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Science

Einstein's 1,427-Page F.B.I. File 509

Posted by timothy from the suspicious-pipe-user dept.
meow meow cat chow writes: "Fred Jerome of the Gene Media Forum has recently written a book called "The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret War Against the World's Most Famous Scientist." The book talks about how the FBI spied on Einstein and identifies some of the people who said he was a spy. Jerome sued the government to obtain access to the 1,427 page file which can be found at (http://foia.fbi.gov/einstein.htm) The New York Times has an article about the book."
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Einstein's 1,427-Page F.B.I. File More

Einstein's 1,427-Page F.B.I. File

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  • No surprising. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Krapangor ( 533950 )
    After all Einstein was for banning all nuclear weapons and against the development of the H bomb.
    Keep in mind that these were the hard times in the cold war against the communists. Some people wrongly thought that all anti nuclear weapons guys were pro communist. Ironically their preceptions that the spending of more and more money into the military sector would bring down communism has turned out correct after all. Einstein was in fact unwillingly helping Stalin and Breshnev.

    • Re:Not at all (Score:2, Insightful)

      by imr ( 106517 )
      You forget sakharow. His struggle, the same as einstein's in this matter, desserved the urss government.

      urss would have gone down anyway, would the money have been put in something else than nuclear weapons , as it was unable to stand a long economical war against the usa. Wich is what it was all along.

      The fact that both systems chose the weapon area to compete the most is a moral standpoint and shows both system as being bad from this point of view. This is the battlefield that einstein and sakharov chose to fight in.
      Ethics. Responsability. not politics and power.

    • Re:No surprising. (Score:2, Informative)

      by dj28 ( 212815 )
      Did you even bother to read the article? He wasn't being investigated becuase he was against nuclear weapons. And they just didn't "assume" he was a communist. He, in all actuality, was a communist. If you read the article, you would know that he was affiliated with 34 communist front groups between 1937-1954, and was a chairman in three of those groups. The government had every right to be suspicious about him. Read the article before you rant about something you have no clue about.
      • Did you even bother to read the article? He wasn't being investigated becuase he was against nuclear weapons. And they just didn't "assume" he was a communist. He, in all actuality, was a communist. If you read the article, you would know that he was affiliated with 34 communist front groups between 1937-1954, and was a chairman in three of those groups. The government had every right to be suspicious about him. Read the article before you rant about something you have no clue about.

        Yeah, Communism is so obviously an effective threat against Capitalism that it was...erm...never mind.

      • Re:No surprising. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 12, 2002 @09:13AM (#3505516)
        Communists? Who cares? Yes, communism ultimatly failed, but, in a perfect world without corruption and greed, it would make for a perfect system. The average person now knows that extreme left communism just does not work. However, at a time earlier in this century, people were not confident in the capitalistic economy, and had not seen communisms failures firt hand yet. They had, on the other hand, experienced the shortcomings of capitalism. Remember the great depression? It was a _major_ failure of extreme right capitalism. Furthermore, many people were distraught at the mistreatment of the working class. Communism was one answer (opinion: it was a step in the right direction, but the step was much to large). While I'm on the subject, to this day I can show you probably hundreds of millions (billions?) of people around the world who would certainly disagree with capitalism, and embrace socialism or even communism. I guess my point is, the whole communist witchhunt thing was (and still is to an extent) unfair and that capitalism is not perfect either. We must also remember that communist "propaganda" was also met with anti-communist "propaganda", so it's especially hard to judge either side from an unbiased viewpoint.

      • Re:No surprising. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jonathan ( 5011 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @09:43AM (#3505570) Homepage
        If you read the article, you would know that he was affiliated with 34 communist front groups between 1937-1954, and was a chairman in three of those groups. The government had every right to be suspicious about him.

