The student who claimed he was visited by homeland security agents after requesting a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book via Interlibrary Loan has admitted that it was a hoax. More here from the Standard Times.
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.
Some comments on previous comments
I agree the story is based on 2nd hand sources, hence it is not a very well sourced story, but I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it as a fabrication.
Why? Because you wanted the story to be true. The evidence was horrible lacking and did not seem to fit but you continued to defend the story.
For instance, if a student made it up, wouldn’t he use something else besides Mao’s The Little Red Book, which has been around a long time and has long since lost it’s shock value (a book he is unlikely to know once even had a shock value in the 1960’s).
He could have picked out something much more recent and obvious if he was out to pull a stunt.
For this stunt he used “The Little Red Book”
Also, the fact his parents are admanant about sheilding his identity could be interpreted as resulting from getting the bejesus scared out of them from the Feds visit. If it didn’t happen, why be so secretive?
Because it didn’t happen.
Free Government Information note on case
Free Government Information posted a caveated link to the original story, and I provided some commentary to accompany our update of the story.
There is also some commentary from the security issues blog Schneier on Security.
One moral from this story – Question everything that doesn’t provide orginal sourcing. That includes not simply copying and pasting blog quotes that agree with your worst beliefs about a politician – be that Bush, Kerry or the Johnson County dogcatcher.
I’m not saying one shouldn’t post that sort of material, but one should either point out the potential weaknesses in quoted story or make some effort to verify the assertions before posting. It also means updating the post when likely contradictory information becomes available.
The hoax and its library blog coverage
I think it’s worth noting that mainstream library bloggers (that is, those that aren’t either self-described conservatives or radicals) have covered the announcement that it was a hoax rapidly and, I believe, at least as fully as any of them covered the non-story.
That’s fairly unusual as blogs go, and says a lot (good) about ethics in this corner of the blogosphere.
Closure is good
Reading Walt’s comments about the main stream library bloggers pleases me to no end. That there is some sanity left in the library community makes me glad to call myself a librarian.
However, the way the apologists came out of the woodword amazed me. There were truly hundred of google hits on interlibrary loan and DHS the day after, and they seem to have multiplied exponentially. Some of them were truly apolitical like Boing-Boing, but some were just nutty like Hiffington’s website especially the comments.
The way that those in authority danced around the issue was also sad. College administrators saying they couldn’t confirm that the FBI or other federal agents had not been there. Of coure you can say the FBI has not been there, in fact some libraries put up a sign to say that and tell patrons to watch for its removal as a sign that the FBI has been there.
What is really remarkably disturbing is that the ALA didn’t make a public show of any attempt they made to verify the story, after all is that what the public thinks of the ALA – a guardian of library freedoms? Even today web sites and blogs hosted at ala.org have don’t have retractions to headlines such as “Interlibrary Loan Causes a Stir” from ACRL. The ALA front page should have such important issues where the public can see them straight away, who cares about some ALA/IIDA interior design competition, 99% of librarians probably don’t.
Also sad was the number of librarians on LISNews who so dearly wanted it to be true and did not do any fact checking. I pointed out inconsistencies I found within five minutes of reading the story, inconsistencies that made me call it nonsense right away. But others on LISNews, and their own blogs said the jury was out… what jury? Aren’t we a librarians able to ascertain the authority, the validity, the truthfulness of a news story? Can’t we see that second hand information from potentially biased sources may not be true? Is it not responsible librarianship for us to investigate, or find authoratative sources that have investigated something so important as this. Had this been true it would have changed librarianship as we know it and people stood by the wayside wanting so much for it to be true so you could use it as a rallying call about yet another abridged freedom.
Shame on all of you who wanted it to be true. We hold library records to be inviolable and I was outraged that this breach of trust was suggested without an uproar from the librarians ‘involved’.
Finally a personal note to the poster who suggested I go into screenwriting; perhaps you might consider that choice as you have a remarkably active imagination. I’m told it also pays much more than librarianship 🙂
Who wanted this to be true?
I think your posting made a number of excellent points, especially that ALA was sluggish in its investigative response and use of its communications tools. Here was a clearly library-themed story and our national library association made little public effort to confirm, deny or show the membership and public what they had found out.
However, I don’t think your statement “Shame on all of you who wanted it to be true.” is fair, especially since you do not provide a specific example of someone “who wanted it to be true.”
