A brief chronological Compendium of a Few Banned or Challenged Works, and Censorship and Anti-Censorship Efforts 01 Jul - 31 Dec 2004

The greatest triumphs of propagnada have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. --Aldous Huxley, reprinted in Censored 2003, pg 242

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02 November; the day Americans can vote out the neo-fascist Bush administration 

And here's why I wouldn't vote for him --MN

2004, July 01: Whistleblowing on more sweeping and overbroad censorial legislation

By Student Press Law Center. On 28 Apr, Representative Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., introduced the "Parents’ Empowerment Act of 2004". This is another COPA like law that would allow parents to sue anyone involved in the distribution of material that that fails the Miller Test, thereby being deemed "harmful to minors", and to which those younger than 18 could be exposed. Charles Brownstein, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund director, is quoted in the article at Student Press Law Center, "It is something we find philosophically repugnant. It would allow the minor or guardian to sue anybody in the distribution food chain"; and elsewhere as saying, "This bill is troubling on several levels. It appears to allow for civil actions against any, or every, member of the dissemination food chain, from the retailer to the distributor to the publisher, of work that an individual parent may object to. So any citizen, using their own sense of what is obscene or harmful to minors, can bring suit. Considering that comics still suffer the cultural and legal stigma of being perceived as a juvenile medium, this bill could become a dangerous weapon in the hands of an individual who walks into a comic book store and is shocked to find that comics offer much more than Archie and Superman."

Representative Hunter is quoted in the SPLC article, "I firmly believe that those responsible for the current threat of obscene material and its ill-effects should be punished for distributing such material to our children." He was also quoted elsewhere as saying the legislation could "turn parents into prosecuting attorneys fighting a wave of obscenity."

Pat Trueman, a consultant to the Family Research Council, is quoted, "The Justice Department hasn't been vigorous enough in prosecuting illegal pornography and parents shouldn't be then just on the sidelines. This puts them out in the field with the ball in their hands able to score a victory on behalf of their children who may have been harmed by pornography."

[...]

"Pornographers, distributors of pornography like Yahoo and some of these . . . video game distributors may step back from what they're doing, and only out of a sense of self-preservation,"

[See my commentary on the "Harmful To Minors" issue. For my money, this bill is just another attack on free speech, which conclusion hinges on Section 2: paragraph a; subparagraph (2) the minor as a result of exposure to that material is likely to suffer personal or emotional injury or injury to mental or moral welfare. First off: none of these supposed effects could possibly be proven in an individual without extensive before and after assessments. Secondly: the plaintiff wouldn't have to prove actual harm, just that such harm could conceivably have been inflicted; that such harm was not inflicted, however, would be entirely irrelevant. Aside from that, support for the bill by the usual ultra-conservative groups is almost certainly misplaced, as evidenced by Trueman's comments. Yahoo! and video gamers do not pimp for proscribable obscenities, by which one can conclude that this law will be exploited to attack legal pornography and non-pornographic sexuality information. --MN]

By the "People's" Republic of China. An article published by BBC News reported that the China is moving beyond monitoring the internet and on to monitoring text messaging. New regulations have been issued that will allow mobile phone service providers to police and filter messages, ostentibly for pornographic or fraudulent content, but analysts are concerned that the real targets are political dissidents. Reporters Without Borders says that one Chinese company marketing a system to monitor mobile phone text messages has announced it is watching for "false political rumours" and "reactionary remarks". Venus Info Tech Ltd said in a press release that its surveillance system worked by filtering algorithms based on key words and combinations of key words. Certain key words could trigger an automatic alert to the police.

In 2003 Chinese authorities tried to hide the outbreak of the respiratory disease Sars, but millions of text messages were sent, alerting people to the virus and exposing the government cover-up. According to China's Xinhua news agency, Chinese people sent more than 220 billion text messages that year; more than half of all the messages sent in the world. Filtering text messages is relatively straightforward because all SMS messages pass through a small number of gateways to get on to a mobile network and to another phone. Plus, the messages are short, cutting down on filtering time, and are held for three days while the gateways attempt to deliver them.

[Pornography and fraudulent content posted with keywords such as Tiananmen, Tibet, and Falun Gong, no doubt. As directly indicated by the company looking for pornography based on "false political rumours" and "reactionary remarks". This is why free speakers in North America should be very leery of attempts to control pornography. Censorial regimes have established clear and present precedents whereby "pornography" is simply the excuse used attack political speech. --MN]

By U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler. See the entry on the Church/State Entanglement page.

By Associated Press. See the entry on the Michael Moore censorship movement page.

By Robert Fisk. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By Lexington Herald-Leader. The civil rights movement brought wrenching changes to the entire United States in the 1950s and 1960s, and the city of Lexington, Kentucky, was part of it with demonstrations, sit-ins and other protests. The city's two daily newspapers, the Herald and the Leader, worked hand in hand with respected pillars of the community and decided to ignore the entire movement; the white citizenry of Lexington decided that pretense was preferable to the truth. On this day, The Herald-Leader (the two papers had merged in the '80s) apologized to readers for not reporting that the city of Lexington had a civil rights movement.

[See the source article for more background about the failure of the corporate press to respect the right of people to make up their own minds. Margaret Kimberly points out that The New York Times did exactly the same thing in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq and took a rather dim view of that paper's "apology". --MN]

By Howard Dean. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By Judge Connie Glenn Wilkerson. In a letter to the George County Times, a weekly newspaper in Lucedale, Mississippi, in 2002, Judge Wilkerson wrote, "In my opinion, gays and lesbians should be put in some type of mental institute instead of having a law like this passed for them." He was commenting on a California law granting gay partners the same right to sue as spouses or family members. Wilkerson said then that the letter represented his feelings as a human, not as a judge, but Lambda Legal, a national gay and lesbian rights group, filed a complaint against Wilkerson. In 2003 the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to publicly reprimand and fine Judge Wilkerson, citing him for judicial misconduct. On 01 Jul, the Court ruled in a 5-2 decision that the statements constituted religious and political public-issue speech specially protected by the First Amendment.

Justice Jess Dickinson, writing for the court, commented, "Here, Judge Wilkerson expressed his views on a political/public interest issue -- the rights of gays and lesbians. We therefore may not impose sanctions unless we conclude, under the specific facts of this case, that the restraint the Commission seeks to enforce is 'narrowly tailored' to achieve a 'compelling state interest.'" He further wrote, "There are millions of citizens who believe Judge Wilkerson's religious views are exactly correct. There are still millions more who find his views insulting. Whether he is right is not the issue here. It is, rather, whether this court can -- consistent with the First Amendment -- prevent Judge Wilkerson from publicly stating these religious views. We hold that, under the facts of this case, we cannot."

Judge Dickinson also said that it was difficult to conclude Wilkerson's comments posed more of a threat to judicial integrity when other courts have upheld the right of judges to criticize the judicial system itself. Justice George C. Carlson Jr., in a dissent, said the issue was the Supreme Court acting in behalf of the public to ensure exemplary conduct among its judges, and wrote, "There can be no doubt that the judge in today's case made demeaning remarks in a public letter ... expressing bias or prejudice against a targeted sector of the population which includes individuals who may be expected to come before his court. His off the bench, but highly public conduct, implies an inability to fairly hear all segments of the community."

[Stop being a wuss, dammit; suck it up. Yeah, it threatens a person's faith in the system when a judge does something like this, but we need to keep our eyes on the fact that judges are human too, and come with complete sets of prejudices the same way anybody else does. Better a judge should identify those prejudices up front so we can take them into account. Any homosexual plaintiffs that might go before Wilkerson can now ask him to recuse himself on the grounds of his prejudicial views. --MN]

This article takes a look at a new invigoration in video game censorship. This invigoration is based on projections of market trends of video gaming on cell phones.

[The article opens with: Critics say the video-game industry seems to delight in pushing the envelope -- and the bounds of good taste -- with ever-gorier content. Is this true? Well, setting aside the hyperbole -- I doubt that they delight in it -- yes, they do constantly push the envelope. The same is also true for censorship, however. In both cases it's a matter of the slippery slope as social action. The important thing is "Why do they push the envelope?" The answer, contrary to what the censors say, is simply a matter of business and marketing. Saturation equals boredom, and the only way to keep your market share is to constantly come up with new gimmicks. The whole article centers around the basic censor's a priori assumption that "violent" games create psychopaths. And I doubt that the "new" research the censorship advocates cite is any more reliable than any of the studies Johnathan Freedman has debunked.

See my commentary on "Harmful To Minors" and cross-reference that with my commentary on the disrespect for human dignity that is inherent in prior restraint; or see the quotations file on media violence, which contains the material about Freedman. --MN]

By Protect Our Kids Campaign; formed of:

• Planned Parenthood Federation of America,
• Texas Freedom Network,
• Texas Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,
• Gray Panthers,
• Women's Health and Family Planning Association of Texas,
• League of Women Voters.

This coalition is protesting the abstinence-only teaching in four textbooks up for adoption by the Texas Board of Education this fall. The books are under review for possible selection for the 2005-2006 school year. It has been ten years since the last public controversy over safe-sex education in health books. That discussion resulted in the Texas Legislature passing a bill mandating that any sex education in public schools would focus on abstinence as the only form of disease and pregnancy prevention. According to the National Vital Statistics Reports, Texas has the highest teen birth rate in the U.S., at 64 per 1,000.

Texas, California and Florida account for more than 30 percent of the nation's public school book market, a four billion dollar industry, with the result that book publishers are loathe to buck ultra-conservative censorship.

By David Blunkett, British Home Secretary. Inciting violence or racial hatred are already crimes in Great Britain, now Blunkett's proposed amendment would make inciting religious hatred a criminal offence. He says the amendment is necessary to tackle extremists of all religions. Mr. Blunkett is quoted, "If someone is preaching hatred against Christianity and is calling for a jihad because of people's faith, then they would be caught just as someone who is preaching hate because someone is of Islamic faith." Comedian Rowan Atkinson says he understands why incitement to religious hatred should be banned, but is concerned it will make the criticism of religion by comedians a criminal offence, and commented, "How am I going to know where on the scale my particular idea stands?" Kings College law professor Robert Wintermute says this not a legitimate concern: "I think in practice, whether it's race or religion, the law will be concerned with more extreme cases and genuine good faith criticism of another religious group will not be caught." Professor Wintermute also said a similar law in Canada has had little or no effect on freedom of speech.

[Perhaps because Canada is not so litiguous as the U.S. Perhaps because Canadians are generally more laid back. Although I beg to differ in either event. My perception of our hate speech laws is that they allow for the persecution of non-mainstream ideas, while most censorial American legislation persecutes mainstream ideas, censorship in the U.S. generally being a tool of minorities. In effect, the Canadian government has legislated which ideas are mainstream and are permitted to be uttered thereby. --MN]

By the Federal Communications Commission. On this day, in an effort to make it easier for citizens to seek an investigation, the FCC proposed new regulations that would require radio and television broadcasters to keep copies of everything they air outside the Safe Harbor for any prospective indecency complaints.

[Around the time of the civil war, corporation owners went to court and won the right to have corporations considered the equal of human beings. A human being has a right to not incriminate himself. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, one of two Democrats on the five-member panel, is quoted as saying that the current process "has for too long placed inordinate responsibility upon the complaining citizen." [Current policy] "ignores that it is the commission's responsibility to investigate complaints that the law has been violated, not the citizen's responsibility to prove the violations." If that is the case, then I submit that the FCC should record what is broadcast, because requiring the corporations to do it is a Fifth Amendment violation.

By the Pentagon. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By Governor Mike Rounds and the Roman Catholic Church of South Dakota. And in what is almost certainly also a church/state entanglement. Robert Carlson, bishop of the Sioux Falls Catholic Diocese had complained about a link on a State Library Web site for teenagers to the Planned Parenthood web site, so Governor Rounds urged the removal of the link. In his letter of 12 May to Rounds, Bishop Carlson wrote, "I trust that you will agree that the information found on these links are not only objectionable, but in many instances false. Undeniably, it is sending a harmful message to our valued youth. I find it extremely troubling that the State of South Dakota would encourage our young women and men to turn to Planned Parenthood for any guidance, whether it be sex education or the intrinsic evil of abortion." On this day, the State Library board voted 5-1 to remove the link for two months while it conducts a review. The board had voted to keep links to the Planned Parenthood Teenwire and the Kaiser Family Foundation's Web site in April when a librarian had complained about it. Bishop Carlson's interference with the first amendment rights of access to information apparently stems from that failure to block access.

Governor Rounds's rationale for his actions is, "I'm not sure the state should be in the business of promoting a particular cause. A clear pro-choice message comes through strongly." Rounds reportedly said this is not censorship because the site is still available to Internet users without going through the library home page.

However, Kate Looby, Planned Parenthood's state director, reportedly said the library site includes a link to a Christianity Today site that promotes abstinence. She suggests keeping both links and to let people decide for themselves. Also, Rounds is quoted as saying, "As a parent, I would be very disturbed to have my children connecting to any of these Web sites that are found through the state Web site at this time"; Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, is quoted in reply, "The governor is not the master father of the state of South Dakota. At least I don't think he was elected on that basis."

[Addendum (14 Jul 2004:) By 12 Jul, Rounds escalated his censorship and decided to temporarily deny internet access to the library's web site for teenagers. Rounds said a portion of the site, known as the teen center, allowed people to link to outside sources that he feels were not appropriate for young people. A link to the Go Ask Alice! web site was apparently also removed.--MN]

By the judicial system. A three-judge panel of the 8th District U.S. Court of Appeals upheld ane earlier district court ruling allowing the Missouri Corrections Department to keep still and video cameras, as well as audio recorders, out of the execution chambers. Rev. Larry Rice, a St. Louis-based advocate for the poor and an outspoken critic of the death penalty, believes that televising executions would convince people that the death penalty is wrong; he argued that the ban on cameras in the execution chamber violates the First Amendment rights of public access. Judge Pasco Bowman wrote in part in the opinion, "The ban on videotaping does not prevent New Life from disseminating to the public any information gained from attending the execution."

Rice plans to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. He noted that one of the reasons for reinstating capital punishment in Missouri in 1989 was to help deter murder and other serious crimes, yet the executions take place at the secluded Potosi Correctional Center, which is 70 miles southwest of St. Louis, and always in the early morning hours, and away from camera view. He commented, "How is it a deterrent for further murders if it's done at 12:01 a.m. way back in the hills of Potosi, Missouri? The people have a right to see it. We don't want the circus atmospheres of the 1800s when a hanging would take place. But you have the other extreme where it's out of sight, out of mind."

["Deterrence" is a bankrupt concept, in my not so humble opinion. The threat of Hellfire and Damnation doesn't scare away those with christian upbringings from fornicating and adulterating and lieing and stealing any more than the threat of jail stops drug users from using. We've had "Thou shalt not commit Murder" for something like four thousand years; any idea how many murders have been committed in the name of christianity? --MN]

By Big Brother government. See the entry on the COINTELPRO page.

By the Bush administration. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

On 09 Jul, a St. Louis Circuit Court jury found that McFarlane and his comic-book company, Todd McFarlane Productions Inc., had infringed on Anthony Twist's publicity rights and ordered them to pay Mr. Twist fifteen million dollars. McFarlane has vowed to fight this case all the way to the Supreme Court. Again. The timeline on this case is as follows:

• Todd McFarlane, former principle artist and writer of Spiderman comics, gave the name Antonio "Tony Twist" Twistelli to a violent New York mob boss character in the Spawn comics in the early 1990s.

• McFarlane had claimed his use of the name was protected under the First Amendment. Twist sued, saying McFarlane had gone outside the bounds of free speech.

• A St. Louis Circuit Court jury awarded Twist more than $24.5 million by in 2000; the judge overruled that decision.

• The Missouri Court of Appeals' Eastern District ruled in McFarlane's favor in 2002, citing First Amendment protections, but

• In July 2003,the Missouri Supreme Court ordered a new trial. That court said that McFarlane's use of Twist's name was, "predominantly a ploy to sell comic books and related products rather than an artistic or literary expression."

• in December 2003, McFarlane appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that Spawn characters "are purely fictional fantasies, and no reasonable person could confuse the plaintiff with the fictional fantasies and characters portrayed therein."

• In January the high court turned away the appeal in McFarlane v. Twist without comment.

