December 21, 2005

Punching More Holes in Mao Story

First, on the Association of College and Research Libraries weblog they state:

Today, the University issued a statement. Though they aren’t contesting the student’s claim, and they are protecting his identity at his request, they offer some reassurance that their library, at least, didn’t participate in violating the student’s rights. The student says he made the request through another library, unnamed.

Professor John McAdams talked to a spokesman for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They have no book "watch list." Also, until they know the name of the student they can't determine if one of their agents investigated him.

I was leaning hoax. Now, I'm convinced the student made the story up to his professors who then passed it on to a reporter. It was a lie created for some unknown reason that ended up in a newspaper then spread across the internet. Who really should have egg on their faces are Professors Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand who irresponsibly passed on a bogus story. With Williams there's a tinge of Bush bashing since he passed on the story when asked about NSA domestic spying. Then there is Aaron Nicodemus and The Standard-Times who got lazy and barely investigated the story.

TN Grrl has the entire UMass Dartmouth library press release. GalleyCat is happy to have waited on posting about this. Little Lies is declaring this story an "urban myth." Time to call Snopes.com.

"Apparently Bogus: Homeland Security Visited Student Who Ordered Mao’s 'Little Red Book'"