Senator Kennedy Spreads Hoax

Glenn Reynolds posts on another Homeland Security hoax.

I'm disturbed tremendously that such a suspicious story was accepted so uncritically by alleged critical thinkers -- and I'm a bit surprised that the student's identity is still being protected. Why shouldn't we know who's behind this?

Perhaps Senator Ted Kennedy knows, as he helped to spread the hoax with his op-ed piece in the Boston Globe:

Just this past week there were public reports that a college student in Massachusetts had two government agents show up at his house because he had gone to the library and asked for the official Chinese version of Mao Tse-tung's Communist Manifesto. Following his professor's instructions to use original source material, this young man discovered that he, too, was on the government's watch list.

Think of the chilling effect on free speech and academic freedom when a government agent shows up at your home -- after you request a book from the library. Incredibly, we are now in an era where reading a controversial book may be evidence of a link to terrorists.

Something is amiss here. Something doesn't make sense. We need a thorough and independent investigation of these activities.

Public reports with damaging leaks about classified national security programs don't phase the Senator. So don't hold your breath waiting for Kennedy to call for a thorough and independent investigation of these activities, there's no political advantage in it.