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American librarians helped defeat the Nazis

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21–27 of 27 posts

Re: American librarians helped defeat the Nazis

#21
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we're talking about JSTOR's behavior and reputation here, not the legalities, which have been discussed many times (although not tested in courts). In particular after state and federal prosecutors went berserk and MIT admin didn't push back in the name of these same freedoms that JSTOR is telling us were so beloved and apple-pie back in WWII. It's not like JSTOR publicly said "This federal criminal indictment is…

I don't disagree with you overall; I was just trying to seek out the point where it jumped the gap between civil and criminal processes. I suppose that the NET Act sticks in my mind because it was probably the first legislation I read that shocked me with how blatant the disconnect was between legal and practical definitions of terms.

Yes, Goodlatte and his donors introduced legislation which was a massive overreaction to the issue it was "remedying". But noone had the deep pockets to fight it.

Oh, and there are some killer ironies in Bob Goodlatte's trajectory (I never thought I'd see a revolving door made out of paper, but now we have):

Goodlatte stepped down from Congress (and House Judiciary Chair) in 2018. In February 2020, he registered as a lobbyist [0] representing (media rights holders and) and the Project for Privacy & Surveillance Accountability, a nonprofit that describes itself on its website as “a nonpartisan group of U.S. citizens who advocate for greater protection of our privacy and civil liberties in government surveillance programs.”(!) In an interview, Goodlatte said he is lobbying Congress and the administration on behalf of the nonprofit on three provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act authorizing government surveillance programs set to expire in March 2020. [1]

> Goodlatte invoked surveillance abuse against Martin Luther King Jr. in the context of [alleged surveillance abuses in 2016] [2]

[0]: Lobbying Firm Profile: Goodlatte, Robert https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/firms/summary?c...

[1]: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2020...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Goodlatte#Russia_probe

Re: American librarians helped defeat the Nazis

#23
post #15

I don't understand why mentions of JSTOR's involvement in the massive overcharge of Aaron Swartz that led to his suicide are being removed here (please explain why), and why the matter was ever treated as a (state + federal) criminal matter involving MIT, rather than a private civil matter between Swartz and the alleged rights holders. Here is the NYT's reporting: Slashdot comment, 1/22/2013: "MIT Warned of a JSTOR D…

[dead]

Re: American librarians helped defeat the Nazis

#24
post #15

I don't understand why mentions of JSTOR's involvement in the massive overcharge of Aaron Swartz that led to his suicide are being removed here (please explain why), and why the matter was ever treated as a (state + federal) criminal matter involving MIT, rather than a private civil matter between Swartz and the alleged rights holders. Here is the NYT's reporting: Slashdot comment, 1/22/2013: "MIT Warned of a JSTOR D…

Only an organization with JSTOR's well known moral and ethical history would write a quote like this:

"Librarianship and spy craft are well-suited partners; both revolve around the collection and dissemination of information."

Let's sully the motivation of a simple librarian by turning them into an information collecting panopticon, and fail to mention the disinformation and chaos-generation aspect of the spy.

Fuck JSTOR and fuck their opinion on anything ever again, even if I am open to it and willing to read it, it's garbage even after the ethical hurdle of deciding to open up to another JSTOR experience.

RIP Aaron. I hope that critique was relevant enough to stay on-topic in the thinnest allowed sense.

Re: American librarians helped defeat the Nazis

#27
post #22

Kind of insane that the Germans were still allowing papers on rocketry and nuclear physics to be published in journals in 1943.

When the United States stopped all publications related to nuclear developments, that alarmed Georgy Flyorov[0]: He took it as a sign that we were building a bomb. He wrote to Stalin, and that helped start the Soviet Atomic Bomb Project[1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Flyorov

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_atomic_bomb_project

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