Recently, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Massachusetts et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency, a case questioning whether the EPA is obliged to regulate carbon dioxide, a major component of greenhouse gases, as an air pollutant. What the casual observer might not realize is that the case is also about censorship and the distortion of science for political purposes. ...
In FCC v. Pacifica (1978), the Supreme Court created an exemption to First Amendment law when it upheld the authority of the Federal Communications Commission to regulate “indecent” broadcast material, defined as “language that describes, in terms patently offensive ... sexual or excretory activities and organs.” However, the Court cautioned the FCC to “exercise [its] authority with the utmost restraint, lest we inhibit constitutional rights.”
During the 25th annual Banned Books Week in late September, a Houston-area parent challenged Fahrenheit 451 – a book about reading and thinking freely. “It’s just all kinds of filth,” he claimed, admitting later that he had not read it.
Recent cases weighed the First Amendment principle of the free transmission of information against competing considerations of national security and personal privacy.
We write to oppose efforts to remove the book, So Far from the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, from the sixth-grade English curriculum in the Dover-Sherborn School District, and to censor its author.
Art Institute of California-San Fransisco Pulls Student Magazine From Circulation March 5, 2007 In December 2006, a student magazine prepared as the ...
The director of the Customs House Museum in Clarksville, TN, removed an installation by William Gentry just hours after it was put on display for fear that the deep-fried flags in the installation would offend community sensitivities and imperil the museum's public funding. Art student William Gentry said his piece, "The Fat Is in the Fire," was a commentary [...]
Nearly a year after NASA climatologist James Hansen accused federal officials of censoring his views on global warming, scientific freedom is shaping up as a key issue for the next Congress.
A bi-partisan letter from U.S. Senators Olympia Snowe (R - Maine) and Jay Rockefeller (D - West Virginia) pressed Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson to "end any further financial assistance" to groups "whose public advocacy has contributed to the small but unfortunately effective climate change denial myth."
by ABIGAIL HORTON and NED RESNIKOFF of Middletown, CT. 3rd place winner in the 2006 YFEN short film contest for U.S. students 18 and under, on the topic "War & Free Speech: Can They Co-Exist?"
By ANDY MUSSER of Golden, CO. 2nd place winner in the 2006 YFEN short film contest for U.S. students 18 and under, on the topic "War & Free Speech: Can They Co-Exist?"
by LILY ERLINGER of Miami, FL. 1st place winner in the 2006 YFEN short film contest for U.S. students 18 and under, on the topic "War & Free Speech: Can They Co-Exist?"
The annual Celebration of Free Speech and Its Defenders was held on October 24, 2006 at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City.
Rev. Barry Lynn: Executive Director, Americans United For the Separation of Church & State Rev. Debra Haffner: Director, Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing Joan Bertin: Executive Director, National Coalition Against Censorship Dr. Marty Klein: Sex Therapist, Policy Analyst, Author: America's War On Sex Christian fundamentalists and government conservatives have said it clearly: they will transform our secular [...]
Below is NCAC's letter to the Marshall Public Library President regarding efforts to remove two graphic novels from the shelves. For more details on graphic novels and free speech, see NCAC's guide to graphic novels for librarians. Anita Wright, President Board of Trustees Marshall Public Library Marshall, Missouri [email protected] October 6, 2006 Dear Ms. Wright: On behalf of the [...]
Update: The Marshall Public Library Board of Trustees voted to return Fun Home and Blankets to the shelves of the library, based on their newly adopted Materials Selection Policy. Background: Click here for NCAC's letter to the Marshall Public Library President regarding efforts to remove two graphic novels from the shelves. For more details on graphic novels and [...]
» Click here for the AAFF's statement on the funding controversy The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which successfully attacked public funding for the Ann Arbor Film Festival this year, believes government should not spend a penny to support the arts. Fortunately, however, most Americans - and the majority of state and local legislators - take a different position. They [...]
The Ann Arbor Film Festival has recently had its state funding cut due to screening films that some state legislators and special interest groups are deeming too controversial; in fact the word “pornographic” was used to describe some of our content.
The network responded to criticism from Democrats, including several Senate leaders and former Clinton administration officials, by editing disputed scenes in the film, and by adding a disclaimer that what was originally billed as "based on the 9/11 Commission Report" is more accurately a "docudrama" with significant embellishments.
NCAC partnered with the ACLU for a screening of Independent Film Channel's latest release, documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick's This Film is Not Yet Rated. The provocative film, which investigates the MPAA ratings system and its impact on filmmakers, was followed by a panel discussion featuring Mr. Dick, Owen Gleiberman, Mary Harron, Nadine Strossen, and Michael Tucker, moderated by NCAC Executive [...]