[A jury of his peers found McFarlane overstepped the bounds of free speech and the judge overruled the jury? I wonder what that was about. It's rare, but it does happen. --MN]
(see 12 Jan 2004)

By Robert Greenwald. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, is due to be released on this day. Greenwald is basically a so-far lower-key analog to Michael Moore, and is known for Steal This Movie, a 2000 film based on the life of the activist Abbie Hoffman, and Crooked E, a satirical TV movie about Enron's collapse that CBS broadcast in 2003, and Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War, a documentary that was critical of the Bush administration's drive to war. Robert S. Boynton, of New York Times Magazine, described the film this way in his 11 Jul 2004 article How to Make a Guerrilla Documentary:

''Outfoxed'' has been made in secret. The film is an obsessively researched expose of the ways in which Fox News, as Greenwald sees it, distorts its coverage to serve the conservative political agenda of its owner, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. It features interviews with former Fox employees, leaked policy memos written by Fox executives and extensive footage from Fox News, which Greenwald is using without the network's permission. The result is an unwavering argument against Fox News that combines the leftist partisan vigor of a Michael Moore film with the sober tone and delivery of a PBS special. A large portion of the film's $300,000 budget came in the form of contributions in the range of $80,000 from both MoveOn and the Center for American Progress, the liberal policy organization founded by John Podesta, the former chief of staff for Bill Clinton; Greenwald, who is not looking to earn any money from the project, provided the rest.

[...]

It is not exactly earth-shattering, of course, to learn that Fox is more conservative than other news networks. What ''Outfoxed'' does is detail the specific ways, both onscreen and behind the scenes, in which the network's conservatism shapes its news and opinion programs. The most stinging blow that ''Outfoxed'' delivers to Fox's ''fair and balanced'' claim comes in a segment of the film on the daily memos apparently sent to the entire Fox news operation by John Moody, Fox News's senior vice president for news and editorial.

Outfoxed was filmed secretly because, according to Greenwald, Fox would try to stop the film's release by filing a copyright-infringement lawsuit. No one has ever made a critical documentary about a media company using as much footage without permission as Greenwald has. While the legal precedents governing fair use are theoretically strong, they are not well established in case law.

[If you doubt Greenwald's assumption, see the entry on the suit against Al Franken, and the entry on Fox network censoring itself in its attack on The Simpsons. Moreover, Boynton reported that several major news organizations were unexpectedly refusing to license their clips, even though such licensing is ordinarily pro forma. CBS would not sell Greenwald the clip of Richard Clarke's appearance on 60 Minutes, because it didn't want to be associated with a controversial documentary about Murdoch and WGBH, the Boston PBS station, wouldn't let Greenwald use excerpts from Frontline because it didn't want to look too "political". Greenwald argues that these incidents are precisely the kind of corporate control of public information that he and his legal team want to challenge by strengthening the right to fair use. Also, see the commentary by Don Hazen which was posted to Alternet.org on 10 Jul. --MN]

[Addendum (09 Aug 2004:) On or about 05 Aug a further commentary about the blatantly biased "news" channel, Fox Leans Right, White, and Male By Steve Rendall and Julie Hollar, was posted to Alternet.org. --MN]

By the Bucks County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney. Voicenet Communications and a subsidiary, Omni Telecom, sued the state and two county district attorneys in 2003 after investigators seized computer servers that subscribers had been using to browse pictures posted on Usenet. On 02 Jul, District Attorney Diane Gibbons stalled the decision with a letter revealing that a grand jury had been convened and asked that all rulings in the civil case be stopped until the probe was finished. U.S. District Judge Mary McLaughlin scheduled a hearing on the matter for this day. Voicenet attorneys wrote in a court filing that the grand jury investigation was "a charade, done for improper and vindictive purposes," and suggested it was for the sole purpose of derailing the civil case. The filing also said, "This court cannot countenance, let alone reward the Bucks County district attorney for improperly manipulating the county investigating grand jury for her own purposes."

[That this is an abuse of due process is certainly my call on it. --MN]
(see 04 Apr 2003)

By McLennan County Court-at-Law Judge Tom Ragland. See the anti-Bush sentiment suppression timeline.

By the Bush administration. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By the Bush administration. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By Jeff and Nicole Rank. See the anti-Bush sentiment suppression timeline.

By Al-Jazeera. This twenty-four hour, Arabic news channel will be allowed to be distributed in Canada. The Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission ruled on this day that distributeers will be required to guard against the broadcast of "any abusive comment" which could discourage cable companies from picking it up. The Canadian Jewish Congress was not happy with the decision. Al-Jazeera issued a code of ethics, announcing that it would distinguish between news, analysis, and commentary to avoid "falling in the trap of propaganda and speculation." It also promised to "acknowledge any mistake as soon as it is made and take the initiative to correct it and avoid repeating it."

[Some raving American fools with an axe to grind have been showering shit and derision in all directions over this decision because the CRTC will still not allow Fox "News" to be broadcast in Canada; even though transmissions are by satellite. I account this to simply be a hypocrisy typical of the censormoron. The underlying cause of their whining is that their political propaganda and misinformation is not being aired while those of other parties are being aired. --MN]

By Washington State. See the entry on the Child Porn/Harmful to Minors page.

By US National Civil Rights Museum. On this day the museum announced two winners for the 2004 award. U2 frontman Bono is receiving the museum's "international award" on 18 Oct for having championed social justice with his music and activism. This year's other award recipient is John Lewis, of the U.S. House of Representatives, who "has maintained an unfailing, principled commitment to the ideals of equality and justice". The museum grants two Freedom Awards every year to people who have worked to advance civil rights; past winners include Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, and Jimmy Carter.

Reporters Without Borders commented about the trial scheduled to start on this day in Teheran, "We suspect that the senior Iranian officials implicated in this murder will remain unpunished and that a scape-goat will be convicted in order to put an end to a case that is embarrassing for the regime. We nonetheless hope that the trial due to take place on 17 July will shed full light on this killing and that our Canadian section, which is still awaiting visas, will be able to attend as observers."
(see the Zahra Kasemi Murder Case Timeline)

By Fox News. On this day, Don Hazen, Executive Editor of AlterNet, announced a law suit against Fox News that had been filed on 23 Dec 2003. The Independent Media Institute, the parent organization of AlterNet, had filed a legal challenge with the U.S. Trademark Office seeking to strip Fox of its trademark registration on the grounds the trademark was "merely descriptive" (making it ineligible) as well as "false and misleading". The challenge was filed just hours before the clock was scheduled to run out on the "contestability period". This is the legally mandated 5-year window during which a trademark registration can be challenged. Under U.S. law, after this period lapses the right to use a trademark becomes "incontestable" and virtually invulnerable, with the trademark holder entitled to prevent anyone else from using it, under penalty of prosecution, virtually forever. Regardless of whether the trademark was legitimately registered or not.

Alternet also announced that it was joining MoveOn.org in launching an international campaign to confront Fox News in its blatant efforts to use the airwaves for political gain and to promote conservative politics. Wes Boyd of MoveOn.org, in announcing this movement, said, "People are steamed about the media. People get it. Washington has never seen the kind of outrage that they heard last year from citizens around the country about media consolidation. And Fox News, as Robert [Greenwald] has shown in this film [Outfoxed], is Enemy #1 in the undermining of democracy -- they're partisan, they're bullies, they lie, they'll do anything for a buck, they don't even know what journalism is, and then they claim to be 'Fair and Balanced.' So we're going after Fox. This is just the beginning of a campaign to rebrand Fox "Unfair and Unbalanced," so that people know what they're watching. This campaign is a warning to any other media outlets, if they're thinking that the Fox model is something to copy. It isn't. Try journalism instead. Try serving the public interest."

Don Hazen wrote in his announcement:

Certainly Fox viewers could not fail to benefit from taking a more skeptical view of the trustworthiness of their favorite news channel, since a recent study by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy [PIPA] found that Fox News viewers were far more likely to have significant misconceptions about important news facts than viewers of any other TV news channel. In our challenge to Fox, one may wonder why it was left solely to our relatively small web magazine to pick up the trampled banner of journalistic integrity and carry it -- right to the very gates of the mighty Murdoch media empire. Where, one might ask, were Murdoch's prestigious and presumably more honorable media rivals -- CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post -- who pride themselves on upholding the highest standards of truth and fairness, and look down their noses at Fox for its cynical pursuit of sleaze and sensationalism? We sincerely hope that all manner of media organizations and leading journalists and public figures will join the confrontation of Fox, because Fox News taints all of corporate media in its role as propagandist, reducing the public's confidence that it is getting anything remotely truthful -- or fair and balanced.

[...]

We have no problem with Fox News being an unashamed spokesperson for the GOP, or even an outlet for conservative propaganda, in what is after all a free marketplace of ideas. But when Fox is allowed to frame its distorted, ideological point of view as "fair and balanced," we're all in trouble. What they're really saying is that anyone who disagrees with or challenges the conservative line is biased or a flat out liar -- or just plain wrong. That kind of dangerous reasoning has to be challenged, whether it's coming from the White House or Bill O'Reilly.

[Freedom of speech and of the press means that you get all the information you need to make up your own mind. Fox "News" does not support that principle. --MN]

By Wally Wakefield. In a very sticky case involving libel laws against the ethics of protecting confidential sources. The lawsuit in this case is actually between a former coach and the school district and four officials. This case was due to go to trial on 19 Jul, but was settled out of court on 09 Jul.

The facts are as follows; mind you, it is important to note for the context of this action that Cooper apparently did not contest the validity of any claims to journalistic privilege; he did not saying that Wakefield is not a real journalist. He seems to be attacking the confidentiality claims solely on the basis of the article being defamatory, and needing the information to make his case.

• Before joining the Maplewood Review part-time in 1980, the closest Wakefield had come to journalism was handling public relations for his local ski jumping club and working as a press box announcer for the old Minnesota North Stars hockey team

• In 1997 Wakefield contributed an article to the Maplewood Review about Tartan High School's decision to not renew the contract of football coach Richard Weinberger

• The article had named sources, but it was the anonymous sources who gave the alleged reasons for the dismissal; they described a coach who was profane, bad-tempered, and who intimidated players

• Weinberger said the sources were wrong and sued

• Stephen Cooper, Weinberger's attorney, said Wakefield was duped by the coach's enemies; he and Weinberger believe one of Wakefield's sources was a former assistant coach who wanted the top job; Cooper is quoted as saying, "The ineptness of Wally's reporting is stunning. Wally knew better. It was just complete incompetence."

• Wakefield has refused to reveal his sources for seven years. For him, it's a simple issue: He promised those sources he would not name them; he is quoted as commenting, "When you do that, there's a kind of trust there. That's what it came down to."

• A lower court judge determined that even without the article there was enough evidence to grant a trial on the grounds the statements were false and malicious.

• Minnesota's Free Flow of Information Act generally protects journalists from revealing their sources, but there is an exception for statements that defame. The state Supreme Court cited that exception last September in ruling against Wakefield; the Minnesota Supreme Court ordered him to name his sources, and he is being fined $200 a day for continuing to refuse; a penalty that could surpass $20,000 by the time the trial ends. (The fines had mounted to 18,200 dollars by 09 Jul.)

• A campaign was begun to raise money to help Wakefield with the fines, and by late June, journalists, newspapers and free-press groups had chipped in some $24,000.

• Mr Cooper said he's surprised at the support Wakefield has gotten from other journalists, and commented, "The media has not thoughtfully discussed the issues presented. It has not thought about the interaction between truth and journalism. It seems that the media has said is that truth is not important; what's important is journalism."

• Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, admitted that the case is "not ideal" from an ethical standpoint, but argued that: forcing a journalist to reveal a source to benefit one party in a lawsuit would jeopardize the perceived independence of the media, and that, that could have a chilling effect on other people's willingness to speak. She is quoted, "If people get the idea that 'Well, someone is promising me confidentiality, but look at that reporter in Maplewood -- he wasn't able to keep his promise, so what does that mean to me?"

At heart in this case, was that Weinberger has been unable to get a coaching job elsewhere, although he's now a middle school teacher in the district. His great love, however, is coaching. He is quoted, "There is no way that I will ever be made whole again. Financially, I will not be made whole, my career will not be made whole, the time taken away from my kids will not be made whole." He had reportedly hoped to coach his children through school, but now they're too old.

[See my commentary on the Vanessa Leggett case, and my commentary on what makes a person a "real journalist". It seems to me that in this case, the question that arises is whether or not a journalist can be made to reveal his sources in a third party suit. It might be different if Wakefield was named as the, or a, defendant. --MN]

By the Department of Homeland Security. On 26 May, Ian Spiers was working on an assignment for his photography class, taking shots of a railroad bridge near the Ballard Locks (Seattle, Washington{?}). An officer with a German shepherd approached him, asked him what he was doing and asked for his I.D. Spiers explained he was a photography student at a community college, showed a copy of his assignment, then asked the officer if he was legally obligated to show his I.D. The officer said no and walked away, but soon after several armed officers approached him, including three from the Seattle Police Department and three from the federal Homeland Security Department. This time, Spiers said, a Seattle police officer told him he had no choice but to show his I.D., and a Homeland Security agent told him he had broken a law by taking pictures of a federal facility.

This was the second time in less than two months that Spiers had been questioned about taking pictures of a landmark that attracts hundreds of tourists a day. Spiers said he complied with the demands and spent half an hour answering questions and let a Homeland Security agent photograph him -- after being told he had no choice. Spiers also said that a homeland security agent told him that he could not return to the locks with his camera without getting permission in advance. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokeswoman Patricia Graesser, however, said the Corps had no involvement in the incident and questioned the agent's order, saying,"Everyone -- all members of the public -- are welcome on the locks property, and photographs are allowed, and there's no need to get prior permission."

Donald Winslow, editor of the National Press Photographers Association 's magazine, was quoted as saying, "We've seen the constant erosion of our civil liberties amid this cry for homeland security by doing things that have an appearance of making us safe, but in reality it's a sham. No one showed up at the World Trade Center and took photographs from nine different angles before they flew planes into it."

By Linda Schuyler (creator). The N Channel announced it will postpone an abortion-themed, two part episode, which focuses on a teen character's decision to have an abortion. This episode first aired in Canada in January on CTV. The decision raised the ire of Degrassi fans in the U.S., and a 6,000-signature petition was sent to the Viacom-owned channel. The petition called the decision unjust and the fans called for airing the episode unedited. The episodes are in violation of U.S. mores because not only does the 14-year-old Degrassi character choose to abort, she feels no guilt or regret over her decision afterwards. The N Channel had put episodes of Degrassi on the shelf during a previous season. It delayed broadcasting episodes about the drug Ecstasy and another about date rape until officials decided how to slant them. Those episodes were aired following some edits and other special treatments: panel discussions, online parental guides, and separately filmed introductions. In the 1980s, both the BBC and some PBS stations in the U.S. also pulled episodes dealing with teen pregnancy.

[The other cases with N channel are a matter of dumbing-down snobbism; we have to "protect" our precious and soft-headed little darlings from the issues in real life that surround them but that they shouldn't know about. This case, of course, is simply anti-sexuality censorship. --MN]

[Addendum (15 Apr 2005:) On 13 Apr, Rachel Fudge had a piece entitled You Can't Do That on Television! reprinted at AlterNet.org, in which she examines the pop culture silence on television surrounding the issue of abortion, and the socio-cultural interactions between abortionist pro- and anti- civil liberties movements. I tend to ascribe the pop culture silence to the chilling effect. --MN]

By Linda Ronstadt. Before launching into her encore at her Aladdin Casino & Resort concert on 17 Jul, Ronstadt took a minute to laud Moore as a "great American patriot" who "is spreading the truth." She also dedicated the song Desperado to Moore and encouraged the audience to go see Fahrenheit 9/11. The comments drew loud boos from some audience members and prompted others to storm out of the theatre. Ronstadt noted that she had been doing the Moore dedication -- to mixed reactions -- at all of her concert stops. Associated Press reported casino president Bill Timmins as saying, "She praised him and all of a sudden all bedlam broke loose." He apparently further said that it was a very ugly scene, with people tossing their drinks into the air and tearing down posters for the one-night concert, and added that he had the 58-year-old singer escorted off the property because she "spoiled a wonderful evening for our guests and we had to do something about it." Some concert-goers disputed this account, however, saying that although a few unruly people were in attendance, the audience generally enjoyed the show, even after the comments about Moore. Aladdin officials said on 19 Jul that the decision to evict Ronstadt was not a partisan political response but an attempt to "defuse the situation."

