Censorship News Articles

The FBI recently confiscated books, computers and lab equipment from the home of Steven Kurtz, an art professor at the State University of NY at Buffalo and member of the internationally recognized art collective, Critical Arts Ensemble. CAE's work explores the politics of biotechnology, and the material found in Kurtz's home was part of its latest project,

. Designed to test food products for possible genetic modification,

was scheduled to be shown at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art this summer. Instead, a sign describing the FBI action occupies its designated space.

A Boston College student was arrested near a military recruitment office in Boston for protesting US treatment of Iraqi detainees.

Last year, a Texas grand jury indicted Jaqueline Mercado for the 'lewd exhibition' of her breast and for inducing a child to engage in 'sexual conduct and sexual performance.

The Justice Department's disdain for constitutional rights has triggered resistance—in the Supreme Court, no less. As we go to press, the Court has just affirmed the right of individuals detained as "enemy combatants" to consult with lawyers and to contest the grounds for their detention before a neutral decision-maker.

Don't miss your chance to enter the Free Speech and Democracy Film Contest.

Mildred Jeffrey, a member of NCAC's Advisory Council since its inception, died in Detroit, Michigan in March.

The NCAC Board of Directors has elected new officers

Two members of the Advisory Council on Bioethics who supported stem-cell research were dismissed recently, bolstering charges that the administration manipulates science panels to suit policy.

By the time you read this, Congress will likely have increased the fines for broadcasting indecent material from $27,500 to $500,000 per occurrence, and violence will be included in the definition of indecency. Performers as well as broadcasters could be fined.

A Congressional effort to impose oversight power over some academic programs has passed in the House of Representatives and is being considered by a Senate committee. At issue are area studies programs which the federal government has funded to increase understanding of foreign cultures, languages and politics, and to overcome a shortage of translators and specialists in international affairs. HR 3077, the International Studies in Higher Education Act of 2003, intended to fund studies of strategic importance to the U.S., particularly targets Middle Eastern studies programs. It would establish an advisory board to oversee these programs, ostensibly to make sure that they are not "biased."

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said in September, 2003, that trade embargoes apply to scientific and literary manuscripts by authors from Iran, Cuba, Iraq, Libya and Sudan unless they are "camera ready." Government permission would be needed even for routine edits such as correcting spelling or grammar, or reordering sentences and paragraphs.

The sculpture, Holier Than Thou, provoked heated criticism that it is offensive to Catholics. Critics say the Bishop's miter is overtly phallic and his expression too dour.

Your winter issue of Censorship News carried an article in Views on the News by Joan Bertin about campaign finance reform which states that "it is premature to declare the decision [by the Supreme Court, largely upholding the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002] a 'win' or a 'loss' for the First Amendment."

NCAC is sponsoring a national contest for young filmmakers on the theme of Free Speech and Democracy. The goal of the contest is to showcase the creative work of young people and to promote awareness of the basic principles of freedom.

As we go to press, the Federal Election Commission is poised to consider whether non-profits should be treated like "political committees," subject to funding and spending restrictions.

Jeremiah Gutman, a dedicated champion of the First Amendment and Chair of the National Coalition Against Censorship, died on February 25, 2004 in Westchester County, New York at age 80. He had been an officer of the Board of Directors of NCAC since the 1980s, first as General Counsel and then as Co-Chair before assuming the Chair in 2001.

Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama has removed from its gallery an exhibit of photographs by John Trobaugh of G.I. Joe and Ken dolls for fear that they "created a negative impression."

In Harrisonburg, VA, the home of a professor and her family was set on fire along with the anti-war sign they had displayed. Cindy Hunter, Sam Nickels and their children were driven from their blazing home for expressing their political views. Community members rallied for free speech with signs saying "I thought this was America," and denounced the arson as "domestic terrorism."

On January 20th in New York City, NCAC will host a conversation at Coliseum Books for NCAC Friends and others featuring authors of important books and articles about the state of the First Amendment in these perilous times.

Maybe the next time a social scientist or politician is interested in making pronouncements about the effects of violent video games, they should actually check out the players.

The shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, as a practical matter, resulted in the restriction of free expression in the nation's schools, as much as the 1988 Supreme Court decision, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, legally authorized limits on student press and speech.

By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court upheld the major provisions of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law banning unlimited "soft money" donations and regulating campaign ads just before elections.

Ruling in the recent campaign finance case, McConnell v. FCC, the Supreme Court observed that "the electoral process is the very 'means through which a free society democratically translates political speech into concrete governmental action'..... [M]easures aimed at protecting the integrity of the process tangibly benefit public participation in political debate."

When Lisa Distelburger, a sixteen-year-old junior at Clarkstown North High School in New City, NY, heard that a fellow student's work was removed from an art exhibit on social commentary, she sprang into action.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress may require libraries receiving federal funds to filter the Internet, in the interest of protecting minors from sex online (Censorship News 90). CIPA, (the Children's Internet Protection Act) is legal, the Court said, as long as adults can ask to have a computer unblocked.

The scientific data on which Americans rely is being manipulated by the Bush Administration, according to a new report, Politics and Science, prepared for Representative Henry Waxman of California by minority staff of the House Committee on Government Reform.

An art exhibit featuring flags at Nassau Community College in Long Island, New York has elicited a vibrant discussion of symbolism and the value of dissent among veterans, county officials, artists, faculty, students and area residents.

A federal district court in Ohio vacated a guilty plea in a case involving a private journal describing sexual fantasies about children. Brian Dalton was charged with child pornography for the writings in his diary.

Admiral John Poindexter is gone from the Pentagon, along with his Orwellian proposals, including the Total Information Awareness Program (Censorship News 89) and the terror futures market scheme—intended to prevent terrorism through traders—predictions! Oregon Senator Ron Wyden—who led the opposition—said: "From a standpoint of civil liberties, this is a huge victory."

In the recent past, censorship debates have mostly revolved around sex, violence, and religion, in familiar re-enactment of the culture wars. Even controversies that implicate science, like those about teaching "creation science" and abstinence-only sex ed, have been largely driven by conflict over religion and its role in the public schools.

In the recent past, censorship debates have mostly revolved around sex, violence, and religion, in familiar re-enactment of the culture wars. Even controversies that implicate science, like those about teaching "creation science" and abstinence-only sex ed, have been largely driven by conflict over religion and its role in the public schools.

Once again, voices of protest are getting through. In response to wide public objections to the FCC new rules that allow media conglomerates to expand, Congress is taking action to rollback the FCC's move (click here for NCAC's action alert). A bipartisan group of legislators appears likely to prevail in preventing more media concentration in fewer hands.

The past year has uncovered unsavory practices in New York State and City public schools, including an elite city high school. New York, however, is not the only place that needs fixing before the chill of censorship drives away some of the best teachers and dumbs down education.

At the end of its term the Supreme Court dealt a blow to the right of library patrons to unfiltered use of computers, ruling that the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) is constitutional.

In 1671, the governor of Virginia said, "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 and libels against the government."

Of all the odd "indecency" rulings that the Federal Communications Commission has issued over the years, the silencing of Sarah Jones's rap poem Your Revolution is the most deeply suggestive of the discriminatory nature of American censorship.

President Bush has signed an executive order which keeps secret, for another three years, millions of government documents that were due to become declassified on April 17. The new policy amends a more open policy of President Clinton.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the second time that a law prohibiting commercial websites from posting material that is "harmful to minors" is overly broad, not narrowly tailored, and impermissibly vague.

When the director of the Emma Goldman Papers Project asked permission to send a solicitation letter, officials at the University of California at Berkeley, where the project is housed, took out the red ink.