New technologies almost invariably stimulate irrational fear. In 1671, the governor of the colony of Virginia opined, “I thank God we have not free schools nor printing ... For learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world; and printing has divulged them ... God save us from both."
Microsoft has submitted a patent application for a “censoring filter,” which would alter digital speech recordings "so that undesired words or phrases are either unintelligible or inaudible."
NCAC Censorship News Issue #102: Roz Udow (1926 - 2006): An Appreciation Roz Udow was a member of NCAC’s Board and editor of Censorship News for more than 20 years until her death on May 29, 2006. She was a passionate advocate, deeply committed to free expression and her work at NCAC, but she was able to write about the [...]
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one" – so said writer and critic A.J. Liebling. Now it appears the same dictum may ring true for the Internet, as Congress faces competing pressure from the telecom industry and free speech activists over the future of network neutrality.
In Apple v. Does, a California state appeals court upheld the rights of online journalists (or "bloggers")to protect their confidential sources. Apple Computer sued several “John Does” for allegedly leaking information about new products
As part of its 2007 budget proposal submitted on February 6, NASA eliminated the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet” from its mission statement; a move that alarmed several NASA employees. Unlike the 2002 changes to the NASA mission statement that included an open process across the agency, this decision was made by NASA Headquarters without consulting NASA [...]
The Miami-Dade School Board voted in June 2006 to remove the book Vamos A Cuba and A Visit to Cuba (the English translation) from school libraries. The ACLU challenged the decision in court. NCAC joined five other groups in filing an amicus brief in support of the ACLU's position.
Acting on complaints from a parent, Olentangy Ohio District Superintendent Scott Davis removed Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones from Liberty High School's optional summer reading list. Visit the Columbus Dispatch for details. Below is NCAC's letter to Superintendent Davis. Click here to send him an email [...]
Do Senate Democrats' calls for ABC to cancel or edit its docudrama The Path to 9/11 constitute censorship?
Update: A slew of press reports this morning detailed the blocking of a political blog from all state employees' computers. The move appeared to be an effort to silence the site, Bluegrass Report, which had been instrumental in publicizing recent controversies surrounding Governor Ernie Fletcher. Authorities denied viewpoint discrimination, citing instead the deployment of web filtering software to block [...]
NEW YORK (June 15, 2006) This morning the 18 graduating MFA students from Brooklyn College, whose thesis exhibition at the Brooklyn War Memorial was shut down by NYC officials last month, filed suit against the City of New York, the NYC Parks Department and Brooklyn College, citing First Amendment violations and property damages. The case was filed in the [...]
There's a censorship situation brewing in Utah, and if you're in the state, you may want to contact the Utah State Office of Education, the state Attorney General's office, and/or the high school involved to express your thoughts.
International law firm Pinsent-Masons offers an illuminating discussion of violence in video games and analyzes the "great divide" in censorship measures adopted in the U.K. and the U.S. The "great divide" is also an apt term to apply to the gap between research on the consequences of exposure to violence in video games, and the hype to which fear [...]
"Manipulation of information has been a basic matter of policy – used to overwhelm dissent."
Issue 101, Spring 2006 On September 30, 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published “The face of Mohammed,” 12 cartoons (including the one at right, by Arne Sørensen) accompanied by an article in which editor Flemming Rose commented provocatively, "The modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own [...]
The US Food and Drug Administration recently announced that it found no "sound scientific" evidence to support medical use of marijuana, disregarding contrary findings by the National Academy of Science Institute of Medicine in 1999.
Poor Jay Bennish, the teacher in Aurora, Colorado, who criticized aspects of the State of the Union address in his 10th grade geography class. Too bad he didn’t like it. Too bad one of his students was secretly recording the class.
In Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR), the Supreme Court upheld the 1996 Solomon Amendment, which requires universities receiving federal funding to allow military recruitment on campus.
Update: On July 27, the House voted 410-15 in favor of the Deleting Online Predators Act. Having passed in the House, the bill now goes to the Senate. Hopefully, DOPA will not be rushed through the Senate as it was in the House, giving Senators time to think beyond the bill’s name and understand its true implications. The Deleting Online [...]
Reprinted from patriciapolacco.com. For details on Polacco's allegations and SRA/McGraw Hill's Response, see School Library Journal. To All Educators, Librarians, and Media Specialists Regarding the cancellation of my appearance at the IRA in Chicago for May 2 and 3, 2006: A few months, ago I was approached by The Buchanan Associates in Dublin, Ohio, to appear at the International [...]
