• Show your support for NCAC at our Annual Celebration of Free Speech and Its Defenders on November 29 at Tribeca Three Sixty° in Manhattan. Don Weisberg, President, Penguin Young Readers Group will Chair. We will honor Laurie Halse Anderson, Paul M. Smith, and Kaylie Jones. For more information, including tickets and other sponsorship opportunities, see our online event journal at www.ncacbenefit.org
  • San Francisco’s BART subway system has the dubious honor of being the first U.S. government agency to use an Internet “kill switch” to discourage dissent. On  August 11, BART authorities cut off cell phone and mobile Internet access in stations they believed would be targeted by protesters demonstrating against a recent shooting involving transit police. BART owns the network towers that provide mobile data access to riders, and hoped to disrupt the protestors’ ability to coordinate “flash mob” style actions on station platforms by cutting off mobile communications.
  • The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) and supporters protested the decision by the Oakland, CA Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA) to cancel the exhibit A Child’s View From Gaza under pressure from Jewish organizations. The exhibition opened on the originally scheduled date anyway, at an alternate venue just around the corner from MOCHA, and will be on display through November 30th.
  • A Pennsylvania School District canceled a student production of Kismet, a 1953 Arabian Nights-like musical set in Baghdad because of the town’s proximity to the 9/11 attacks
  • NCAC’s Banned Books Readout booth at the Brooklyn Book Festival in September was a smash hit, with festival-goers lined up throughout the day to read aloud selections from their favorite banned or challenged works on camera. Our Banned Books Library included books ranging from Shakespeare to Harry Potter, along with a directory explaining each incident. Videos were uploaded to YouTube for the online readout as part of Banned Books Week, which was celebrated from September 24 to October 1.
  • NCAC participating organization The Dramatists Guild protested the September cancellation of a community theater production of The Rocky Horror Show in Carrollton, GA. The show, which was scheduled to open at the city-owned Cultural Arts Center, was cancelled upon orders from Carrollton Mayor Wayne Garner because, in the Mayor’s view, it was too risqué for the venue.