        Well, you have to remember that at the time, any vaguely leftist group was considered to be a "communist front group". Although, technically, even if he was a member of the Karl Marx Fan Club, that should have been perfectly acceptable in a democratic society.
        • America isn't a democracy, it's a republic. And the Will of the people shapes public policy. If 85% if the public doesn't want any sort of Communism in America, then government has an obligation to act on that and protect the People from what they don't want, or what they find illegal.
          • Thank you for defining "tyranny of the majority." That 85% of the American population has been conditioned to spend 15 hours a week in front of the television does not make me feel obliged to comply. That's why we have a Constitution that lays out areas in advance that the founding fathers knew would be the first cultural norms people would want to legislate.

            If "the people" are to choose those that will govern them, should they not also be able to choose how they govern? That seems pretty reasonable to me.

            Sure, in 1776 some guys got together and designed a form of government built upon ideas from two millenia prior. But to assume that they somehow hit on the magic formula for a perfect government is very naive. If we don't constantly evolve our ideas of government, we will stagnate and eventually "fail" much like people argue Communism did. Of course, they ignore the simple fact that the USSR was only one implementation of Communism.

          • Isn't the whole reason some geeks call the USA a republic instead of a democracy (aside from the Republican / Democrat feud) the fact that we have *elected representatves* charged with protecting the ideals and NOT blindly carrying out the will of the people?

            In a pure democracy, wouldn't OJ simpson have been killed, even if he was innocent, simply because a majority of the populace thought him guilty?

            We DEMOCRATICALLY elect REPRESENTATIVES to run the government, and they should know when to do what's popular and when to do what's right and unpopular.

            McCarthyism was, by and large, a witch hunt. And witch hunts are never good, and exactly the kind of thing that we have representative government to protect us from.
        • I have personally read part of the FBI files about Einstein last week. Conclusion: if what they say in there is true (and it seems like it), he really was a member of a bunch of *real* communist groups.

          Intersting in the files also are all these offended people who wrote to the FBI about how Einstein was an evil communist and how it was not normal that he was let in the USA, and how he came only for the money he'd get.
          About the "being let in the USA" by the way, it is worth noting that the US embassies were specifically told that he was to be refused entrance.

        • Although, technically, even if he was a member of the Karl Marx Fan Club, that should have been perfectly acceptable in a democratic society.

          Was Einstein arrested for his views? No. Was he censored from talking about his views? No. The government simply kept a file on him. So what?

          • Was Einstein arrested for his views? No. Was he censored from talking about his views? No. The government simply kept a file on him. So what?

            Hoover was usually more subtle than that, and tended to use the information to blackmail and discredit people rather than arrest them, particularly since most of Hoover's victims weren't committing crimes.

            --
            Benjamin Coates
      • He, in all actuality, was a communist. If you read the article, you would know that he was affiliated with 34 communist front groups between 1937-1954, and was a chairman in three of those groups

        Are you a troll? Or are you getting this from other sources? The article NEVER mentions this. If you are getting this from other sources, then remember that "communist front groups" included everything from the Hollywood Arts Council on down.

        Perhaps a better review, for non-trolls out there, is the Nando Times [nando.net] review, which cuts to the chase:

        The FBI probe of Einstein took on urgency after atom spy Klaus Fuchs was arrested in February 1950 and Einstein made a radio appeal for an end to the arms race.

        Within a day, Hoover ordered agents to start gathering "derogatory information." For the next five years - until Einstein's death in April 1955 - Hoover tried to get the goods on the scientist as a communist agent, only to have one "fizzled lead" after another, as Jerome puts it, and several informants turned out to be frauds.

        "The most persuasive argument that Einstein was not involved in espionage is that he didn't share the political commitment to the Soviet Union and communism that motivated virtually all the successful Soviet spies during the first half of the century," Jerome writes.
        • your the troll: (from the fbi link)
          "An investigation was conducted by the FBI regarding the famous physicist because of his affiliation with the Communist Party. Einstein was a member, sponsor, or affiliated with thirty-four communist fronts between 1937-1954. He also served as honorary chairman for three communist organizations."
    • After all Einstein was for banning all nuclear weapons and against the development of the H bomb

      What? Einstein wrote letters to Roosevelt urging him to begin production of nuclear weapons, because he feared there would be no other way to stop Hitler and fascist takeovers in Europe.