As far as I can tell, there were people who were afraid it was true, in light of other proven unnecessary government investigations into legal activities. There were also people cynical enough that they expected this to be true. But I haven’t found a single example of any librarian who WANTED this to be true. Why would anyone want our government interviewing everyone interested a particular book.
I agree with your that the story sounded odd. That’s why I didn’t comment on it at first, and discouraged coworkers from assuming it was true.
But just because a story sounds odd doesn’t automatically make it false. When the first stories about President Clinton’s shameful sexual Oval Office activities came to light, I believe they ran something like “Someone has taped the President’s lover, who is said to be an intern.” We know now that was perfectly true, even though the original story had no direct sources. The Abu Gharib story was similar. When the first stories came out, no one here believed them — and why should we? No one thought that ANY of our soliders could have done what they were accused of. Several court martials later, we know many of those stories were true as well.
The Dartmouth story is a good example of how the search for truth should work (Except for the first reporter’s sloppy reporting). A claim is made. Those claims are disseminated, people check facts. If the facts hold up (like Clinton and Abu Gharib), then the community holds the stories as credible and processes their shock. If the “facts” disintegrate, then the story is quickly discredited. This story that supposedly had so many people who “wanted it to be true” had a MUCH shorter life than any number of unproven assertions against President Clinton (Foster, multiple rapes, illegitimate children, etc) that have life to this day, even though he’s been out of office for five years.
If you’ve got examples of people “who wanted this to be true” and an explaination of why you think they wanted it to be true, I’m willing to listen.
Let me close by saying that I think you make many valuable contributions to the discussions here. I even think 90% of your last comment on this thread really helped move the discussion forward.
Sorry to be hard-nosed about the other 10%, but I truly believe in not assuming the worst motives of one’s opponents without proof. I don’t always avoid doing so, but I try.
Re:Who wanted this to be true?
I didn’t name librarians who wanted it to be true because I don’t know any librarians who wanted it to be true, but some of the comments made me feel that they were leaning that way. The poster who suggested I go into screenwriting springs to mind.
However some people like the many commenters on Hunffingtons site to which I linked would have danced with joy if it were true. So shame on them. Shame, like sin is personal and I didn’t expect anyone to make an LISNews confession of shame, but perhaps look inward and realize that they had wished something terrible upon a patron to further their political agenda.
It is noble that you can avoid assuming ulterior motives, perhaps I am to much a realist and too pragmatic to do so, although in being such I find I am seldom disappointed.
N.B. I’m not so sure the link to other unnecessary investigations is still what is was when you first posted it. I think some of those investigations were necessary. If I start librarians for the jihad, or peace through powerful plutonium I full well expect the FBI to drop by. When I was a police officer we did them all the time when something looked suspicious. We filled out index cards called FIR – field investigative reports- we asked a few questions: name, date of birth, why are you carrying a TV at 3 AM, and then filed the information away in case it was needed later. Taking a closer look at something suspiscious is not in my opinion an unnecessary investigation – in fact it solved a lot of crimes.
Re:Who wanted this to be true?
Your post was definitely food for thought.
I want to emphasize that I try to avoid assuming ulterior motives. Plus, I think I may mean “evil” motives instead of ulterior (i.e. hidden motives). For example – The President unquestionably wants to increase Presidential power. We don’t know why — only God really knows. I’m willing to believe that he thinks he is doing what is best for America, even I as continue to believe that unchecked power will sooner or later lead to the demise of the Republic. Without evidence, I am unwilling to believe as many do, that the President is seeking to expand Presidential power for the sole purpose of establishing a dictatorship and turning over the treasury to his friends.
Maybe I’m being more confusing than explaining.
If the government is investigating suspicious activities (i.e. filming the front gate of a military base for an extended period of time) or conditions (why are the radiation levels twice background at that mosque/church/private home?), I’ve got absolutely no problem with the government doing further investigation. That is the sort of thing we should be doing.
What troubles me as shown by declassified documents is federal time being spent on groups (Quakers, Catholic Workers, etc) that have no demonstrated history of violence and who appear to be involved solely in peaceful protest against the government. The implication seems to be “Group X opposes gov’t policy Y, so they are likely to resort to violence and so bear watching.” This to me is very different on following up on obviously suspicious behavior such as you describe.
You are a true Rennaisance man!