[Yeah! -- right! They got unruly but she was punished for their behaviour. --MN]

Dr. Jiang Yanyong was released on 19 Jul. His wife told Associated Press that the military surgeon, now 72 years old, is in very good health and that he was not mistreated during his incarceration. Dr. Jiang was jailed in Feb 2004 for writing a letter to Chinese leaders asking them to declare that the non-violent Tiananmen Square student protests were a patriotic movement and not a counter-revolutionary riot. He also wanted a "resolution of errors committed by our party" during the Tiananmen Square affair. He came to international attention in the spring of 2003 after blowing the whistle on the true extent of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Beijing, causing the government enough embarrassment that it had to agree to open its records on the epidemic.

By Katherine Stapp. In article entitled Activists Win Billboard Battle, Not Free Expression War, Ms. Stapp examines a number of free speech issues; most of them dealing with the suppression of political speech about the presidential campaign. One issue is the way media concentration negatively affects free speech rights; in particular how Clear Channel, which owns some 800,000 billboards, refused to carry one anti-war political message because of complaints about the message by Marriott Hotel. Project Billboard filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against Clear Channel, but the two bodies came to a deal in which an alternate message would be mounted.

By Canada Post. An article from Reuters reported on this day that the Canadian postal service convinced Pet Valu stores to stop carrying Bark Bars, dog biscuits that come shaped like cats and letter carriers. The pet store chain, which has 292 outlets in Canada, agreed to withdraw the treats after it received a letter from Canada Post saying that employees were concerned about the risks mail carriers face from dogs and unhappy with having dog biscuits shaped in their likeness.

[Well, after all, if you accept the premise that media violence and bare nipples cause psychopathy in children, then it makes sense to believe that dog treats shaped like people cause dogs to attack letter carriers. God forbid, of course, that anyone should maybe undertake a scientific study to determine why dogs really do attack letter carriers. --MN]

By Quebecers. On 13 Jul, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission denied a renewal application for CHOI-FM because of an ongoing pattern of offensive and insulting on-air content. Basically, Jean-François (Jeff) Fillion seems to think of himself as the Canadian equivalent to Howard Stern. Since 1997, the radio station has garned 92 complaints. The CRTC says there has been an ongoing pattern of offensive and insulting on-air content, which violates the Broadcasting Act. This is the first time the CTRC has denied a licence renewal based on a pattern of on-air content.

The station's lawyers are preparing to request an injunction against the CRTC ruling while they launch an appeal in the Federal Court of Canada. CHOI's licence expires Aug. 31. On this day, tens of thousands of people rallied in support of the station. Chanting "Liberté" ("Freedom") as they marched to downtown Quebec City to demand freedom of expression and choice. The station's ownership staged the protest, hoping the size of the rally could pressure the federal government into reversing the decision.

[Addendum (28 Jul 2004:) Québec Premiere Jean Charest added his voice in criticizing the CRTC decsion. He is quoted, "I think the penalty imposed on CHOI-FM -- which is the most extreme penalty -- is a penalty that goes too far. Between the most extreme of penalties and other penalties, there's a lot of space there for a sanction that would be appropriate." He had called Heritage Minister Liza Frulla, asking her to do something to reverse the decision or at least lighten the punishment, and the federal government had asked for legal advice on whether the decision can be reversed. --MN]

By Nat Hentoff. In a commentary posted to First Amendment Center, Mr. Hentoff examined a free speech violation on or about 27 Jun, at this school in Brooklyn, New York. At the graduation ceremony, valedictorian Tiffany Schley was critical of problems at the school:

• a shortage of textbooks
• overcrowded classes
• administrators who disdained meeting with students to discuss remedies
• and a revolving door of principals -- four in the past four years.

Before she could move on to the positive remembrances, the assistant principal pulled the plug on the microphone. This was the second time Ms. Schley was censored -- her speech had been subjected to prior restraint by the school's principal; that person rewrote the speech and turned it into a chorus of hosannas. Ms. Schley opposed this move by reading her original speech.

The next day, not only was Ms. Schley denied her diploma, but the Education Department declared that her speech had disrupted the graduation ceremony for the other students. She and her mother were then escorted out of the building by security guards after school officials said both of them had been disrespectful and that Tiffany had to apologize for her commencement speech. On 29 Jun, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg described the person who made the decision to withhold her diploma as a bozo.

By Michael Syravong. See the appendix on vanity plates.

By Judge Nathaniel Gorton. Operation Rescue and several other anti-abortion groups had wanted to demonstrate in front of Sen. John Kerry's Beacon Hill town house. They had gotten a permit, but, according to Mary Jo Harris, a legal adviser to the Boston Police Department, the city revoked the permit at the request of the Secret Service, which believed the demonstration zone was too close to Kerry's residence. The groups filed the complaint in U.S. District Court; Judge Gorton quickly held a hearing and denied the request on the grounds, "I'm not going to second-guess the Secret Service's idea of how they feel they need to protect a presidential candidate." The groups had planned to pray and lay roses outside Kerry's home during the Democratic National Convention because Kerry supports abortion rights. They were offered another location about a block from Kerry's house but turned it down. They will likely not appeal the judge's ruling.

[Bad call, I'd say. The only reason he should have denied the request was because the demonstrations could prove disruptive to the rest of the neighbourhood. Of some small amusement was the cry-baby whining about First Amendment violations by slave-mongers who would appoint themselves keepers of women's reproductive faculties and whose government suppresses non-party line sex and sexuality speech.

Also, see the source article for material on a number of restrictions issues surrounding free speech efforts during the convention. You can ignore any bitching and whining about the censorship being partisan since there are equally censorial security policies in place in New York City for the Republican convention. --MN]

By Library Patrons of Texas, Inc.. This group launched its web site on this day and complained to the Commissioner's Court after being unable to get satisfaction through the review process.

A group of ultra-conservatives was unable to ban the Robie Harris sexuality books for lack of intolerance in a movement spanning 2002-2003. This group is challenging a wider range of books, albeit under the usual rationales. Library Patrons is challenging one hundred twenty books for children and young adults (although one title is duplicated). The group wants an age-appropriate policy at the Montgomery County Memorial Library System that targets books with sexual and gay themes, as well as those with offensive language.

Since about 19 Jun, give or take, fifteen of the books on the list have been challenged before the juvenile reconsideration panel; which panel is made up of library staff members and area residents. To date, four reviews have been completed, and those books were returned to the shelves. The others are scheduled to be reviewed over the next several months.

[See my commentary on this issue --MN]
(see the appendix on Robie Harris starting at 26 Aug 2002)

Reverend Scott Breedlove, pastor of The Jesus Church, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had planned to hold a book burning on this date (books, CDs, videos, and clothing). It was reported on 12 Jul, that the fire department had forbidden him to. Brad Brenneman, the fire department's district chief, was quoted, "We don't want a situation where people are burning rubbish as a recreational fire." When Reverend Breedlove apparently tried to move the book burning outside city limits he was forbidden to do that to by Linn County officials, who said the county's air quality division prohibits the transporting of materials from the city to the county for burning. Breedlove reportedly said that a city fire inspector had suggested shredding the material, but that that wouldn't seem biblical.

By the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On 26 Jun this court ruled that Kansas City, Missouri, police did not violate the free speech of rights of anti-abortionists on 23 Jun 2001. The protesters were among a group of activists who had set up signs, including poster-sized pictures of aborted fetuses, near a busy intersection. After several motorists complained about the pictures, officers asked the protesters to move their signs, saying they were creating a traffic hazard. When the protesters refused to move the signs, five of them were charged under the city's loitering ordinance; which charges were later dropped. The two to one majority opinion read in part, "The police officers narrowly tailored the restrictions to serve a significant governmental interest and left open alternative channels of communicating their message." Judge C. Arlen Beam issued a strong dissent, saying the officers asked the protesters to move the signs because of complaints from motorists about the graphic nature of the pictures; "The Constitution does not allow a small group of passers-by to censor, through their complaints, the content of a peaceful, stationary protest."

[I tend to concur with Judge Beam, although the complaints might merely have drawn the attention of the police to the hazard the signs posed. Still, the police did only ask that the signs be moved. --MN]

[Addendum (08 Aug 2004:) Charles Haynes had a commentary on this issue posted to First Amendment Center. He sided with the protesters. The commentary contains information developing a fuller context. It seems that the traffic hazard created derived from the motorists who were offended stopping in traffic to complain about the signs to the police. Instead of ticketing the motorists, the police moved to punish the protesters. I still haven't made up my mind about this one, myself, but there's no denying that the cops screwed up. --MN]

By Pennsylvania. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a 1996 state law, intended to combat underage drinking, placed an unfair financial burden on student-run publications and hindered their right to free speech while doing little to achieve its goal. Judge Samuel Alito said the state faces a heavy burden anytime it tries to restrict speech, but had offered only "speculation" and "conjecture" to support its contention the ad ban would slacken the demand for alcohol by underage Pitt students. He wrote in the opinion, "Even if Pitt students do not see alcoholic beverage ads in The Pitt News, they will still be exposed to a torrent of beer ads on television and the radio, and they will still see alcoholic beverage ads in other publications, including the other free weekly Pittsburgh papers that are displayed on campus together with The Pitt News." The crafters of the law had tried to avoid a free-speech challenge by not barring student publications from promoting alcohol, by making it illegal for them to be paid for carrying such ads; a move which cost The Pitt News 17,000 US dollars in revenue. Judge Alito rejected the state's strategy, saying, "If government were free to suppress disfavored speech by preventing potential speakers from being paid, there would not be much left of the First Amendment."

[See the source article for more background; there are a few other issues involved in this case. --MN]
(see Apr 1999; 19 Feb 2003)

By Paul K. McMasters. He had a commentary published at First Amendment Center in which he analyses the statistics in the State Of the First Amendment survey as regards freedom of the press.

By Max Yawney. It was reported that on 09 Jul three pieces of the exhibit at Denver International Airport, were removed following complaints from employees. A suitcase with a handle made from a box cutter, andan open suitcase with a bumper sticker attached that read "Blood for oil. Billionaires for Bush", both by Artist Madeleine Hatz of New York, were removed, and the third piece, showing a yellow case containing small toy planes and missiles, was removed but reinstated. That one was deemed to be only "borderline offensive" by co-manager of aviation Vicki Braunagel. Ms. Braunagel said she removed the three pieces on July 9 -- the first day the 43-piece exhibit opened on a walkway between the concourse and Terminal A -- because six employees complained about the pieces. She seems to have unilaterally decided that the three pieces were "inappropriate."

By Michael Moore. It was banned in Kuwait because the film is insulting to the Saudi Arabian royal family and critical of America's invasion of Iraq. Abdul-Aziz Bou Dastour, cinema and production supervisor at the Information Ministry, said to Associated Press, the film, "insulted the Saudi royal family by saying they had common interests with the Bush family and that those interests contradicted with the interests of the American people." The decision was made in mid-July after the state-owned Kuwait National Cinema Co. asked for the license to show the movie. This company has a monopoly on cinemas in Kuwait, but all movies must first be sanctioned by the government. The film is already playing in the Middle East, including in the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.

By Mel Gibson. An article from the Reuters news service on this day reported that showings of The Passion of the Christ would be allowed in Mayasia, but only to christians. Some nine percent of the twenty-five million people there are christians, while some fifty percent are Muslim. The decision has drawn fire from commentator Rose Ismail, whose op/ed was published in the New Straits Times newspaper; which normally reflects government thinking. Ms. Ismail suggested Islamic clerics in Malaysia feared The Passion of The Christ could lead some Muslim viewers to convert to Christianity. To her, the viewing restrictions reflected a lack of confidence. She apparently wrote, "The ban implies that Malaysian Muslims' devotion to Islam is tenuous and shallow; that we are easily seduced by religious beliefs." Film Censorship Board spokeswoman Kathy Kok said in explaining the board's decision that the film might spark off some religious disagreement.

In Indonesia, a neighbouring state which also has an islamist establishment, censors took a different approach. They authorised a general release but cut some of the violence.

The film was also aired in parts of the Middle East. This decision was attributed to a Jewish outcry over the film which encouraged Arab governments to break their own censorship rules.

By Robert Fisk. On this day, Mr. Fisk had an article mirrored at ArabNews.com, at Truthout.org, and which is posted at his web site, in which he details a number of types of information that are not reported in the press. The context of the piece illustates how this lack of reporting is part of the war zone culture of Iraq, in which conditions continue to worsen.

[Almost as a footnote, Fisk also reported on an active piece of press censorship:

Salem Chalabi, the brother of convicted fraudster Ahmad and the man entrusted by the Americans with the tribunal, told the Iraqi press two weeks ago that all media would be excluded from future court hearings. And I can see why. Because if Saddam does a Milosevic, he’ll want to talk about the real intelligence and military connections of his regime - which were primarily with the United States.

Most of the article is a rant about the near schizophrenic state of denial in which Tony Blair, in particular, is operating as regards Iraq, however. The tone of Fisk's "voice" in the article is one of complete incredulity that anyone could be so purblind as Messrs. Bush & Blair. --MN]

By Bill Nevins. He is to receive $110,000 in compensatory damages, and Eric Sirotkin, his lawyer, will get $95,000, in a settlement from the lawsuit they filed in September 2003. The district did not acknowledge any liability in the case.

[See the source article for more background. --MN]
(see 15 May 2004)

By the Town of Huntington. A small town in Quebec Province, Canada, just a short drive north of the border, it has supposedly been plagued in the recent past by a surfeit of vandalism. The bylaw was adopted on 07 Jun 2004 by the town council, led by Mayor Stéphane Gendron, but a lawsuit by lawyers working with André Chenail, the local Liberal member of Quebec's National Assembly, was filed on 05 Jul, and that short-circuited the enactment of the curfew. Chenail said only about 60 of the 300 incidents reported recently to local police can be linked to vandalism. A CBC NewsOnline article from that time reported that Gendron had conceded that the curfew was designed to draw attention to the community's struggle to provide policing and offer recreational activities to its youth. That bylaw was suspended when the Quebec Human Rights Commission said the curfew violated the provincial charter of rights. The reason is that it would have placed a curfew on everyone 16 and under.

On 02 Aug, the town council adopted a bylaw setting a fine of $50 for parents whose children are found in city streets or parks without supervision between 10:30 p.m. and 6 a.m., with repeat offenders to be fined $100, although this bylaw makes exceptions for teens coming home from jobs or kids returning from organized activities. The bylaw went into affect on this day. Mayor Gendron said it is consistent with the Quebec Civil Code, provisions of which say parents must supervise their children at all times and be responsible for them.

[Damned fool. Okay, so you're a progressive parent, you are raising your child to be responsible for himself; to show him that you trust him and respect him as an young adult you let him go out some evening. Suddenly, there's a knock at the door. It's the police. You are fined fifty dollars for failing to treat your young adult as if he were a two year old. --MN]

By Steve Rendall and Julie Hollar. In a commentary entitled Fox Leans Right, White, and Male, which was reprinted at Alternet.org, these two examine the clear and present political bias of the Fox News network. This work is part of the study commissioned for the film Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism by Robert Greenwald.

By Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. See the entry on the Child Porn/Harmful to Minors page.

By the party faithful. See the anti-Bush sentiment suppression timeline.

In a clear and present violation of freedom of the press, The Iraqi government closed the Iraqi offices of the Arab television station Al-Jazeera for 30 days. The excuse the interim government seized upon was that Al-Jazeera was inciting violence. Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said the government convened an independent commission a month ago to monitor Al-Jazeera's daily coverage "to see what kind of violence they are advocating, inciting hatred and problems and racial tension." Iraqi Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said the closure was intended to give the station "a chance to readjust their policy against Iraq." He is also quoted, "They have been showing a lot of crimes and criminals on TV, and they transfer a bad picture about Iraq and about Iraqis and encourage criminals to increase their activities. We want to protect our people." Senior U.S. officials also have criticized Al-Jazeera's coverage of the Iraq war, calling the network an outlet for the al-Qaida terror network, broadcasting videotapes and audiotapes purportedly from Osama bin Laden or his aides. During an interview with Al-Jazeera in Moscow on 25 Jul, interim Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari accused the channel of biased reporting and implied its journalists could be barred from the country. He apparently said during the interview, "We do not tolerate those who exploit the freedom of the media. These channels have become channels for provocation against the interest, security and safety of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government will not be lenient toward such behavior."

Al-Jazeera's spokesman Jihad Ballout said the network was not given a reason for the closure, and said of the closure that it inhibits the, "right of the Arab people around the world to see a comprehensive picture about what's going on in an important region like Iraq." The Arab news network has occasionally encountered problems with authorities in other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and even with the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein. Unlike Arab state-run media, the station often airs views of local opposition figures and their criticisms of their countries' rulers.