      Sure, he was against the use of nuclear weapons, what kind of maniac would enjoy the idea of vaporizing a few hundred thousand people in a shot? Despite that, he still supported it. Your speculation is going a bit off the point of the article.

  • that hoover... (Score:4, Funny)

    by trl ( 561794 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @08:45AM (#3505464) Homepage
    pages 700 through 1200 just seem to be images of einstein in various states of undress... *sigh* that hoover...

  • imagine... (Score:3, Funny)

    by hype7 ( 239530 ) <u3295110&anu,edu,au> on Sunday May 12, 2002 @08:45AM (#3505466) Journal
    Front page of NY Times of the period:

    "J Edgar Hoover discovers e=mc squared..."

    "Mr Hoover, how did you come by this discovery?"
    "Months of long hard work by my associates and I."
    "And what does this mean to the world of science?"
    "I'll have to get back to you on that one."

  • A typical page (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pacer ( 153176 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @08:52AM (#3505481) Homepage Journal
    'The "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" for September, 1947 contained an article on page 235, entitled "Statements on the Second Anniversary of Hiroshima." A brief introduction preceeded the article stating that the Bulletin wrote to outstanding scientists and opinion leaders asking the question "Where do we stand two years after Hiroshima?" The article consisted of replies received in answer to the question. It included a joint statement released by Professor Einstein and the Federation of Atomic Scientists on July 16, 1947. The statement reported that their thesis was that there must be one world or none. To this end they advocated the establishment of international control of atomic energy and all weapons of mass destruction. They also believed that the United Nations was more important than ever.'

    How subversive. Seriously though, Einstein was a high-profile scientist in a sexy new field and (if you believe the FBI) was involved with several Communist groups ... it doesn't surprise me that he would be the subject of an extensive investigation.

    That said, just because the USSR fell apart doesn't mean we're out of the nuclear woods yet. Einstein and the FAS may still have some things to teach us.

    Pacer
    • That said, just because the USSR fell apart doesn't mean we're out of the nuclear woods yet. Einstein and the FAS may still have some things to teach us.

      In fact, I have been reading Dr. Helen Caldicott [noradiation.org]'s new book, [tatteredcover.com]
      The New Nuclear Danger and it is very clear reading and to-the-point. There is a review of the book here [mapcruzin.com]. Quite upseating read. If it is even remotely accurate... I'm sure Dr. Helen Caldicott is on the FBI's watch list, together with Norm Chomsky [stickykeys.org]. It is obviously they are both not patriots. Since I find their writings illuminating, I wonder if this makes me anti-patrioitic?

  • A brief summary... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by loply ( 571615 )
    Heres a brief summary of the document:
    "Einstein was born in Germany. He is a member of the following socities: 1) Cause for nuclear disarmament 2) Society for equality in humanity 3) Anti War Group Kill him, that UnAmerican bastard!!!"
  • But I'm sure that Einstein would tell you it's all relative.

    (someone had to say it!)

  • If you notice on page 3 of File 1A [fbi.gov] , that page is unreadable. Do we need the Rambaldi formula to decipher that page?

  • Fifties flashbacks... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 12, 2002 @09:21AM (#3505529)
    ...yes, it's scary.

    It also sounds like a joke if you didn't live through the fifties. I did, and believe me, it was no joke.

    I'm also scared by a lot of current rhetoric following 9/11. The words "terrorism" and "terrorist" seem to be taking on a lot of the baggage that "communism" and "communist" had in the fifties. If you're harboring terrorists, you're a terrorist... if you're associating with terrorists, you're a terrorist...

    And "terrorist" doesn't seem to have a well-defined meaning, it's anyone the U. S. government wishes to attack.

    And every time things settle down, the government announces some new warning about a possible terrorist attack and urges us to be vigilant and keep an eye on our friends and neighbors for suspicious activities--whatever they might be.

    Does ANYONE seriously believe that NORTH KOREA had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks? Or shares any fundamental views with Al-Quaida? No, yet somehow they're part of the International Terrorist Conspiracy.

