McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Ethical Question
gravesbane:
I want to thank you all. You've echoed by basic belief. I'm going to put the idea I had away for now, but I plan to return to it someday. Thanks again. :)
Guardian 452:
I will give you one warning regarding working on books/stories about terrorists and the like. It's pretty much for people living in the US...watch your research!
People have pretty much gone over the reasons not to feel guilty if someone uses your ideas, plus mentioned books like the Bible (I was going to make comments pretty much the same), but here's something else to worry about. As I recall (could be wrong, it was over a year ago) it came from Rachel Caine's blog.
She had a friend who was writing a book involving unexploded landmines. Said friend did a lot of online research, and also checked a lot of books out of the local library. Hey, it makes sense...we all do research for our stories, right?
So what happened? Well, to make a long story short, the person was raided by Homeland Security! The sort of information they were accessing sent up red flags in someone's database, and they moved in seized all the research and computer equipment involved. When they eventually got it back, it was apparently full of tracking devices/etc. (they took it to a friend to sweep for this stuff).
I'm pretty sure it was Rachel Caine's blog that led me to this story. If it wasn't, my apologies to her.
Anyway, the moral of the story...be careful of what you research. Your government may believe you have a much darker purpose in mind than writing a novel!
Keith
Yeratel:
Supposedly, the NSA has it's own little Web bots that go crawling through emails, Web pages and forums, like this one, looking for keywords like C-4, ammonium nitrate, Al Quaida, Bin Laden, assassinate, etc., and flagging them for Homeland Security. :)
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Yeratel on April 19, 2008, 03:38:55 AM ---Supposedly, the NSA has it's own little Web bots that go crawling through emails, Web pages and forums, like this one, looking for keywords like C-4, ammonium nitrate, Al Quaida, Bin Laden, assassinate, etc., and flagging them for Homeland Security. :)
--- End quote ---
So as a gesture of civil disobedience we should all use them as much as possible or put them in our sigs or something.
The Mrs Geek:
--- Quote from: Mister Mxyzptlk on April 08, 2008, 05:49:21 PM ---Play with sodium lye? In a classroom? In the 21st century? Egad, dont you know that's dangerous?
Naw, these days chem class is all about being danger free.
--- End quote ---
Until you get to Organic Chem were you get to play with things that will ignite with atmospheric moisture, like Benzoic Acid. (Bear in mind I'm in Savannah, GA the must humid place EVER!) That's right kiddies, the main ingredient in your zit cream when all by itself is highly flamable and explosive.
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