[Let's see, . . . Al-Jazeera is reporting on the violence of a war zone which is being perpetrated as much by the invaders as by the resistance, and this means that they are inciting the violence. . . . How's that again? Let's face it; Al-Jazeera is being punished for failing to slant their reporting so as to cast the occupying force and its puppet goverment in a good light. --MN]

[Addendum (09 Aug 2004:) On this day Arabnews.com carried an opinion/editorial by William Fisher. Fisher is a former journalist who served in the international affairs area in the Kennedy administration. He examines the likely broad ramifications of the closing; including citing a CNN report:

In an Arab world rife with conspiracy theories, the decision to close the offices of the popular channel could reinforce the perception that decisions by Iraq’s interim government are influenced by the United States, which has long complained about Al-Jazeera’s coverage.

I figured at first glance that the interim government was operating at the behest of U.S. officials, but there is no indication this is actually so. More likely Allawi is simply following the example set by his taskmasters. --MN]

By William Pierce. The government of Canada banned the importation of audio recordings by this white supremacist. A shipment of the cassette recordings was seized in April by Canada Customs. In the speech, from Feb 2002, entitled Journalists and Canadians, Mr. Pierce claimed:

• that the Canadian media corporation CanWest Global Communications is part of Jewish conspiracy to control the news industry;

• that the now deceased owner, Israel Asper, had issued a written directive forbidding the newspapers of his chain from printing anything critical of Israel, Israeli actions, or policies;

• that journalists were discouraged from writing about Israeli nuclear or chemical weapons programs; or "anything about Israel's booming slave trade in girls and women kidnapped from eastern Europe and forced to work as sex slaves."

The flip side of the tape, an attack against the Anti Defamation League of the U.S., was also condemned as hate literature. Mr. Pierce is better known as the author of The Turner Diaries.

By Corpus Christi school board (Texas), Richmond County Board of Education (Georgia), and Springfield High School (Vermont).

Issues central to the dress codes of these particular districts stem respectively from:

• Lack of democratic process: Elissa Garza, a Carroll High School student who submitted a petititon with 2,000 signatures, said the Corpus Christi school board made the decision too quickly and did not get student input.

• Elements of racism and evolving fashion trends: The Richmond County Board of Education unanimously passed a dress code banning gold teeth, large belts and clothing that appears to be gang-related, gang hand signals, symbols, uniforms, and meetings. Trustee Kenneth Echols said before the vote that he was concerned about banning items worn mostly by black students, but there was also some concern about gang-related apparel becoming a mainstream fashion.

• Contemporary fashion as disruptive influence: Changes to the dress code at Springfield High School have gone out to parents, with additions and revisions aimed at reducing the prospect of improperly dressed students.
  • Shirts cannot show any cleavage and should be long enough to cover the navel.
  • Muscle shirts with oversized arm holes cannot be worn.
  • Shorts should have an inseam at least three inches long and skirts should be within six inches of the top of the knee.
  • Undergarments such as underwear and bras cannot be showing.
  • No strapless or off-the-shoulder shirts will be permitted and pants will be worn no lower than the point of the hip.
  • Clothes also cannot depict, promote, or imply: alcohol or drugs or tobacco, sexual references of any kind, or offensive language.

  Under the dress code, a teacher or faculty member has the right to send students out of the room if they feel the student's dress is affecting the educational environment.

Concerning that last, Principal Rod Tulonen was reported as remembering the anti-mini-skirt movement of the 1960's, and is quoted, "I saw principals measure with rulers. I don't want to get into that."

[I remember high school and the raging hormones and frankly, just the fact that a girl was breathing in those days was a big enough distraction for me however demurely she might have been dressed. See the source article for more background. --MN]

By Anonymous. the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a Nevada law barring anonymous political fliers as an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. The ruling by a three-judge panel on 06 Aug overturned a decision by U.S. District Judge David Hagen. Judge Hagen had held that disclosing the authorship of political materials protects the election process from fraud. He ruled that that anonymous distribution of ideas is at the core of First Amendment principles, but that anonymity itself was not an absolute right.

Judge Marsha Berzon, writing for the circuit court panel in ACLU v. Heller, said the state law requiring such disclosure, "reaches far more core political speech than is necessary to achieve the state's otherwise legitimate interests, and advances those interests poorly if at all." Nevada lawmakers had amended the state law in 1997 to comply with a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against a similar Ohio law; Judge Berzon said the result was a law that was even more broad in restricting speech than the Ohio statute.

By Citizens United. This conservative group contends the Federal Election Commission should consider it part of the news media, and allow it to run election-time ads for a book and a documentary attacking Democratic candidates John Kerry and John Edwards. This is the same Citizens United that attempted to use this same law to stop advertising for Fahrenheit 9/11. Citizens United argues it should qualify for the press exemption because it publishes and releases newsletters, position papers, documentaries, and books, whereas "Fahrenheit 9/11" is anti-Bush propaganda and doesn't qualify for that exemption. The FEC voted to throw out the complaint in late Jul while declining to decide whether the press exemption applied to the ads.

[Standard censormoron hypocrisy: he's not as much of a journalist as we are, so he's not a real journalist. Moore might be a satiricist and polemecist, but he's still a documentary producer. Anyone who doubts that Moore is not a member of the media can see my commentary on this issue. --MN]
(see 24 Jun 2004)

By Saudi Arabia. On 06 Aug the deputy minister for Girls' Affairs Dr. Khidir Al-Qurashi, told Al-Watan daily the rumors that PE would be introduced in girls' schools next year was completely untrue. Physical education has been banned in the Kingdom's girls' schools for the last 40 years. Raid Qusti wrote in his article about the announcement:

Setting the record straight for the public is one thing but denying that the Shoura voted last year simply to study the matter is something else altogether. It is interesting that both the deputy minister and the head of the Shoura deny the vote when it was widely reported that the Shoura in fact voted for PE to be introduced into girls' schools. Many members of the Shoura spoke to me off the record and said that they did not want their names mentioned in the article I wrote on the voting last year. They explained how sensitive the topic was for Saudi society since it concerned traditions that are deeply rooted here - females participating in sports. Was the deputy minister who denied that the Shoura had voted to introduce PE merely trying to save himself from being attacked by the ultraconservatives?

[See the source article for more background about the denials. At the very least, some of those denials can be chalked up to chilling effect. --MN]

By The Washington Post. A brief article posted to Alternet.org on this day reported that this newspaper admitted burying coverage of the Bush administration's rush to war. The Post on WMDs: An Inside Story, details how a story that should have made the front page was relegated to page A17. The story says in part:

An examination of the paper's coverage, and interviews with more than a dozen of the editors and reporters involved, shows that The Post published a number of pieces challenging the White House, but rarely on the front page. Some reporters who were lobbying for greater prominence for stories that questioned the administration's evidence complained to senior editors who, in the view of those reporters, were unenthusiastic about such pieces. The result was coverage that, despite flashes of groundbreaking reporting, in hindsight looks strikingly one-sided at times.

[Why do I count this as censorship? It was done to promote the benefit of the government over the welfare of the citizenry. Even if the government did not specifically ask for this action to be taken, it was done on its behalf. --MN]

By Higher Media Commission. According to an article by Antonia Zerbisias of the Toronto Star, which was reprinted at CommonDreams.org, a "Higher Media Commission" has been appointed to basically replace Saddam Hussein's "information ministry". The commission is moving into the information ministry's old digs and is expected to retain many of the 5,000 former state censors. Mr. Zerbisias alleges that the purpose of the commission will be to red line the press. He also details some underlying causes of the suppression of Al-Jazeera, and how Paul Bremmer's edicts have basically stolen the country out from under Iraqi citizens.

By Sara Whalen. In a commentary entitled Fixing Bremer's Blunder, and Letting Loose the Words and published at Arabnews.com, Ms. Whalen asks some interesting questions about what might really be behind the cause of resistance to the occupation of Iraq. For instance:

The Mahdi army is on the move again. It's the Energizer Bunny of Iraqi urban militias. What makes it keep going and going and going? Neocons insist it's Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr's deep hatred for America. But what if the Mahdi army and Sadr are fighting because they love democracy, particularly freedom of speech and freedom of the press?

What if some Iraqis don't trust getting their news from the "occupier?" What if they are willing to fight and die for the right to talk their own talk?

A commentary well worth the read. Particularly in light of the history of the United States itself, circa 1775-1783. The article also details a few censorship incidents.

By the federal government of Canada. An article by Paul Weinberg at Rabble.ca detailed the harrassment and firing of three scientists. A blunt statement from Michael McBane, co-ordinator of the Ottawa-based Canadian Health Coalition, which represents groups of seniors, farmers, women, labour unions and healthcare professionals, said the 14 Jul decision to fire Shiv Chopra, Margaret Haydon, and Gerard Lambert, veterinary scientists working in the government office that tests new drugs, was made at the highest levels of the Canadian bureaucracy with the co-operation of the food and pharmaceutical industries. Steve Hindle, president of the labour union that representing the three, alleges that Health Canada "just reached the end of its rope" after years of reprimanding and suspending the scientists because of their public opposition to the approval of certain drugs. Resistance from Chopra, Haydon, and Lambert towards a bovine growth hormone developed by agri-business giant Monsanto, for instance, ultimately led to a Senate inquiry in the 1990s and a decision to not approve the drug in Canada.

[Something similar happened with Thalidomide, except it was a newly-sworn-in Surgeon General in the U.S. who refused to approve the drug there despite pressure to do so, because the pharmaceutical companies hadn't made a full disclosure, while the drug was approved in Canada. For the uninitiated, Thalidomide acts on some of the genes of developing embryoes and fetuses, switching them off, so the babies are born malformed; usually without arms, legs, or both. I have personally seen a "Thalidomide baby" grown to adulthood; her hands were sticking directly out of her shoulders like little flappers. --MN]

By independent reporters. Iraqi police ordered all journalists to leave Najaf just as a new U.S. offensive there began. The hotel where journalists were staying was surrounded (sic) by four police cars and the reporters were presented with an order signed by Brig. Ghalib al-Jazaari, Najaf's police chief. according to journalists at the hotel, the order did not spell out a punishment for those who did not comply, the police who delivered it said any reporters remaining would be arrested. The police also reportedly said that any cameras and cellular phones they saw would be confiscated. In response to the threat, many journalists left the city. The order also said that all cars coming into the city would be searched and all protesters must leave the city. This move means that the only news coverage of the ongoing violence in Najaf will be provided by reporters embedded with the U.S. military.

Apparently the police had tried to frighten off reporters earlier in the day, by advising reporters to leave because of a rumor of a potential car bombing which would target journalists. When most reporters stayed, the police returned with the order.

By the U.S. government. A federal judge ordered the government to cooperate in releasing records concerning the treatment of detainees to the watchdog groups who had asked for them. The American Civil Liberties Union and four other not-for-profit groups, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace, brought the lawsuit in Jun, accusing the State, Defense, and Justice departments, among other agencies, of ignoring requests for information filed under the Freedom of Information Act. On 12 Aug, Judge Alvin Hellerstein, saying he had jurisdiction over the issue, told the government to begin producing the requested documents by 23 Aug. The government said it would turn over the records or explain why they could not be released.

By the priest class of Iran. On this day sixteen-year-old Ateqeh Sahaleh was hanged in public.

• She was tried in a summary trial

• She did not have a lawyer and efforts by her family to recruit a lawyer were to no avail, leaving her to defend herself.

• She told the religious judge, Haji Rezaii, that he should punish the main perpetrators of moral corruption instead of the victims.

• The sentence was issued by the head of the Justice Department for the town of Neka.

• The judge personally pursued her death sentence beyond all normal procedures and finally gained the approval of the Supreme Court.

• The sentence was subsequently upheld by the mullahs' Supreme Court and carried out with the approval of Judiciary Chief Mahmoud Shahroudi.

• After her execution Rezaii said that her punishment was not execution but he had her executed for her "sharp tongue".

[Of course, what she was really hanged for was daring to criticize the ruling class. American ultra-conservatives should pay attention to this sort of thing because this is what a religious state in the U.S. would become. Might take a generation or two, but it'll happen. --MN]

By Jim Hightower. His examination of government repression, written for the 16 Aug 2004 issue of The Nation, was posted to Truthout.org on 12 Aug. In it, he covers several incidents which are logged in these pages, and then goes on to explore background issues and to illustrate the creeping fascism aspect. This last point is a clear demonstration of how a command takes on the character of its commander. Some of the prosecutions are based on such totally asinine and specious rationales that it boggles the mind.

By Beenie Man. This Jamaican rapper could face criminal prosecution in Great Britain because of lyrics which appear to incite violence against homosexuals. Gay rights groups have demanded action against Beenie Man, and Ken Macdonald, Director of Public Prosecutions, has taken personal responsibility for the case. The lyrics reportedly include an apparent call to hang lesbians and to kill homosexuals with a bazooka, but a charge of inciting violence would be complicated by the complex Jamaican patois in the lyrics, and the fact that some of the offending songs have never been released in Britain. Beenie Man, AKA: Anthony Davis, is one of the biggest stars of Jamaica's dancehall music scene, a form of reggae which is becoming increasingly popular around the world. Nor is this the first time his lyrics have caused problems. In June, police called off a concert he was due to give in London, while during the week of 08-14 Aug he was axed from a series of U.S. shows by a sponsor.

Chief Superintendant Clive Driscoll of the Metropolitan Police, leading the investigation, is quoted, "I have no wish to stop someone's freedom of speech. But by the same token, I would not want offences to be missed. We will be looking at whether there are grounds for prosecution and if the answer is yes, then who will be liable for prosecution. That's where the complications will come in."

By the Combined Federal Campaign and the Bush administration. See the entry on the ACLU incidents page.

By Big Brother government. See the entry on the COINTELPRO page.

By Elmore County Board of Education, in Wetumka, Alabama. This school board voted to change its dress code to adhere to its harassment policy, which defines harassment as anything that distracts and prevents students, teachers or faculty from completing work. The school board deemed Malcolm X emblems offensive but permits clothes depicting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Also forbidden is the usual suspects: Confederate flag; there is also a vague and overbroad ban of: any other emblems that could be considered offensive.

[Why is this ban vague and overbroad? "There is nothing that cannot be found offensive by someone, somewhere." This dress code is discriminatory, in my not so humble opinion, because it allows for depictions of a mainstream Black leader, but not a fringe Black leader. --MN]

By the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that a Pennsylvania state law requiring schoolchildren to either recite the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the national anthem daily violated the free-speech rights of students and the right of private schools to "free expressive association". The history of this law is in brief:

• The legislation was introduced by state Rep. Allan Egolf, R-Perry, who said he drafted the measure after talking to veterans who told him that many schools no longer routinely recite the pledge.

• February 2003: a lawsuit challenging the requirement was filed by:
  • high school sophomore Max Mishkin of Philadelphia;
  • the Circle School, a private school with no set curriculum or tests;
  • a teacher at the school;
  • and several other private schools that joined the suit.

• 06 Feb 2003: U.S. District Judge Robert F. Kelly signed an injunction barring it from being implemented one day before the law was to come into effect.

• July 2003: Kelly ruled the law unconstitutional, saying the threat of parental notification would coerce students into taking the pledge and thereby violate their right to free speech.

Jim Rietmulder, a Circle School staff member and founder, is quoted: "I think that what the appeals court found, and we're in complete agreement with, is that there is no harm in reciting the pledge, and there's no harm in singing the national anthem. The harm is to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights when we try to force people to do those things."

[The last word on this one also goes to Mr. Rietmulder: "There's a great irony in violating people's freedom of speech in order to instill in them an appreciation of freedom of speech." Personally, I think laws requiring such activity are more indications of indoctrination and brainwashing than of socialization. --MN]

By FAIR. The media watchdog group released an e-mail in which it explains a countervailing viewpoint on the subject of protecting the confidentiality of one's sources. They maintain that whistleblower protections should be reserved for actual whistleblowers, and withheld from those who are exploiting the media to commit crimes. The e-mail specifically cites the Wen Ho Lee and Valerie Plame incidents as two cases where reporters should reveal the identity of their sources.

[A viewpoint with which I heartily concur. Consider: not only was the press manipulated into doing some felonious dirty-work for the sneaking curs who didn't have the cojones to do it themselves, but the reporters who were duped are now set up to take the fall for the crimes committed. What a sweet deal. Sucker someone into doing your crime, and then doing your time. Aside from that, I would contend that because of the press penchant for reporting secrets simply because they are secrets, those reporters made of themselves accomplices. --MN]

By neo-Nazi demonstrators. Three thousand neo-Nazis were expected in the Bavarian town of Wunsiedel on this day to mark the anniversary of the death of Adolf Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess. Hess was buried in this town after he was found hanged in his prison cell in the Spandau district of Berlin in 1987. Wunsiedel's town council had tried to ban the march, which has become an annual event, but its organizers won a court appeal. German police arrested 74 marchers for possessing banned Nazi symbols and weapons.

