Tuesday, September 26, 2006

OCLC Compromised by the Patriot Act?

At the beginning of this year, I stated my intention to request banned books from the inter-library loan system in an attempt to determine whether OCLC was being compromised by the federal government. In short, is Big Brother really watching what we read? I sincerely hoped that the answer was "no". Unfortunately, I cannot report that.

I ordered Sayed Qutb's Milestones and the US Army's Improvised Munitions Handbook from the Ashburn, Virginia Public Library. The result was that I received Milestones after a long wait (about two months - which is much longer than normal) and never did receive the Improvised Munitions Handbook after waiting over eight months. Since it and other related books are listed in the inter-library loan system, I can only conclude that OCLC has been stopped by their own supervisors or the FBI from providing the book.

My last post on this issue was Taking a Stand on Banned Books, Part 5.

2 comments:

  1. Or maybe... they are keeping an eye on you to try and obtain more information on your terrorist cell. It may be time to deploy your mind-reader sheild (tin-foil hat).

    ;) Rob

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  2. Yes, I do suspect I am now on a list somewhere as a trouble maker.

    The tin foil hat is something I will leave to Richard Stallman ;)

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