A cop’s decision to sport a body camera and search a Massachusetts middle school for a book has raised serious concerns among civil liberties experts, a new report shows.

The Berkshire Eagle reported Wednesday on mounting fears after the Great Barrington plainclothes police officer who entered an eighth grade classroom at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School.

“Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia," Ruth A. Bourquin, senior and managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, told the local news outlet. "What are we doing?”

For their part, police say they were obligated to investigate a complaint about the book “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, a memoir about gender identity that contains sexually explicit illustrations and language, the report notes.

  • @Tolstoshev
    link
    2011 months ago

    “A book is a loaded gun." - Fahrenheit 451

    • Subverb
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      711 months ago

      “If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none." - Fahrenheit 451

      • billwashere
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        English
        211 months ago

        This was supposed to dystopian fiction not a fucking playbook.

        I need to reread this but it will likely just depress me.