By the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government. Composed of a dozen or so journalist organizations, the Coalition complained during the week of 15-21 Aug, that a proposed Homeland Security Department policy would impede the public release of information on environmental hazards. Their complaint involves the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act. The Bush administration has blamed the environmental act for bureaucratic gridlock and has been seeking to update it. Homeland Security said it would still conduct its environmental assessments in accordance with federal standards as defined by the 1970 act. But the department added it would not release such assessments to the public if key material was deemed classified or protected. The coalition says the range of information Homeland Security could withhold is too broad, and the new policy could give the agency "a blank-check authority to declare information secret." One of the coalition's recommendations is for the department to adopt independent oversight for any nondisclosure decisions, and to narrow the limits on classifying environmental information.

[This movement is perfectly in keeping with two Bush regime policies: Secrecy for everything, and: sell America to the corporations and hang the environment. --MN]
(see 18 Apr 2002; 28 Dec 2002; 11 Sep 2003; 19 Mar 2005)

By Steve Weissman. See the entry on the COINTELPRO page.

By The Smoking Gun. This web site posted some twenty-seven scanned pages listing materials which were not permitted into Canada for the second quarter of 2004. Prohibited items are generally those that violate obscenity, child pornography, or hate speech laws. The list is compiled by the Customs and Revenue Agency Prohibited Importations Unit.

[The Smoking Gun seems to intimate on its page dealing with this issue, that private citizens are forbidden to bring such materials into the country as private property. Ideally, importation means to traffic for resale. I wonder if private citizens are having such materials confiscated even though the material is solely for personal use. --MN]

On this day two articles critical of the anti-Kerry disinformation campaign were reposted to Commondreams.org, and on 25 Aug, two others examining Kerry's conduct vs: Bush's -- both then and now -- were reposted to Truthout.org. Another was posted to The Nation. Then on 26 Aug, came the excellent and insightful piece Ambush Politics. Some of them examine how the corporate media were failing to report properly because of the circus atmosphere created around the issue of Kerry's Viet Nam service.

• They'd Be More Truthful If They Called Themselves 'Swift Boat Veterans for Lies' by Bill Gallagher: Primarily a piece of invective and rhetoric, but containing much real information for the discerning mind.

• You Can Report, But We Will Decide by Ben Wasserstein: The Conservative Media's Handling of the Swift Boat Dispute is a Case Study in Bias

• These Charges are False... Los Angeles Times | Editorial: The role of the media, in part, in promoting and validating campaign rhetoric and outright falsehoods.

• Bush Politics 101: How To Make Someone Else's Smear Work For You by David Corn: Assertions of misrepresentative reporting of Bush's opposition to 527 group political advertising; and of orchestrated propaganda fests by his campaign organizers.

• Not So Swift by John Nicols: Examining a clear and present failure of the press to recognize a real, breaking news story of vital interest to the American public.

• Ambush Politics by Brian Montopoli, Zachary Roth, and Thomas Lang: a fairly indepth look partly at the corporate press penchant for yellow journalism and padded profit margins over reporting of substance, and partly at the failure of reporters to do the job they are supposed to.

[Addendum (02 Sep 2004:) On 30 Aug, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting released an e-mail in which it was critical of the corporate media for allowing the Bush campaign and the Swift Boat Veterans to establish and control the frames of the "news". --MN]

By Matthew Rothschild. See the entry on the COINTELPRO page.

By Waco, Texas. Nearly 20 anti-abortion demonstrators who protested in front of the Planned Parenthood of Central Texas were cited in March for refusing to disperse from in front of the clinic, which is located in a School Zone; across the street from the school. In February, the Waco City Council had adopted an ordinance prohibiting street activity and parades, including demonstrations, during school-zone hours. The anti-abortion activists alleged that the ordinance tramples on free speech, religious liberty, and the right to peaceably assemble. Municipal judge Rod Goble, of nearby Woodway, found the demonstrators ruled that the ordinance was constitutional and found the protesters guilty on this day. Waco's municipal judge had recused himself to avoid a perceived conflict of interest.

The clinic's executive director, Pam Smallwood, said she supported the ordinance: "It increases safety in critical times in school zones. Anyone who cares about the safety of children would support it."

[Amusingly ironic, isn't it, that rabid "We Must Protect The Children" groups only want children protected when it isn't inconvenient to them? Especially when protection of the already living is suborned to protection of the legally non-living. It'll be interesting to see if this case goes through the appeal process. --MN]

By the police. A Laura Flanders commentary, reporting on how law enforcement agencies typically misrepresent protesters as violent, was reprinted at Alternet.org on this day. It was originally aired on Air America Radio on Sunday, 22 Aug. Among the points she covered were:

• the baseless a priori assumptions upon which totalitarian crowd control tactics are founded;
• how police agencies falsely accused demonstrators of initiating violence that was in fact initiated by the police;
• COINTELPRO operations in Philadelpia,
• how many charges during cases of mass arrests were simply dismissed;
• how there is coordination between federal, state, and local police with the Secret Service;
• the comportment of John Timoney and the abuses perpetrated by law enforcement in Miami.

[Addendum (04 Sep 2004:) On 29 Aug, a commentary by activist Jaggi Singh was posted at Rabble News, a Canadian indy media web site, in which he examines the tissue of lies and disinformation being promulgated by law enforcement agencies and their dupes in the corporate media. See my commentary on this issue. --MN]

By Frank Van den Bosch. See the anti-Bush sentiment suppression timeline.

By Not In Our Name. This anti-war group is organizing a massive protest for this day in New York City with a target census of more than one million participants. While the protest is not meant to endorse a particular candidate, it is intended to be a repudiation of the Bush administration agenda of war and destruction.

By the Secret Service. See the anti-Bush sentiment suppression timeline.

By the Abstinence-Only movement. An article by Lara Riscol, entitled Sex, Lies and Politics, was posted on 12 Aug to The Nation web site for this day's edition. In it, Ms. Riscol details several incidents of people being punished for speaking of other than abstinence-only in sex education.

The ascendancy of abstinence-only under Bush has not only altered funding priorities; it has sanctioned a climate of hostility toward sexual health professionals, who increasingly face harassment, intimidation and marginalization if they stray from the abstinence-only-unless-married line.

Moreover, one of the incidents was a clear cut case of the ultra-conservatives turning on and devouring one of their own for not being conservative enough. University of Arkansas health science professor Michael Young, co-author of the award-winning "Sex Can Wait" curriculum, a Southern Baptist deacon, has been subject to harrassment and deprived of revenue because he adheres to a law dictating that abstinence education be medically accurate and neutral on religion and abortion.

By Essam Al-Ghalib, of Arab News. In a commentary published on this day, Mr. Al-Ghalib reported on the rather asinine procedures he was expected to follow to photograph breaking news events. In this case, he was attempting to photograph a bomb squad trying to defuse the explosive device worn by a would-be suicide bomber who had been shot dead. His camera was confiscated, and he was told that he should have applied to the Ministry of the Interior and to the Ministry of Information.

This policeman could not see the impossibility of what he was asking me to do. I imagined myself at both ministries a few days earlier, saying, "I would like to apply for a permit to photograph a terrorist attack that will happen in Yanbu next Saturday morning. I would particularly like permission to photograph the dead terrorist with the bomb strapped to his waist as he lies in a pool of blood in front of the stolen coast guard patrol jeep."

There was simply no logic involved. If I were to follow this policeman's advice, I would be the laughing stock of two ministries and in jail besides.

His camera was returned to him minus the memory chip, which had a number of previously taken photographs from his work during the day.

By FAIR, Paper Tiger TV, and other media activists. In an e-mail, this media watchdog described the event thusly:

For the past few years, the mainstream media have marched in lockstep with the Bush administration. Now it's time to march on the media.

Whether the issue is the Iraq war, the 2000 Florida recount, the Patriot Act or post- 9/11 detentions, the mainstream media have behaved more like lapdogs than watchdogs. We come to challenge their domination of the public discourse and to celebrate what the people of the world are achieving through new independent media based on responsibility and a commitment to justice.

By the Pentagon. This is a 22 minute training video designed to to teach employees to respond to citizen requests for information. Associated Press had asked the Pentagon for a copy of the video some eighteen months before this report. The Defense Department released an edited version of the tape and acknowledged the irony of censoring a video promoting government openness.

[I laughed so hard blood came out my nose.

From what was reported this looks more like a case of grand mal, bureaucratic ineptitude than anything. The redacted material was copyrighted and permission was not given for those scenes to be released to the public, but they were included in the video in the first place under Fair Use provisions. So somebody decided the scenes couldn't be released under Freedom Of Information Act requests. See the source article for more background. Portions of the training video were blacked out with the message: "Copyrighted material removed for public viewing". --MN]

By the Department of Homeland Security; supposedly. More likely his being barred stems from actions by islamiphobics. Dr. Ramadan is a Swiss-born son of a prominent Egyptian family who was offered a prestigious chair at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. John Tirman, program director at the Social Science Research Council in Washington, D.C., described the situation thusly:

For the 42-year-old Tariq Ramadan looks like a dream come true -- a brilliant philosopher of Islam and its evolving place in the world, particularly in Europe and the United States, who argues for a modernized Islam that favors pluralism, tolerance, feminism, and educational achievement. His work is rooted in Islamic traditions, but fully aware of the demands, challenges, and opportunities presented by the contemporary Western world. For those of us that are alarmed by the Bush administration's rough treatment of Muslims at home and abroad, but troubled by anti-modern tendencies among some Muslims, Dr. Ramadan is a measure of hope. It is hope vested not only by his eloquence, but his enormous following among Muslim youth.

So what happened with the visa? The Department of Homeland Security, apparently acting under provisions of the USA Patriot Act, requested the State Department to reverse an earlier decision to grant the visa. This is done to those who have used a "position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity." There is virtually no evidence that is public suggesting that Ramadan has ever espoused terrorism. As immigration expert Paul Donnelly wrote in the Washington Post a few days after the imbroglio erupted, "Notre Dame officials insist that they have reviewed every charge against the Swiss scholar and agree with the likes of Scotland Yard and Swiss intelligence, which have found them to be groundless."

Mr. Tirman goes on to allege that the Deparment would not have revoked the visa if it had not been approached by elements of the extreme-right, and specifically names Daniel Pipes.

[See the source article for more background, and also see Dr. Ramadan's commentary about the incident. --MN]

[Addendum (18 Sep 2004:) On this day there was a follow up article printed at First Amendment Center web site detailing a few of the organizations opposed to Ramadan's banning, and revealing that the Department of Homeland Security was remaining silent about the affair. --MN]
(see 25 Jan 2006)

By Dallas Observer. The Texas Supreme Court ruled 8-0 in favor of the Dallas Observer. Denton County Court-at-law Judge Darlene Whitten and District Attorney Bruce Isaacks had alleged that the fictional story was presented as news and that it had damaged their reputations. The Dallas Observer said the article, which some readers had thought was true, was satire and designed to poke fun. The newspaper's attorney had argued the piece was protected speech. The court agreed with that, saying a reasonable reader of the entire article would realize it was not true and was intended as satire.
(see 21 Nov 2002; 25 Sep 2003; 23 Dec 2003)

By Saudi Arabia. A campaign aimed at eradicating alphabetic and cultural illiteracy among women is due to be launched on this day. Alphabetic illiteracy refers to the inability to read and write while cultural illiteracy deals with civilized and responsible behavior. This program has been approved by the Ministry of Education -- based on its agreement with the United Nations from 2003 -- and is scheduled to run for ten years. The director of Adult Education and Illiteracy Unit, Najwa Battiekh, is quoted, "This is a continuation of the Kingdom's successful efforts at eradicating illiteracy which has culminated in its being the first Arab country to receive an award from UNICEF because of reducing illiteracy to 22 percent in two years, down from a high of 60 percent." Mohannad Al-Khayyat, who is the director of Sword Advertising, the media consultant and organizer of the program, said that the cultural literacy program addresses six main issues: intellectual literacy (accessing and analyzing correct information), religion, social, health, environment and safety.

[Cynic that I am, I just have to ask how honest this program will be in teaching critical thinking and how much it will be slanted to suborning critical thinking and factual, scientifically accurate information to religious precepts. --MN]

By Ronald K.L. Collins, First Amendment scholar. He wrote in part:

Overall, in the 53 First Amendment freedom-of-expression opinions rendered by the Rehnquist II Court, free-speech claims have been sustained slightly more than half the time. That record contrasts sharply with the Court's actions in the last two terms, during which it denied such First Amendment claims in 10 consecutive opinions. 4 In other words, it has denied free-speech claims in virtually every case it has agreed to hear since the 2002-2003 term. This number of consecutive denials of First Amendment claims is unprecedented in the Court's modern history. At no time in the past half-century has it happened.

[...]

Conclusion: The Court is rendering fewer freedom of expression opinions while denying more First Amendment claims in the cases it does agree to hear.

See the source article for more background, and the comparison tables.

By Derek Kjar. See the anti-Bush sentiment suppression timeline.

By William Fisher. In a commentary at ArabNews.com for this day, he examines the trend in the American corporate press to decreasingly report on the deaths of servicemen in Iraq. He writes in part:

It appears that as US casualties in Iraq edge ever closer to 1,000, reports of the numbers of KIAs move further and further away from the front pages of American newspapers and the top of the TV evening news.

[...]

Is this some vast journalistic or bureaucratic conspiracy to make President Bush look better? I don’t think so. I think what’s happening may be even worse. The US media - especially television - always finds it difficult to cover more than one big story at the same time. Added to this multitasking challenge is the sense that the American public is just plain tired of reading and hearing these awful numbers. And who can blame them?

[I am willing to concede that there is actually a foundation for this trend. Trying to follow two major stories -- the Iraqi genocide and the campaign -- can be mentally exhausting. Plus, saturation equals boredom. There are, currently, many commentaries covering police and FBI tactics against peaceful protest groups, for instance, but they all cite the same few stories, and most of the insights parallel each other. It gets tiring after a while because there isn't really anything new in the coverage. The press should learn to multitask in moderation, rather than turning individual major events into media circuses that crowd out other major events. --MN]

By the Pepper Spray 8. In 1997, Humboldt County police forced pepper-spray soaked Q-tips into the eyes of nonviolent protesters at sit-ins for the protection of the ancient redwoods of Headwaters Forest in northern California. Over the last seven years, this group has successfully fought numerous legal obstacles, reportedly from a biased judge and a biased venue in the heart of timber country, all the way to scrutiny by the US Supreme Court. A recent ruling has moved their trial back to San Francisco with a new judge. Their case was slated to begin on this day before federal judge Susan Illston. The Pepper Spray 8 are:

Spring Lundberg Terri Compost Mike McCurdy Sam Neuwirth

Maya Portugal Lisa Sanderson-Fox Jennifer Banka Schneider Noel Tendick

The source for this entry also asserted that state officials have condoned these kinds of actions by incorporating such practices into guidelines for dealing with civil disobedience in California, and that this case could turn that around.

By Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer, and Brendan Nyhan, of Spinsanity.org, and Ian Williams, respectively. Both criticisms were published at Alternet.org. The first is an excerpt from All the President's Spin, in which Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan take a look at how, "Bush’s White House has broken new ground in its press relations strategy, exploiting the weaknesses and failings of the political media more systematically than any of its predecessors." Mr. Williams's piece begins with a look at how the corporate press completely failed to report John Kerry's counter attack against Cheney and Bush, and went on to look at the wholesale mismanagement of news stories.

By Elephant Man and Vybz Kartel (Vibes Cartel). These two Jamaican reggae singers were punished by British Mobo Awards for refusing to repent and toe the party line, at the request of so-called human rights groups. They had been nominated for Music Of Black Origin awards for more recent non-inflammatory work, but the nominations were withdrawn after they refused to apologise for lyrics in previous songs that supposedly incited the killing of homosexuals:

• We Nuh Like Gay, by Elephant Man: "Queers must be killed! Take them by surprise".
• Bedroom Slaughteration, by Vybz Kartel: "lesbians and queers must be assassinated"

Elephant Man and Vybz Kartel were told to apologize in writing as a prerequisite to having their nominations kept in, but they apparently refused to do so. A statement from Mobo organisers said: "The Mobo Awards position has been clear from the outset - they do not condone music that clearly incites violence to gay and lesbian people." This, even though the music for which the two artists had been nominated did not contain misohomonist lyrics.

