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- <text id=89TT0506>
- <title>
- Feb. 20, 1989: American Notes:Espionage
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Feb. 20, 1989 Betrayal:Marine Spy Scandal
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 41
- American Notes
- ESPIONAGE
- That Will Teach Him
- </hdr><body>
- <p> They say a little learning is a dangerous thing. Ask Todd
- Patterson. He had just finished the sixth grade in Franklin
- Lakes, N.J., when he began compiling his own encyclopedia of
- all the nations of the world. He wrote to embassies -- including
- the Soviet Union's -- for information. Enter the FBI, which
- began investigating the boy and kept at it until it had built
- up a 17-page file. Now an 18-year-old high school senior,
- Patterson brought suit in May against the FBI to get access to
- the files. Last week a federal judge threw out the suit. After
- reviewing FBI documents that Patterson's lawyers were not
- allowed to see, U.S. District Judge Alfred M. Wolin decided the
- bureau had acted "in the interest of national security." The
- judge added that he hoped the FBI would expunge Patterson's file
- as it has offered to do, but Patterson's parents object that the
- bureau might start a new one. "Todd is still writing to foreign
- governments," says his father. Maybe Todd should have collected
- baseball cards.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-