  • More to the point (Score:2, Interesting)

    by peddrenth ( 575761 )
    More to the point, where's the file on Erdos, the famous Hungarian communist (or mathematician, depending on who you ask)? There was a lot of government harrasement talked about in his autobiography.
  • Nuclear weapons are a horrid and nasty thing. We've been lucky that they haven't been used since Nagasaki -- and that's probably at least partly due to the face that Einstein was both willing and able to speak out about the horrors that nuclear weapons were capable of producing.

    Communism isn't an inherently evil and nasty system.. The communist governments of Russia and China were/are vicious and corrupt, but that's more a statement about the people that lead them than of the basic systems themselves. It's not like the US is a whole lot better with it's support of people like Agusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden -- all in the name of so-called 'democracy'. We sometimes forget that these 'evil nasty people' are a product of our own government's support system.

    Einstein 'agitated' for peace. He had ideas that were different than those who were in power at the time. These should never be considered crimes in a truly democratic system. The idea behind democracy is that an idea should either stand or fall on it's own merits -- not based on the fact that someone hates the label that some intolerent extremist attaches to it (like Hoover, McCarthy or even Nixon).

    • But Russia is the whole POINT! You have to realize that at this time, there really were Soviet spies in America. Much of academia believed in what the Russians were doing, and were more than willing to pass research on to them. The design of the first Soviet atomic bomb was actually identical to an American design, right down to the same number of rivets on the outer casing. Furthermore, it was the avowed goal of the Russians to destroy all capitalist countries, and usher in a worldwide communist reign.

      So, yes, there were abuses of power by the FBI. Yes, Einstein was innocent. However, there was a very real threat, and it is understandable, if not totally acceptable, that the FBI would keep tabs on prominent research scientists with known communist sympathies.

      • The design of the first Soviet atomic bomb was actually identical to an American design, right down to the same number of rivets on the outer casing.
        One of the funniest thing about the story of the soviet atomic bomb is that the much dreaded Lavrenti Beria (head of the KGB) was in charge, and when he was at the first test, he had brought two soviet spies that were able to see several american tests. The bomb went off beautifully, and in the totally silent bunker, Beria, stone-faced as always, simply asked the two spies if that's what an atomic bomb explosion looked like. It's only when they both said "da!" that everyone broke out and cheered...
        • (* The bomb went off beautifully, and in the totally silent bunker, Beria, stone-faced as always, simply asked the two spies if that's what an atomic bomb explosion looked like. It's only when they both said "da!" that everyone broke out and cheered... *)

          They could of have messed with them. It would be funny if they said, "No, the Amerika boom was shaped like bunny rabbit, not a mushroom".

          (* sig: Ossama should have bombed Disneyland, Hollywood and Redmond. *)

          Sounds like the FBI should open a file on you too.

      • I was watching a PBS documentary on this, and I found it quite interesting that one of the major spies (at least that was uncovered) was a man who wasn't ideologically aligned with the Soviets, but rather felt that it was essential to have a balance of power in the world.

        I forgot his name... I don't believe he was ever convicted of anything (the information he knew was too useful and all that).

        I must admit, while I don't particularly like that India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, I'm glad at least that they both have them. I can't imagine nuclear weapons being used, except when only one party in a conflict has them.

    • Nuclear weapons are a horrid and nasty thing. We've been lucky that they haven't been used since Nagasaki...

      No, we haven't been "lucky", the US has been working damned hard to see that they haven't been used, despite the destrutive aspirations of petty dictators and superpowers alike.

      Communism isn't an inherently evil and nasty system.. The communist governments of Russia and China were/are vicious and corrupt, but that's more a statement about the people that lead them than of the basic systems themselves.

      Wrong. Show me one single large-scale implementation of communism that's actually worked. That's right, there aren't any. The _concept_ of communism isn't evil, but it's absolutely impossible to make it work without coercion and force. It's based on the compulsory sacrifice of the individual for the greater good, and, as much as some people might pretend otherwise, humans don't work that way.

      It's not like the US is a whole lot better with it's support of people like Agusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden -- all in the name of so-called 'democracy'. We sometimes forget that these 'evil nasty people' are a product of our own government's support system.