[I say "supposedly incited" because there is no context for those quoted lyrics. What do the rest of the songs say? It might sound silly, but I've seen this kind of hysteria before, and it was completely misplaced; people wanted the song Short People banned for denigrating dwarves, even though the chorus for that song pointed out that dwarves are no different from anyone else at heart. {Short people ain't got no reason to live. . . . Short people are just the same as you and me. . . . } --MN]

By Project Censored. A list of twenty-five stories vital to public interest which have gone un- or under-reported during the last year. The Bush administration is either the topic of or directly involved in nine of the top ten:

1. Wealth inequality in 21st century threatens economy and democracy.
2. Ashcroft vs. the human rights law that holds corporations accountable.
3. Bush administration manipulates science and censors scientists.
4. High uranium levels found in troops and civilians.
5. The wholesale giveaway of our natural resources.
6. Sale of electoral politics.
7. Conservative organization drives judicial appointments.
8. Secrets of Cheney's energy task force come to light.
9. Widow brings RICO case against U.S. government for 9/11.
10. New nuke plants: taxpayers support, industry profits.

. . . and fifteen of the twenty-five. Project Censored is a student run media research group at Sonoma State University. Peter Phillips, Director of the Project, is quoted, "We define censorship as interference with the free flow of information. Corporate media in the United States is interested primarily in entertainment news to feed their bottom-line priorities. Very important news stories that should reach the American public often fall on the cutting room floor to be replaced by sex-scandals and celebrity updates."

The research group is composed of almost two hundred faculty, students, and community experts who review about 1000 story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources, and national significance. The top twenty-five are submitted to a panel of judges who rank them in order of importance. Current judges include, Norman Solomon, Michael Parenti, Cynthia McKinney, Howard Zinn, and twenty other national journalists, scholars, and writers.

By David O. Russell. Soldiers Pay was supposed to be bundled as a DVD bonus feature with the re-release of Russell's Gulf War film Three Kings, in which a trio of soldiers pull off a heist of Kuwaiti gold during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In the documentary, Russell revisits some of the Iraqi extras and advisors from the filming of Three Kings in 1999, and the result is not favorable to the current administration. Some days previous to this one, Warner Brothers decided to drop the thirty-five minute documentary from the DVD release of Three Kings, and on this day they further announced that Three Kings would not be released before the 02 Nov election. Russell is quoted as writing in an e-mail interview, "I am contemplating having a press conference with a 1st Amendment lawyer ... next Tuesday to say that this is censorship and an infringement of the 1st Amendment based on political opinions." Studio executives say logistical problems rather than political concerns preclude a pre-election release, to which Russell replied, "They claim it's now a matter of logistics ... whereas one week ago it was possible, and I think if they really wanted to they could make it happen right now."

[See the source article for more background. There's the usual spate of denials from the accused, but I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to Russell on this one. As he says, they could start turning out the DVD in 24 hours if they wanted to. It would throw off subsequent production schedules for a while, but it could be done. --MN]

By the ACLU. Act 50, also known as "the squatters law", was signed into effect on 04 May in the State of Hawaii. On 18 May, Carlos Hernandez was using a library computer to access Gay Hawaii, a travel and information website for the gay community, when he was interrupted by a security guard who told him the site was pornographic and that he would have to leave the library and not return for one year. The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit on 07 Sep. The Center, which is a nonprofit organization that offers services to the gay community, and which is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, complained to the library administration after the incident, but an official told them the guard issued the warning because the website contained photographs of men without shirts.

Act 50 was originally intended as a way to remove homeless people living on Mokuleia beaches. It allows any authorized individual to ban someone from public property for up to one year by issuing a warning statement, although the statute does not define what kind of conduct would justify such action. ACLU Legal Director Lois K. Perrin commented, "This law gives unbridled discretion to police and others to engage in arbitrary and capricious denials of protected expression based on nothing more than their individual prejudices and predilections."

[It was intended as a way to remove homeless people . . . to where? Where do you go when you have no home and you aren't even allowed to live on the streets? And how is it now pornography for a man to take off his shirt? It isn't bad enough to sexualize the female breast but now the male chest and abdomen must also be sexualized? Can you say "slippery slope to Hell"? --MN]

By Pennsylvania. This law allowed the state to impose criminal charges on Internet service providers for permitting access to Web sites considered inappropriate, and which resulted in the blocking of "at least 1.5 million legal Web sites", to shut out access to 400 alleged child porn sites. At one point, Verizon apparently blocked 500,000 innocent sites when it used DNS filtering software to prevent access to a single subpage of Terra Networks' Web site. The state attorney general's office had argued that the fault was not in the law, but in the ISPs for implementing it in ways that captured innocent Web sites. One commercial Internet filtering software maker said overblocking in DNS filtering can be mitigated by customizing the criteria used for blocking sites. ISPs could have used settings that targeted individual Web pages rather than full domain names.

The law was struck down by U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois. Judge Dubois wrote in her decision: "There is little evidence that the act has reduced the production of child pornography or the child sexual abuse associated with its creation. On the other hand, there is an abundance of evidence that implementation of the Act has resulted in massive suppression of speech protected by the First Amendment." The ruling also said, "Based on the evidence presented by the parties at trial, the Court concludes that, with the current state of technology, the Act cannot be implemented without excessive blocking of innocent speech in violation of the First Amendment."

By privacy advocate John Gilmore. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By John Doe. The Dallas Observer carried an article about a preacher who led the Cathedral of Hope, a once-booming gay and lesbian church in Dallas; it has struggled with financial problems, internal strife, and a steep decline in membership. This was in Dec 2003. In the article, the newspaper identified a HIV positive parishioner. James Hemphill, a lawyer for the newspaper, commented, "The information in the article is true, it was obtained lawfully, and importantly, the information was not private." But they didn't get John Doe's permission, and now he is suing the newspaper, its parent company, Phoenix-based New Times Inc., J.D. Sparks, a freelance reporter who wrote the article, and Jean Morris, the former church official who told the newspaper Doe was HIV-positive. To further complicate matters, Doe's name and photograph was an a CD by Positive Voices, an openly HIV-positive chorale group. Lawyers for the defence argue that the Observer's right to publish information of public interest -- charges that officials at a tax-exempt church had added volunteers such as Doe to its health insurance policy against church policy -- outweighed Doe's privacy right under the Texas law. Jennifer Poe, one of John Doe's attorneys, is quoted, "Naming him didn't add anything to the story. The newspaper wasn't thinking about what impact this could have on someone afflicted with this disease. They didn't appear to care."
[See my commentary on this issue --MN]
(see 21 Aug 2002; 27 Aug 2002; 31 Aug 2002; 03 Nov 2003)

By American law enforcement. CommonDreams.org published Amnesty International's press release about the report, which is about the counter-productive impact of racial profiling in anti-terrorism efforts. It focuses primarily on the diversity of terrorists being sufficient to render racial profiling ineffective at the very least:

"The recent cases of alleged "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh and British "shoe bomber" Richard Reid reveal that Al Qaeda has an ability to recruit a diverse range of sympathizers. Lindh, a white US ciitizen, and Reid, a British citizen, would not necessarily have been identified by programs like the National Security Entry Exit Registration System (NSEERS) and US-VISIT that target Arab, Muslim and South Asian men and boys. Additionally, the report points to the cases of Timothy McVeigh, who eluded arrest while law enforcement searched for Arab suspects, and to DC snipers John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, who continued on a killing spree while officials looked for "a white man in a white van."

The report also contained some samples of fallout from the practices, and estimates are that eleven percent of Americans have been affected by such profiling policies.

By Linda S. Heard. Ms. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs, and on this day, ArabNews.com published a critical look of hers at civil liberties conditions in the U.S. resulting mostly from the "war" on terrorism. A number of the incidents she detailed are listed in this work; some are not.

By Jeff and Nicole Rank. See the anti-Bush sentiment suppression timeline.

By Nat Hentoff. A commentary of his that was originally posted on The Washington Times web site on 13 Sep, was reprinted at First Amendment Center. In this piece, Mr. Hentoff takes up for Fox News, and criticizes some of the movements against it as being in violation of free press guarantees.

To be sure, Fox houses an array of such bristling conservative commentators as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. But their hosts continually welcome direct, on-air combat with guests of vigorously opposing views. I've been on Mr. O'Reilly's show, and I didn't have to be carried out.

Moreover, having covered Congress and the presidency for more than a half-century, I rate Fox's Carl Cameron and Jim Angle as among the fairest and most illuminating broadcast correspondents on the beat. Also, Fox reporters in the field, around the world, are professional, resourceful journalists, not apparatchiks for the Republican Party.

[...]

The First Amendment, of course, does not mandate that journalism, or any form of expression, be fair and balanced.

Mr. Hentoff did not address the issue of the study done by Robert Greenwald.

[Damn. I guess I'll have to stop putting those quotation marks around News in my comments about Fox. This is what you get for considering counter-vailing opinions: prejudices shot down. --MN]
(see 13 Jul 2004; 18 Jul 2004; 05 Aug 2004; 15 Sep 2004)

By Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Judge Scalia had given a speech on 07 Apr at a high school in Hattiesburg, Missouri. His policy of not permitting recordings of his speeches was still in place, but he had not made that policy clear before speaking. Deputy federal marshal Melanie Rube subsequently accosted Associated Press reporter Denise Grones and Hattiesburg American reporter Antoinette Konz, confiscating their tape[?] recorders and erasing the collected material. After some legal maneuvering, the U.S. Department of Justice conceded that the reporters and their employers are each entitled to $1,000 in damages and reasonable attorneys' fees, on 10 Sep. While agreeing that the federal Privacy Protection Act does forbids the seizure of the work product of a journalist, the government also said that the plaintiffs were not entitled to an injunction that would bar the Marshals Service from repeating the action.

Justice Scalia had apologized after that incident and said he would make it clear in the future that recordings for use by the print media would be allowed.
(see 19 Mar 2003)

By Barbie Anderson. Barbie's Shop sells custom clothing, said Anderson, who has sold custom clothes, including leather and latex outfits, in the city of Calgary, Alberta, for 14 years. Says Ms. Anderson, "The tops are meant for the girls that are going to the bar tonight, things that are sexy to wear right now. [...] We supply the greatest amount of latex in Western Canada." Ms. Anderson has been going by the name "B-a-r-b-i-e", she says, since she was six or seven, and when she opened her shop in 2000, she named the shop, and her web site: barbiesshop.com, after herself. However, Mattel's web site address is barbieshop.com. Mattel is taking action against Ms. Anderson on the grounds of trademark infringement. Business law professor Peter Bowal at the University of Calgary, is quoted, "They take a policy fairly strictly that they are going to enforce their brand, and it doesn't matter who -- whether it's a big company or a small company -- they have to do it. It's very hard to predict how one case would go, but they do have to strike that balance between the use of your own name and another company using a name they have built some goodwill around." At risk is something like 1.6 billion dollars in revenue.

[The question, of course, is: How far are they allowed to go? I still think the case of MicroSoft v: Mike Rowe was pretty stupid, and Mattel's suit against Aqua for satirizing Barbie went too far. Given the similarity between domain names, I would say that Mattel has a case there, but not in demanding that Ms. Anderson stop using her own name to identify her own business. --MN]

By D.W. Griffith. A silent film that was produced in 1915, it has been in the Thornton branch of the Granville County Library system for three years without drawing any complaints. On this day, Rev. Curtis E. Gatewood, past president of the Durham branch of the NAACP, sent a letter to library director Louise Dorton. In the letter he wrote: "Allowing the movie to be circulated through public systems such as the library is equivalent to publicly providing materials that would support, celebrate, and recruit members to join violent groups such as those who rained 'terror' on this nation September 11, 2001." The film apparently deals prominently with the Ku Klux Klan. At the time of its release, civil rights leaders decried the film, which depicts white actors in blackface as villains and Klan members as heroes. The film also is said to have caused a resurgence in Klan membership after its initial release. Ms. Dorton noted that the film is included in many lists as one of the greatest films of all time. The American Film Institute lists it at No. 44 on its all-time top 100 list; it is famous for such editing techniques as crosscutting and the use of wide shots and closeups. Film experts have credited it as being groundbreaking and essential to the establishment of modern moviemaking techniques.

Ms. Dorton was quoted, "I don't espouse the content of that film. I don't want to belittle the content or seriousness of it, but libraries don't espouse the content of anything." For this action to move forward, Reverend Gatewood will have to file a complaint with the library.

By Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. On this day federal regulators fined CBS $550,000 for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction". Each of twenty television stations owned by CBS was assessed with the maximum penalty of $27,500 for indecency, although the five commissioners decided not to fine more than two hundred CBS affiliate stations which had also aired the show; those stations are not owned by the network's parent company, Viacom. Over the summer, Viacom co-president Leslie Moonves said a fine would be "grossly unfair" and promised a court challenge.

[The wording in the source article, at First Amendment Center, is most instructive when correlated with one of my editorial comments on the misogynist sexism inherent in censorship. The opening paragraph reads:

Federal regulators today fined CBS a record $550,000 for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," which exposed the singer's breast during this year's Super Bowl halftime show.

Thereby creating the impression that only Janet Jackson is responsible for what happened, because it was her breast. My position is that Justin Timberlake was to blame, not Janet. What I wrote in relation to an attack on Gulliver's Travels was:

Ah-ha! Just realized why the hypersensitivity of Shahbaz Arif failed to react at the mention of Gulliver's manhood. It's because the expression in that case is of male sexuality and a patriarchic religion actively suppresses only expressions of female sexuality. Hence: mention of the penis was safe, and mention of the breast was offensive. Remember: It's not just what they say, but how they say it; and what they don't say. If you don't believe that conclusion about Arif, then consider that islamist countries only punish women for being sexual creatures. It is men who look upon the faces of women with lust, but women who must cover their faces and avert their eyes from men.

(see 02 Feb 2004; 21 May 2004; 26 May 2004)

By U.S. Congress. The House of Representatives voted to prevent the U.S. Supreme Court from deciding whether the words "under God" should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, and to leave such legal decisions instead to state courts. The bill, written by Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO.) passed 247-173. Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), commented after the vote: "The words 'under God" are as much a part of the Pledge of Allegiance as the flag itself. Many of those opposing the bill have made no secret of their hostility to traditional values and religion in the public square. This law will make sure those judges can't impose their personal prejudices on the rest of us." He also added, "State courts should be free to determine this issue without the interference of unaccountable federal judges."

[After voting to legislate his personal prejudices on the rest of America. How do people so seriously stupid that they engage in such hypocrisy end up elected to public office and manage to keep holding office? What these fools are trying to do is to place the Pledge of Allegiance outside the law, and make the states unaccountable. Imagine a state legislating madatory participation and worship of the Judeo-Christian God and you not being allowed to challenge the unconstitutionality of such legislation in federal court. This law is so blindingly stupid that it should never have been written. I wonder what kind of shit and derision the dozy bastards who voted for it are going to shower when it gets shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court. In my books, this is clearly a violation of judicial independence and that's just for starters. --MN]

By Tennessee. See the entry on the page about license plates.

This year's event starts on this day and runs until 02 Oct, and the theme is: Elect to Read a Banned Book. For a countervailing opinion of this annual event, see Steve McKinzie's critique of Banned Book Week; and my critique of his viewpoint which is linked.

[Addendum (11 Oct 2004:) On 22 Sep, in conjunction with the start of Banned Book Week, the American Civil Liberties Union released a list of the Ten Most Challenged Books of 2003. This list is as follows:

1. Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, for sexual content, using offensive language, and being unsuited to age group.

2. Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling, for its focus on wizardry and magic.

3. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, for using offensive language.

4. Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, by Michael A. Bellesiles, for inaccuracy.

5. Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers, for racism, sexual content, offensive language, drugs and violence.

6. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous, for drugs.

7. It's Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris, for homosexuality, nudity, sexual content and sex education.

8. We All Fall Down, by Robert Cormier, for offensive language and sexual content.

9. King and King, by Linda de Haan, for homosexuality.

10. Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson, for offensive language and occult/satanism.

Personally, I don't like the way this list is presented; challenges to an individual book cannot be compared with challenges to an entire series. I think each book in the series should be counted individually, and a challenge to a complete series counted separately. --MN]

The Mayor of Flint, Michigan, Don Williamson, unilaterally issued an "executive order" in July of this year that says employees shouldn't have reading material at work unless it relates to city business. Nota Bene: not that employees should not be reading the newspaper or magazines while on the clock, but that they cannot have newspapers or magazines in their possession while within City Hall.

