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posted by
martyb
on Tuesday September 01 2015, @06:12PM
from the learn-from-history-or-be-doomed-to-repeat-it dept.
from the learn-from-history-or-be-doomed-to-repeat-it dept.
For two years, academics worked to digitize and translate a collection of Taliban documents as part of the Taliban Sources Project (page currently appears to be down, but exists in Google's cache). As the project comes to a close, they've sought an institution to make the digital archive available to researchers around the world. However, the British Library, after reviewing a catalogue of titles, declined to host the documents. Their statement noted that“The Terrorism Act places specific responsibilities on anyone in the UK who might provide access to terrorist publications, and the legal advice received jointly by the British Library and other similar institutions advises against making this type of material accessible.”
[Ed. note] I've had a report that it is available on Bing's cache.
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British Library Declines to Host Taliban Documents, Citing UK Terrorism Act
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday September 01 2015, @09:15PM
Education has always been the proper response to crazy ideas. Censorship has always proven worse, creating ideological martyrs. I'm all for an annoyance gate to access, but a law about providing recruitment materials is a ridiculous argument. They would not be promoting the Taliban, and I'm sure anyone interested in the recruitment process would go looking elsewhere for information.
Once a society starts censoring ideas it only gives those ideas more power. They should not be afraid of such documents, they should create annotated versions highlighting all the batshit crazy.
~Tilting at windmills~