Potter and Priorities

Security tightens as Potter release nears
09.07.07
The release of J K Rowling’s last outing with her creation at one minute past midnight on Saturday, 21st July, will be the culmination of the most fraught operation in publishing history, reports the Times. "Boxes have been chained shut, barbed wire has been uncoiled and satellite tracking systems for delivery vans have been double-checked."

Bloomsbury is using padlocks and confidentiality contracts to ensure that the plot twists remain a secret. In the words of Scholastic, the American publisher, it is all about the "magic moment" when readers open Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the first time. Only a few people have been allowed to read the book.

Bloomsbury refused to send the manuscript to Scholastic electronically because it feared that it would be intercepted, reports the newspaper. Instead, Mark Seidenfeld, the American publisher’s lawyer, travelled to Britain to pick it up and, on his return journey, protected it from prying eyes by sitting on it.

The Times

Oh man. Barbed wire? Am I the only one who finds it a bit disturbing that essentially a pile of paper gets more protection than the average citizen?