The short-sightedness of this policy was fully exposed during this week, 19 - 25 Sep, when the Mayor accosted a newspaper carrier for the Flint Journal in the elevator at City Hall. When the Mayor demanded the names of the paper carrier's client (one of which is a newsstand), he refused to give those names. Mayor Williamson had police detain the carrier; Thomas Hansen said he was questioned about the incident and released after about 15 minutes.

The city employees filed a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union during this week. Gregory Gibbs, chair of the ACLU's Flint area branch, reportedly said the executive order is broad and could be selectively enforced. The newspaper is also talking to its attorneys with an eye to negotiating an accord.

[You cannot reasonably forbid a person to bring into his place of employment a newspaper he might have bought enroute, or from receiving one, although you can punish him for reading it when he's supposed to be working. --MN]

The First Amendment Center web site posted a piece on military members speaking out from a war zone, and how such efforts are sometimes supported and sometimes suppressed. Web log sites operated by occupation usually contain "unvarnished war reporting".

By Paul Armentano. An article at Alternet.org detailed the coverup of the benefits of marijuana as a medicine instead of as a recreational drug.

Clinical research touted by the journal of the American Association for Cancer Research that shows marijuana's components can inhibit the growth of cancerous brain tumors is the latest in a long line of studies demonstrating the drug's potential as an anti-cancer agent. Not familiar with it? You're not alone.

Despite the value of these studies, both in terms of the treatment of life-threatening illnesses and as items of news -- the latest being that performed by researchers at Madrid's Complutense University that found cannabis restricts the blood supply to glioblastoma multiforme tumors, an aggressive brain tumor that kills some 7,000 people in the United States per year -- U.S. media coverage of them has been almost non-existent.

Why the blackout? For starters, all of these medical cannabis studies were conducted overseas. Secondly, not one of them has been acknowledged by the U.S. government.

The article goes on to report that the first experiment documenting pot's anti-tumor effects took place at the Medical College of Virginia in 1974 at the behest of the U.S. government. The results of that study, reported on 18 Aug 1974 in a Washington Post newspaper feature, were that Tetra-hydrocannabinol, marijuana's psychoactive component, "slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent." U.S. government officials banished that study and refused to fund any follow-up research until conducting a similar clinical trial in secret in the mid-1990s. The U.S. government simply didn't release the results of that study.

[Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The result of this censorship, from a humanitarian point of point of view, is that people have been dieing from cancer faster and in more pain than need be for thirty years. From a capitalist point view, the result is thirty years of unrealized profits for the big drug companies. This is the kind of stupidity you can expect from governments run by people who think like Jesse Helms, where you are forbidden to base an entire class of industries on material {hemp} that contains only minute amounts of THC. --MN]

By rabble news and FAIR, respectively.

The Canadian indy media web site rabble.ca posted a story about Cuban efficiency in disaster management that was depicted as a totalitarian evil by the Miami Herald. From what is reported, it appears that Cuba is doing right everything that the U.S. is doing wrong in the area of international relations and foreign policy.

[What is not mentioned, however, is if these programs are being used to disseminate political propaganda. The Peace Corp was actually a CIA tool in that regard. The article also does not mention the human rights abuses by Castro's government. I haven't seen the piece in the Miami Herald, so I don't know what that says. --MN]

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting issued an action alert about CBS shelving a story about the forged Niger document; the document upon which George Bush jr based his infamous "sixteen words" State of the Union speech. The alert reads in part:

In an outrageous politicization of journalism, CBS announced it would not air a report on forged documents that the Bush administration used to sell the Iraq war until after the November 2 election (New York Times, 9/25/04). A network spokesperson issued a statement declaring, "We now believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election."

[CBS seems to be withholding the story because it got its fingers burned with the story about recently released documents pertaining to Bush's National Guard service; which seem to have been forged. The story of the Niger document, however, is of greater import than Bush's lack of military service in the National Guard; the document was a lynchpin upon which turned Bush's arguments about Saddam's stockpiles of NBC weapons. This is exactly something We The People have A Right To Know heading into the poll booths; not walking away from them. --MN]

By FAIR. In a Media Advisory, this watchdog group considered past failures of the corporate press in covering presidential debates (in light of the debate scheduled for 30 Sep), and the impact and unneedfulness of such misrepresentative reporting.

The fact is, voters don't need to be told whether they are put off by a candidate's style or mannerisms; they are fully capable of analyzing their own reaction without pundit intervention. What the public cannot easily do is determine whether factual claims made during a debate are accurate or not-- and in this far more critical role, media commentators have often fallen down on the job.

By the ACLU. On this day, U.S. District Judge Victor Merrero struck down Section 2709 of Title 18 United States Code; aka: Electronic Communications Privacy Act, ruling that it violated both the first and fourth amendments. The ACLU had apparently challenged S.2709 in an effort to have overthrown Section 505 of USAPA, which includes a gag order enjoining people from ever talking about being questioned in a terrorism investigation, or having been investigated as suspected terrorists. However, in its press release, the ACLU said of the decision that it struck down S.505 of USAPA and made no mention of 18 U.S.C. This generated an amount of confusion and debate in the blogosphere. The ruling does not come into effect for 90 days so as to give the defendants a chance to file an appeal.

[See my commentary on this issue. --MN]

By Columbian Journalism Review. A piece by Trudy Lieberman, 2004 Issue 5: September/October, published by the CJR, is a masterful look at the far reaching impact of the interplay between a continuing lack of security due to:

• government secrecy in general and Dept. of Homeland Security secrecy in particular;
• political flip-flopping on security legislation;
• industry lobby efforts that cause the flip-flopping; and
• the lack of reporting of all the above.

[I don't have the exact date of publication for this piece, but it is a golly-gee, whiz-bang piece of writing. --MN]

By FAIR. In an action alert that illustrates how the corporate press uses ham-handed "balance" that biases and distorts. This practice is something Jamieson and Waldman examine in their book: The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories That Shape the Political World. By going out of its way with efforts to be "fair", the corporate press is leading voters astray.

By ABC, CBS, and NBC. See the entry on the Michael Moore censorship movement page.

By school libraries in Gilbert, Arizona. Deal with It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain and Life as a Gurl was pulled from the library shelves at Desert Ridge, Gilbert and Mesquite high schools by the librarians themselves on 29 Sep. Ms. Deborah Myers had complained about the content; she saw the book when her sixteen year old daughter Pamella checked it out. The book comes from the creators of gURL.com, a web site dedicated to: "discussing issues that affect the lives of girls age 13 and older in a non-judgmental, personal way." Including various sexual methods, such as oral sex.

Various comments about the book include:

• Deborah Myers commented:
  • "It's basically pornography and it's just awful. It shows stick figures in sexual positions and it's just not right."
  • "There's a part on how to give oral sex. Is it factual and truthful? Probably. Is it something that kids need to know? No."

• Pamella Myers commented: "I tried to find it at the library several times but it would always be checked out. When I finally did see it, I was so disgusted. It's hilarious, but it's so wrong. Somebody's little sister might find it."

• Gilbert High School librarian Tally Satterthwaite said: "I read the [Scholastic] review as a professional and thought, 'Why wouldn't I order this?'" [On looking at the book;] "Just like a parent, I looked for what I was going to hate. I turned right to the table of contents and went, 'No, no, no. This has too much specific sexual information for my library.'"

[Is how to have sex in different positions something kids need to know? Well, it's a personal choice, just like being sexually active or not is a personal choice. It's something they might feel they need to know to be a better sexual partner or to have more fun with sex. And take note that Satterthwaite specifically stated that she looked for material that would confirm her a priori assumptions. One could interpret that part to mean that she examined the work from both points of view, but it doesn't mean that because she was looking at two different things; the book review is not the book. She should have examined the book from a professional viewpoint. Moreover, she decided it was inappropriate from the Table of Contents, not from the material in the chapters. This is a clear and present case of censorship in my books. The librarians simply circumvented any kind of review process and acted unilaterally. --MN]

By Common Pleas Judge Terrance R. Nealon. Judge Nealon ruled against Doctor Jung Jang Hwan of Clarks Green, Pennsylvania, who had sought to to have the details of a medical malpractice settlement kept quiet. Judge Nealon wrote in his decision, "Since the funds which will be used to pay the majority of the plaintiff's settlement with Dr. Hwan are derived from public taxes or surcharges, any documents relating to disbursement of those settlement proceeds are clearly public records." This decision goes against the custom of the last 20 years in medical malpractice cases.

Clifford Rieders, former head of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association, said that other Pennsylvania judges would likely follow this lead, and he is quoted, "He basically said: 'You doctors wanted public money -- the public's right to know comes with that.' I would say it is groundbreaking by that standard."
(see 01 Aug 2002)

By Mayor Dan Canan. On 29 Sep he revoked a four-month-old ban on all but U.S. and POW/MIA flags at the Prairie Creek Reservoir campground. That ban had triggered a federal lawsuit by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, which had sought a preliminary injunction against the city on the grounds that the ban violated free-speech rights. U.S. District Judge Larry McKinney denied the ICLU's request, also on this day, saying the campers' rights were no longer in danger. Attorney Ken Falk, however, said the ICLU was not ready to drop the lawsuit; he is quoted: "If this is the mayor's permanent position, I would want him to sign a stipulation saying the policy will not be reinstated. Once we have everyone bound to that, we can dismiss the lawsuit. We want a stipulation of some sort saying this is not going to come up again."

By Fox News. In it's 18 Oct issue, The Nation had an editorial by Katrina vanden Heuvel, in which she calls the network to task for rejecting an advertisement for the magazine, even after exploiting The Nation's advertising several times in the past year. The Nation's advertising policy apparently gives full recognition to free speech and personal liberty:

with the presumption that we will accept advertising even if the views expressed are repugnant to those of the editors...Blatantly misleading ads, or ads purveying harmful products will fall into a gray area of discretion, but as a general principle, we assume our readers will have sufficient knowledge to judge for themselves the merits of commonly known products (such as cigarettes).

Fox, however, reportedly failed to reciprocate and rejected an ad that stated:

Nobody owns The Nation. Not Time Warner, not Murdoch. So there's no corporate slant, no White House spin. Just the straight dope.

The magazine's senior vice president for circulation, Art Stupar, commented to The New York Times: "I find it ironic. They are the GOP cable station, a champion of free markets, and they got spooked at the thought of running an ad that doesn't publish spin or serve the agenda of corporate conglomerates."

By Ralph Begleiter. A professor of journalism at the University of Delaware and a former world affairs correspondent for CNN, he filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act for the release of government photos and video of coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Daniel Mach, Begleiter's attorney, commented in a telephone interview, "They're public records. This is about the public's right to know the implications of U.S. foreign policy and to assess the price of war. Professor Begleiter had filed a FOIA request, and the Pentagon has acknowledged receiving it, but has not otherwise responded to the request. This lack of response allows the professor to sue.

[You can also see 361 forbidden photographs at The Memory Hole web site; these photographs were released in April in response to an FOIA request, and the Pentagon then clamped down on releasing such photos. This round of censorship was directed in large part by the Tami Silicio photgraph. --MN]
(see 21 Apr 2004; 21 Jun 2004; 28 Apr 2004)

By Zoe Williams. In a piece entitled Fox - the Naked Truth, which is reprinted at CommonDreams.org, she examines the interplay between how liberal forces use and conservative forces abuse fact, and the impact of Fox News in disseminating the disinformation. This piece derives from an incident where Fox clearly and presently published a complete fabrication about John Kerry. One so blatant that even Fox had to apologize for it.

[Of course, liberal forces also sometimes abuse fact, and the conservative forces sometimes use the truth. After all: The devil can quote scripture to suit his purposes; and all goverments lie. --MN]

By Barbara Park. The presence of the book in elementary schools in Fargo, North Dakota, is being challenged by Pamela Sund Herschlip and her husband Mark Herschlip, on the grounds that the book is inappropriate for elementary students. Ms. Sund Herschlip is an adjunct instructor at Minnesota State University, in Moorhead, and Minnesota State Community and Technical College. She teaches art, poetry, research writing, and reviews art exhibitions and books. The book contains profanity, including use of "damn" and "suck", and the phrase "Oh Jesus." In Ms. Sund Herschlip's evaluation the book has redeeming qualities, but has themes that require an "adult" mind to be dealt with. The passages to which they object were cited as:

• I'm only ten months older than he was. I was "planned." Mick was a surprise. He loved it, too.

  Being a surprise, I mean. He was always teasing my parents about it. Telling them that even before he existed, he could outsmart two chemistry majors with birth control pills.

  "Just imagine the amazing stunts I'll pull when I'm a sneaky, rebellious teenager," he'd say. Then he'd rub his hands together and throw his head way back and do that kind of creepy laugh that mad scientists do in the movies.
  --Phoebe introducing herself and her brother; what is "objectionable" is the reference to birth control

• My stomach starts to churn. I don't like having the ambulance turn there. By now it should be speeding off to someone else's neighborhood ... But even after another minute or two, the noise of the siren hasn't faded at all. And with my ears still covered, I walk to the sidelines and sit down in the grass. "Just turn the damn thing off!" I scream inside my head.
  --Phoebe at soccer practice, watching an ambulance drive by; not yet knowing it is responding to her brother's accident; the word "damn" invalidates this passage

• The nights were unbelievably long. I never stayed asleep for more than an hour at a time. ... I made it through, though. And looking back, I realize I probably even lost a pound or two.

  That's the upside of depression, in case you didn't know it. The weight loss, I mean. Nature balances out your grief by letting you slim down. Then at the funeral, people can say you look good in your clothes and mean it.

  Nature's real thoughtful that way.
  --Three days after Mick's death; the Herschlips reportedly said this passage might glorify eating disorders.

• Mick was dead, and in just a few days we had all turned into people I didn't even know. ...

  "Damn you, Mick. Damn you for doing this to us," I whispered, and then the tears started streaming down my face, too.

  I was still crying when I finally reached for the phone and called Zoe. "Oh Jesus, Zoe, what's happening to me? I swear to God, I just don't know what's happening."
  --Days afterward; the objection here is the use of the word "Jesus"

According to the American Library Association, Mick Harte Was Here has been challenged in five different school districts since 1998. Four of those challenges were in Texas schools, and the book was removed from the shelves of two schools for "offensive language", but retained at the other two. The fifth challenge was in a middle school in Seneca, S.C., where it was also retained.

[Judging from the material in these extracts, this story is about an adolescent trying to deal with grief and sorrow. Why is this inappropriate for elementary school students? This challenge just proves my contention that there is nothing that cannot be found offensive by someone, somewhere. --MN]

By Vermont. Mr. Scott Huminski parked his van outside the building that houses the Vermont District Court in Rutland on 24 May 1997; the van was plastered with signs harshly criticizing Judge Nancy Corsones; one of the signs calling her a "butcher of the Constitution." Judge Corsones and other officials had earlier received letters of outrage from Huminski about her handling of a criminal case he had had in Bennington County. Huminski wrote in one letter: "As it is the policy of the State of Vermont to encourage and allow crimes to be committed against myself and my wife without fear of prosecution I must take the law into my own hands and initiate activities that will get national media attention. When the smoke clears, the nation will wonder what went wrong in Vermont."

Judge Corsones interpreted that statement as a threat and conferred with other courthouse officials, and another judge issued a no-trespass order against Mr. Huminski barring him from courthouses and their grounds throughout the state. Mr. Huminski subsequently sued.

On this day, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Vermont officials had violated his First Amendment rights to free expression when they barred him from the courthouse. The court also ruled that the principals, County Sheriff R.J. Elrick, Corsones and the judge who issued the no-trespass order, M. Patricia Zimmerman, were immune from paying damages, reasoning that, "A judge cannot be expected regularly and dispassionately to make decisions adverse to overtly hostile parties if subsequent actions to protect herself, her staff, and those in her courthouse from such hostility may result in the rigors of defending against -- and even the possibility of losing -- lengthy and costly litigation."

[See this follow up commentary by Douglas Lee for more background. --MN]

By -- nobody really knows. This is an incident of "law enforcement" by secrecy, where a couple of server hard drives containing independent media sites in twenty or thirty countries were seized in Great Britain under a warrant served in the U.S. by the FBI, in light of a request by either the government of Switzerland or Italy. But nobody is saying.

