversive' (government's definition) etc. When you hit a certain number of points you were not allowed to work in the public sector - which in Germany covers train drivers, strteet cleaners, school teachers etc. People on the forbidden list were not informed and found out only after going for lots of jobs and not being selected. I know two trained teachers who had to move out of Germany to work.
In Bavaria this scheme was extended to cover taking out 'unsuitable' books - eg Marx, from university libraries. So someone studying sociology, joined a couple of protests and belonged to Greenpeace would almost certainly be on the list.
The German left wing being fairly organised retaliated by setting up fake organisations such as - The anarchist movement for the overthrow of the German State' and included in their membership and subscription lists the children of prominent rightwing politicians as well as children linked to industrialists etc. Within a couple of years the whole procedure collasped.
However be be warned.