Bomb-Making Books


April 13, 2002


BOB GARFIELD: If you think the USA PATRIOT Act's provisions targeted at books is unnecessary, consider a book on how to create anthrax spores. And there is a book distributor, Loompanics, that happens to specialize in all texts subversive. Here are some catchy titles being offered in their Spring Catalog: Your Revenge Is in the Mail, Fake ID by Mail and Modem, Advanced Lock Picking Secrets, Prison Killing Techniques and, of course, The Heroin User's Handbook. President Michael Joy spends a good amount of time defending the books he sells, and he joins us now. Mr. Hoy, welcome to OTM.

MICHAEL HOY: Good morning!

BOB GARFIELD: All right let me first clarify. As far as I know you haven't actually published a book on how to produce anthrax spores. Am I correct?

MICHAEL HOY: No, we have not.

BOB GARFIELD: But would you?

MICHAEL HOY: I think I would, except I'm worried about some of these new laws that have been passed. That would be the only thing that would stop me. There's already lots and lots of cookbooks on weapons of mass destruction out there.

BOB GARFIELD: Stuff which actually you do sell, right?

MICHAEL HOY: Yes, I sell some CIA bomb-making books.

BOB GARFIELD:All right, now I'm just guessing here, but if I were a betting man I would say that you've probably just really made a lot of our listeners angry. Aren't you afraid that you're giving people who want to harm society the means to produce far more devastation than they would have if they had never had access to these books and manuals?

MICHAEL HOY: No, no, no. I'm offering every American the opportunity to learn anything he wants to about any subject he wants to learn about. I feel the world is a much better place if there's as many books on as many subjects in as many hands as possible.

BOB GARFIELD: What about books on how to procure children for pedophilia purposes -- would that upset you?

MICHAEL HOY:Actually I do have a book like that, except it's written kind of from the other way -- how children can protect themselves, but in order to do that they have to know, you know, how a pedophile is going to approach them.

BOB GARFIELD: So if you were a pedophile looking for pointers, this might be a reasonable source for you.

MICHAEL HOY:Yes, I would think any pedophile worth the name of pedophile would be reading all the how to protect your children books that he could and read them backwards.

BOB GARFIELD: All right, so I think what you do is disgraceful. Please explain to me why what you do is not disgraceful.

MICHAEL HOY:[LAUGHS] I believe this book was published by Harper Collins. Are you going to call Harper Collins up and harangue them for assisting pedophiles? You're telling me a perfectly legal activities are something I should be ashamed of? Reading books? Publishing books? I think you should if you actually think there's something wrong with that.

BOB GARFIELD:Well it seems to me that what you sell creates exactly the dilemma that legislators and law enforcement face in times like these, because on the one hand almost by definition the PATRIOT Act limits the very freedoms upon which this country was founded. On the other hand, when someone can go on to the Web and purchase how-to manuals for creating destruction, it's certainly clear why the government would have an interest in knowing who's buying those things.

MICHAEL HOY: This is what America's all about! That's what our First Amendment says. It doesn't say the only things you can publish are stuff that the FBI approves of. It is not Osama bin Laden nor is it the Taliban nor is it Saddam Hussein who wants to have the FBI go around to librarians and snoop into what their customers are reading and then under a provision in this PATRIOT Act throw them in jail if they even tell anybody about it!

BOB GARFIELD: Yeah, all they want to do is just kill us. Do you see no difference between rights and responsibilities?

MICHAEL HOY:Well there are not rights without responsibilities. But you're saying that if somebody bought a book from me that was titled How to Beat Your Mother in Law's Head In with a Sledgehammer -- and then he went and did it - that I would somehow be responsible for that, even though I might never have met this person in my life. And no, I, I don't feel that I would have any responsibility any more than the hardware store owner who sold him the sledgehammer. I mean where would you draw the line? How about the -- somebody works in the print shop that printed the book?

BOB GARFIELD: Not interested in discussing it any further. I want to thank you very much for taking the time to join us, and all worst of luck.

MICHAEL HOY: Well thank you very much, Bob. [PHONE DISCONNECTS]

BOB GARFIELD: Michael Hoy is the president of an extreme Libertarian publishing company whose books probably don't appear in your local library.