Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) wants to remove The Anarchist Cookbook from the internet— you know, that notorious DIY bomb-making manual that has been around since the 1970s, is still available in print, the one you can buy on Amazon and find literally thousands of places online and offline for a pittance.


Feinstein made her modest, thoroughly impossible proposal in a statement following an incident where two women allegedly used a downloaded copy of The Anarchist Cookbook to make bombs:

I am particularly struck that the alleged bombers made use of online bombmaking guides like the Anarchist Cookbook and Inspire Magazine. These documents are not, in my view, protected by the First Amendment and should be removed from the Internet.


This is a serious suggestion from the former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

This isn’t the first time Feinstein has tried to rid the world of The Anarchist Cookbook, but it’s the first time she’s publicly suggested that it be “removed from the Internet,” which is striking because it’s 2015 and most adult internet users understand how difficult it is to scrub the internet of something that’s already been circulated possibly millions of times on the web. Has she never heard of the Streisand effect?

And this is your weekly reminder that Congress is populated by a gobsmackingly large contingent of people who do not understand technology. [Ars Technica]

Photo: AP