      Some of them are, at least indirectly, but most of them are not. (No credible source indicates any US support of Bin Laden, for example.) In foreign policy the US, like all other nations, is ultimately pragmatic. Short of moving in and taking over completely (which while perhaps practical is usually frowned upon) one sometimes one must choose between supporting the lesser of two local evils. To claim that the US "isn't much better" only demonstrates how unfamilar you are with the horrific abuses that were (and are) a part of daily life within those other regimes you idealize.

      Einstein 'agitated' for peace. He had ideas that were different than those who were in power at the time. These should never be considered crimes in a truly democratic system.

      They weren't crimes. He wasn't arrested. He was investigated by the FBI for what they considered suspicious activities and to make sure he wasn't sharing classified information with people that would not share his idealistic bent. The purpose of the FBI is to investigate, and many, many prominent and obscure people of all occupations and political stripes were investigated. Was it right? Was it necessary? At the time it was very hard to say.

      The idea behind democracy is that an idea should either stand or fall on it's own merits -- not based on the fact that someone hates the label that some intolerent extremist attaches to it (like Hoover, McCarthy or even Nixon).

      They weren't really concerned about ideas, they were concerned about actions. Hoover and McCarthy were often paranoid, but spies are real, and sometimes spying results in the deaths of large numbers of people. The threats posed by the USSR and China at the time were also very real, and a country where memories of WWII and Korea were still fresh was far more willing to take those threats seriously than we are from our vantage point 50 years removed.
  • Ah yes. Here we go again:
    login: slashdotid
    pass: slashdot

  • Commitment stregthened (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mattygfunk ( 517948 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @09:46AM (#3505578) Homepage
    For many years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies spied on him, acting on suspicions as disturbing as a tip that he had been a Russian spy in Berlin; as vague as an unease with his support of civil rights and pacifist and socialist causes; and as goofy as claims that he was working on a death ray or that he was heading a Communist conspiracy to take over Hollywood.


    Sometimes I wonder if my commitment to try and ensure my privacy is worth the hastle. Reading this has reminded me exactly why. Having a 1247 page FBI file because of pure speculation and rumer is incredible. And this is before the ever higher big brother force of 2002.

  • More FBI files (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Iamthefallen ( 523816 ) <Gmail name: Iamthefallen> on Sunday May 12, 2002 @09:58AM (#3505623) Homepage Journal

    Seems like a little?

    • Ku Klux Klan - 588 pages
    • Aryan Brotherhood - 141 pages
    • Adolph Hitler - 734 pages
    • Hell's Angels - 233 pages

    Seems like a lot?

    • Martin Luther King Jr. - 55,896 pages
    • Black Panther Party - 2,895 pages
    • Gay Activists Alliance & GLA - 1,647 pages
    • Abbie Hoffman - 13,262 pages

    Glad an unbiased police is there to protect the citizens huh?

    • The FBI is nothing compared to Google (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Ku Klux Klan - 91,800 pages

      Aryan Brotherhood - 2,630 pages

      Adolph Hitler - 34,600 pages

      Adolf Hitler - 195,000 pages

      Hell's Angels - 21,300 pages

      Martin Luther King Jr. - 613,000 pages

      Black Panther Party - 21,100 pages

      Gay Activists Alliance & GLA - 549,621 pages

      Abbie Hoffman - 19,800 pages

      Albert Einstein - 481,000 pages

    • Don't forget John Lennon. He once joked on a talkshow about how people kept coming to fix his phones everywhere he went. It turned out he was right. The FBI bugged his phones.

    • In a different light (Score:2, Insightful)

      by npsimons ( 32752 )
      I view these numbers in a different light. It only takes 588 pages to tell that the Klu Klux Klan is evil because it's so obvious.


      On the other hand, proving Martin Luther King Jr is the spawn of Satan is quite difficult, it takes about 100 times as much research!


      As for the Aryan Brotherhood I figure a lot of it is "see article on Adolph Hitler" so they can save duplicate research.

