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Patriot Act strikes closer to home

A story in Saturday’s Globe and Mail draws attention to just how long and probing the tentacles of the U.S. government’s Patriot Act can potentially be.

A number of Canadian university libraries subscribe to Refworks, “a popular U.S.-based Internet tool that allows academics and students to create personal accounts and store research information, as well as generate citations and bibliographies.” The only unsettling thing about Refworks is that, under the Patriot Act, the American server is open to sweeps by U.S. authorities, and as the Globe story points out, “Canadian university officials worry that if the research is of a sensitive nature, it could be misunderstood.”

As a result, Dalhousie, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and the University of Alberta have all switched to Refworks’ Ontario server.

The Globe reports that the company “didn’t have a problem when Canadian universities requested to switch servers” and is looking into the exact nature of the powers the act affords the U.S. government.

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Read the full story at the Globe

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