    • Consider the FBI's page count as a measure of perceived threat to the current regime. It will then come as no surpise to find out that the best and brightest of all people are targeted for monitoring.

      Make sense? Martin Luther King was an incredibly charismatic public speaker. He had the ability to sway the hearts and minds of millions of people, whether they were black, white green or purple. Grass roots movements always pose the greatest threat to a body in power, thus they are always first to be targeted, destabilized and squashed. Look at any movement, right or left, and you will begin to see a subtle trend. It takes an incredible amount of human inertia to change or supplant an existing power base, but it is possible.

      Coronation, n.:
      The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

  • OSearth [osearth.com]

    Sure the war lords are going to track and manipulate anything that can have an effect upon their control over others.

    Don't we all know this by now?

    War lords create problems that otherwise don't exist or can be eliminated, how else are they to know they have control?

  • Here [glr.com] is a form you can print out and mail in to get a copy of your own FBI file. Urban legend has it that several people have sent in such a request only to be returned a photocopy of the letter they sent.

  • J. Edgar Hoover:Closest thing we had to a dictator (Score:5, Informative)

    by bnavarro ( 172692 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @11:13AM (#3505868)
    This doesn't surprise me in the least.

    I saw a History Channel documentary on Mr. Hoover a while back. This was one scary dude. Einstein wasn't alone in FBI harrasment. It turns out that hoover spied on practically every celebrety, out of the closet homosexual, and political opponent during his reign. He dislike one congressman so intensely that he had a sting operation set him up to be publically arrested for 'lewed conduct' with another man (back when homosexual acts were still somewhat illegal). He kept the celebrity files in a personal filing cabinet because he was a gossip monger, and loved to have the inside scoop.

    He even opened a file on George Orwell, who sent him a copy of 1984, not realizing that this man WAS "Big Brother".

    Today, Hoover is remembered more for his reformation of the FBI from a 2 bit gumshoe detective agency into the lean, mean, crime fighting machine that it is today. But what a price we had to pay for that. No, Roosevelt was not the closest thing that we had to a dictator; this man was.
  • Man!
    I'm a left-leaning right-wing conservative (don't laugh. yes it's possible) but I understand why US intelligence would keep an eye on this guy. I would, too, were I in that position. I wouldn't be happy about doing so, but I'd do it.
    History shows that ole Einy was cool and self consistent with his own values (unless you were married to him. hint, hint) but that eval() is from our present perspective.
    At the time, however, it seemed that thought == explosive power (true.. it does now, too) that could move entire populations to do Really Sto0p1d Things(tm).
    The French and Bolshevik revolutions had already 'proved' the principle.
    In the face of that prior art, folks, I'd be paranoid, too.

  • was this filed under the right heading? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Edmund Blackadder ( 559735 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @11:26AM (#3505923)
    If Einsteins head means the story is about science, what do we use to mean the story is about Einstein, and not science?

  • Einstein was right again

    "Politics is for the moment; an equation is forever"

    In a hundred years nobody will know, or care, who J. Edgar Hoover was and in a 1000 years you probably will not even be able to find a historical reference.

    However most literate people will still know who Einstein was.
  • Heya,

    Great discussion going on in this thread. Keep at it!

    Just wanted to let you know that two major pro-democracy events are happening in Madison, Wisconsin later this year. First, a coalition has formed in response to the U.S. Conference of Mayors having a huge conference here, and only inviting lobbyists, not citizens, to participate. Check out the Cities for People! [citiesforpeople.org] web site for more info.

    Incidentally, RadFest 2002 [wisc.edu] should be excellent. Many progressive thinkers are gathering for that.

    Third, Community Power 2002, the first-ever local democracy conference, is happening in November. There's no site for it just yet, but info will be posted eventually on the Progressive Dane web site [prodane.org].

  • Other files .. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smoondog ( 85133 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @02:00PM (#3506506)
    As has been posted before, there are other files [fbi.gov]. Did anyone read the first document of Hitler's file? It describes an FBI contact describing the hiding of Hitler in Argentina [fbi.gov] immediately after the fall of Berlin (with help of the Argentinian government, of course). Hmm.

    -Sean

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