[See my commentary on this issue --MN]

By the U.S. Department of Education. The Department destroyed more than 300,000 copies of a booklet over the summer. It was designed for parents to help their children learn history, but the office of Lynn Cheney (the Vice President's wife) complained that it mentioned the National Standards for History. Ms. Cheney was opposed to this education program. The National Standards for History were developed at UCLA in the mid-1990s with federal support. The were created by scholars and educators in an effort to help school officials design better history courses, and are voluntary benchmarks, not mandatory requirements. At the time, Ms. Cheney led a vociferous campaign complaining that the standards were not positive enough about America's achievements and paid too little attention to figures such as Gen. Robert E. Lee, Paul Revere and Thomas Edison. At one point, Ms. Cheney denounced the standards as "politicized history". The standards were heavily revised and most critics were mollified and the controversy faded; except for Ms. Cheney and her staff. Her office spotted the references to the National Standards for History in a new edition of the booklet and communicated its displeasure to the Education Department; which decided it was necessary to kill the new edition and reprint it without references to the standards. Sixty-one thousand had already been issued.

When The LA Times initially approached the department to ask about the booklets it issued a statement saying it had taken the unusual action because of "mistakes, including typos and incomplete information." However, the department's press secretary, Susan Aspey, later admitted that typographical errors were not the reason. Ms. Cheney's office also denied being involved in the recall, but neither office would discuss the episode in detail. People who had knowledge of this action said that complaints from Ms. Cheney's office had moved the Education Department to act; which individuals spoke on condition of anonymity.

[It appears prima facie that Ms. Cheney opposed the standards because they would have told more truth about historical events and less WASP propaganda. Compare, for instance, the history detailed in Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee with the sanitized and slanted version of the old west that is generally known. This conclusion is shared by Bill Berkowitz in this commentary at Working For Change. Naturally, the forces of censorship and revisionism are accusing those who want more than the State Approved Facts(tm) of being revisionists themselves. --MN]

By PEN American Center. The organization sent a letter on this day to Secretary of State Colin Powell to protest the denial of entry visas to sixty-one Cuban scholars who were scheduled to participate in a congress of the Latin American Studies Association in Las Vegas during the week of 11-17 Oct. The letter pointed out that Cuban scholars have attended previous congresses, and that their presence greatly enhanced the overall experience of all participants.

[I just don't get it. The U.S. touts itself as the great bastion of freedom and liberty, decries the communist situation in Cuba with all the reactionary fervour of Joe McCarthy, and then turns around and shits all over Cuban and American academic freedom. What a monstrous hypocrisy. --MN]

By Kayti Didriksen. This painting was part of a show called Funky Furniture which was on display at the City Museum of Washington (D.C.), the week previous to this one. The show, was abruptly shut down after some of the artists' themes were considered unsuitable. A public relations consultant for the museum, Myra Peabody Gossens, said the exhibit was not what had been expected, and is quoted, "The museum is not an art museum. It gets mostly groups of children, with teachers trying to tell them something about history."

[And what George Bush is doing as president of the United States or in Iraq cannot be accounted as history, no doubt, because it's still ongoing instead of being something in the past. You can call up an image of the painting, which is mirrored here without permission. I find the perspective is rather childish, but it's an amusing take on Manet's Olympia. --MN]

By the New York Civil Liberties Union, et al. The NYCLU announced on 07 Oct that it had filed two federal lawsuits accusing New York City and the police of illegal mass arrests, illegally lengthy and unexplained detentions in filthy conditions (notably in a large room at Pier 57 with a floor that was apparently contaminated with oil and chemicals), and the illegal fingerprinting of people charged with minor offenses.

Hacer Dinler, 29, a personal fitness and dance instructor from Istanbul, Turkey, said she was trying to cross 16th Street on her way to teach a dance class when she was trapped by police. She is quoted, "I tried to explain that I am going to teach a class. They wouldn't let me go. I couldn't go to the bathroom. I started crying. One policeman told me, 'It's going to be OK. You're just going to be arrested.'" Ms. Dinler said that after about two hours, she fainted, went into convulsions, and was taken by ambulance to a hospital. She has no health insurance and has received hospital bills totaling $3,000. See the source article for more background.

By Reporters Without Borders. On 24 Jul 2003, Massoud Hamid was arrested while he was writing a journalism exam at Damascus university. The month before he had posted photographs of a peaceful Kurdish demonstration outside UNICEF headquarters in Damascus to a Kurdish-language web site that was based in Germany. After fourteen months in prison, he was tried and sentenced to three years imprisonment for being guilty of "belonging to a secret organisation" and "trying to attach part of Syria's territory to a third country."

RSF called for his immediate release, commenting, "the trial was completely unwarranted as he was just exercising his right to circulate information freely on the Internet." The watchdog group further said, "The severity of the sentence shows the Syrian authorities want to gag the press in flagrant violation of the international treaties they have signed."

[Posting a photograph on a web site outside Syrian jurisdiction is "trying to attach part of Syria's territory to a third country"? A photograph? And not even a physical photograph at that but a digitized image? Small wonder I tend to think people like that are insane, isn't it? The reason the charge stipulates "third country" is probably because the demonstrators were separatists seeking to form a "second country". --MN]

By U.S. Congress. An effort to increase the fines for airing indecent material failed when House and Senate negotiators couldn't reach agreement on a final plan the week of 03-09 Oct. The effort failed due to petty politicing over issues that have nothing to do with indecency. See the source article for more background.

By Charles County Board of Education. Margaret Young, vice chair of that Board of Education, La Plata, Maryland, believes the required reading lists in the school system are filled with "profanity and pornography, fornication and adultery." She is quoted by The Washington Post "I think parents would be appalled if they really read the books their kids were reading that were so filled with profanity and pornography. I rely on the school system to provide good wholesome reading for my children." She supports a recent board recommendation that calls for: "removing anything (from reading lists) that provides a neutral or positive view of immorality or foul language."

Some citizens are concerned that some board members are attempting to impose personal religious and moral beliefs on the public schools, pointing to the book list, a proposal that recommends distributing Bibles in schools, removing science texts "biased towards evolution", and teaching abstinence-only.

Board officials say that the list of more than one hundred goals and suggestions is only a brainstorming exercise to generate ideas and encourage discussion; none of the proposals has been approved or even considered for a vote. They were to begin discussing the list of moral and religious goals on 12 Oct.

[Even allowing for the contextual use of "my children" to mean children attending schools for which she is responsible, instead of her personal offspring, she has no authority to determine the moral direction those students well be required to take by fiat. And this is very clearly an attempt to violate the separation of church and state, even allowing for a constitutional process by which bibles could be passed out in the schools. Lastly, morality is a personal thing; it can't be legislated or forced on someone by the fire and the sword. And no matter how holy you are, it will never be good enough for the ultra-self-righteous who will ever raise the bar higher and higher. --MN]

On this day he was freed after three years of incarceration without due process and deported to Saudi Arabia. According to the report, the conditions for releasing this non-criminal were that he:

• give up his US citizenship (he was born in the state of Louisiana; there was no report on whether he held dual citizenship), and return to Saudi Arabia;
• is barred from the United States for the next 10 years;
• forbidden to travel outside Saudi Arabia for the next five years;
• must renounce terrorism;
• not travel to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, or Israel;
• report any travel outside the Kingdom to the US government for the next 15 years;
• not sue the US government for his captivity.

[The U.S. has reserved the right to monitor the private activities of a person who is not a citizen of that country and who must renounce criminal activities, even though he has not even been charged much less convicted with having perpetrated any criminal actions. Something about this smacks of slavery. --MN]

By Katy Dean. In Mar 2002, Ms. Dean wrote a piece for the Arrow about a lawsuit filed by Johanna and Reymond Frances; who alleged that exhaust fumes from the district's bus garage had contributed to Reymond Frances's lung cancer. Principal Richard Machesky and newspaper adviser Gloria Olman both approved the topic in advance, but the day before publication Principal Machesky said the article had many "journalistic defects" and pulled it. On this day U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow ruled that Utica High School had violated the First Amendment by refusing to publish the article.

By the Central Intelligence Agency. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By Focus on the Family. This group had sued the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority because the authority refused to allow the group to advertise the Feb 2000 Love Won Out conference; which conference promoted a theory that homosexuality can be "prevented" or cured by prayer and religious practice. Although the bus shelter signs were owned by Clear Channel Outdoor, that company was not named in the suit. The terms of the settlement require that the group be reimbursed five thousand dollars, and that the transit authority refine its policy. The central question in this case was whether a government entity could reject advertising it does not want by working through a private company.

By CFCF News, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. On this day the news program aired a blatantly misrepresentative story about an industrial plant owned by Lomex. The reporter who did the piece stated early on that Lomex had gathered "almost two thousand complaints" against it, even while a visual aid on the screen showed that there had been one thousand, five hundred, ninety-six. He then later used the phrase "thousands of complaints". The Lomex plant in Pierrefonds is used for rendering animal byproducts -- body parts that can't be used for food --- into animal feed or base products for soap or perfume, and sometimes generates clouds of vile odours. Friction arises from it being right on the edge of an industrial zone, with a residential zone starting right across the street.

Whether or not the industry was there first and the homeowners in the area got suckered by the developers was not at all an element of the report.

By civil rights violators. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that protesters cannot be required to pass through metal detectors when they gather for a rally in November at the infamous School of the Americas, at Fort Benning. The school is villified by human rights activists as a training place of the U.S. government for fascict, police state, "law enforcement" agencies throughout Central and South America.

The 11th Circuit outlined five ways in which the search policy, instituted by the City of Columbus, Ohio, violates the First Amendment:

• First, it is a burden on free speech and association imposed through the exercise of a government official's unbridled discretion; restrictions on First Amendment rights may not be left to an executive agent's uncabined judgment.

• Second, the searches were a form of prior restraint on speech and assembly; to participate in the protest, individuals had to receive the prior permission of officers manning the checkpoints.

• Third, the search policy was implemented based on the content of the protestors' speech.

• Fourth, even assuming the searches were implemented exclusively for content-neutral reasons, they were impermissible because they did not constitute reasonable time, place, and manner limitations, which are the only permissible content-neutral burdens that may be placed upon free speech and association.

• Finally, even putting aside First Amendment analysis, the search policy constitutes an 'unconstitutional condition;' protestors were required to surrender their Fourth Amendment rights ... in order to exercise their First Amendment rights.

[The school was reopened in January 2001 as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. I have no idea if its mission was reassigned or if it is still doing the same old thing. Analysing the semantic content of the title suggests that only the name was changed. Kindly note that date: January, 2001. Months before this hysterical, anti-terrorism craze could have been cited as an excuse for it. See the source article for more background, including the Mayor's countervailing viewpoint. --MN]

Teen Read Week is a nation wide literacy initiative in the U.S., sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), which is a division of the ALA. This event is described as being aimed at teens, their parents, librarians, educators, booksellers, and other concerned adults. It was begun in 1998. This year's theme is: It's Alive! @ your library. This theme is to encourage teens to read books about mysteries, forensics, science fiction, horror and the world around them for the "fun of it."

By the Smoketown Six. See the anti-Bush sentiment suppression timeline.

By Matt Toups, et al. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

An article at Perth Independent Media Collective reported on anti-terrorism laws that were passed by the Australian parliament on 13 Aug 2004. The article states that:

• the definition of 'terrorism', includes activities "with the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause";

• the law is so broad that it would cover civil disobedience by peace groups, anti-globalisation activists, union pickets and strikes, environmentalists trying to stop logging in forests and similar activities;

• the Attorney General will be able to ban organisations "likely to endanger, the security or integrity of the Commonwealth or another country";

• members of a banned organisation and those 'assisting' it could be sentenced to 25 years jail;

• bank tellers could face criminal charges for taking a deposit from a group which -- unknown to the teller -- was a "proscribed" organisation;

• ASIO has moved from being a spy agency, and has become a secret police; the new powers at its disposal allow:
  • the arrest and detention of people for questioning for 48 hours; detention warrants will be renewable every 24 hours, which means detainees could be held indefinitely;
  • detainees would have no right to a lawyer;
  • detainees could be held incommunicado with no contact with family and friends;
  • detainees could face up to five years in jail for refusing to answer questions;
  • there are no rules for interrogation of detainees.

[I'm guessing that ASIO stands for Australian Security and Intelligence Organization. The last point in the list was accompanied in the article by the question: Will torture be used? Don't laugh; the second last point is a clear and present violation of a person's right to not incriminate his- or herself.

By Carl F. Worden. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

A holocaust denier and promoter of fascism. In Feb 2003, U.S. immigration officials deported Zundel back to Canada because he violated the terms of his stay in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Canada filed a national security certificate requesting Zundel to be removed from Canada. Zundel is wanted in Germany on hate crime charges. On this day, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear Zundel's appeal on the constitutionality of security certificates.

This is the second time the Supreme Court of Canada has rejected an appeal by Zundel. In Dec 2000 the court refused to hear his appeal of the 1993 Citizenship and Immigration decision denying him Canadian citizenship. Whereas this specific case centers on the security certificate issue, the whole deportation process seems to stem from Mr. Zundel being a Holocaust denier and white supremacist. In effect: he is being deported for not supporting the legislated, mainstream opinion. The government, by way of a federal court, is saying that he is a threat to national security because of his ties with hate groups. See this brief profile of his life and legal actions against him.
(see 31 Oct 2003; 23 Feb 2007)

By Arkansas State Supreme Court. The court issued its interpretations of Act 858 of 2003 to assist a federal judge handling a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law. This law was intended to regulate the display of pornographic material harmful to minors, but was immediately challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and state bookstore associations. U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Eisele had asked the state high court to determine:

• Whether the law should protect all children age 17 and younger, or in degrees for younger and older children.
• Whether it applies only to the displayed covers of books and magazines or the internal pages as well.
• Whether a bookseller must give a minor permission to view explicit material to violate the law.
• What a bookseller has to do to segregate the objectionable materials.

The high court determined that the law was intended to protect all children under 17, and that materials that fall under the law must be obstructed from a minor's view and physically segregated. However, the court noted that it remains for the federal court to ultimately determine whether the segregation requirement violates the First Amendment rights of booksellers, librarians, and adult customers. The justices rejected the argument that the law requires questionable material to be housed in a separate room with monitored entrances, and said only that some physical obstacle stand between minors and the area where prohibited material is displayed.

By Puyallup students. In a case of Political Correctness run amok, Puyallup School District in Washington state has banned expressions of Halloween from schools. Officials reportedly told a local TV station that followers of the Wiccan religion had complained about the way Halloween was celebrated. Spokeswoman Karen Hansen commented: "School officials have been reviewing the Halloween tradition and decided that time could be better spent. Schools are teaching students to be respectful and take account of the discomfort felt by others. Witches with pointy noses are not respective (sic) symbols of the Wiccan religion." Supposedly, students who go to school in Halloween costumes will be sent home.
(see 25 Oct 2004)

By the White House Internet site. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By Bruce Coville and Chris Crutcher, respectively. Not to be confused with Alice Walker's Am I Blue?, the Colville work is a short, fictional story that explores a boy's confusion with his sexual identity; he has a gay fairy-godfather who helps him overcome misohomonism at school. In the time I Get is about a man who befriends a young man dying of AIDS.

Middle school teacher Sue Protheroe, eighth grade arts class, says both books are intended to promote tolerance, but she has come under fire by a group of parents who demand that she stop using stories featuring gay, lesbian, or transgender characters. Seven peoplein the district, one of whom has a child in Protheroe's class, have filed complaints. The criticisms for "Am I Blue" are reportedly that:

• it has no instructional value for her class,
• it is about controversial areas that should be discussed within families,
• it is not appropriate for middle school-aged students,
• the story promotes intolerance through use of slanderous and racist terms,
• it perpetuates gay stereotypes, and
• it promotes homosexuality.

Ms. Protheroe commented, "I'm trying to teach tolerance and respect for all people. And I can't do that and ignore a whole group of people. Furthermore, I wouldn't present a curriculum that ignored women or African-Americans or Hispanics. How can I possible teach my students to embrace diversity if I systematically exclude an entire group from my literature?"

[You know, considering that nobody even knows what causes homosexuality, I find it highly amusing that some people say they know what can influence homosexuality. I also have to wonder about the rationale that the book promotes intolerance. This creates an appearance of both left- and right-wing censorship. --MN]

By the White House. Paul K. McMasters, the First Amendment Center ombudsman, had an interesting commentary published at their site on this day. He looks at the current attitudes of the Bush administration toward the free press system, the abuse of that system by the administration in the Valerie Plame Affair, and the miscarriage of justice being perpetrated against two non-complicit reporters.

This commentary was penned in support of confidentiality shielding, a principle which this editor supports, and which issue appears to be generating a movement for a national shield law. At the moment, confidential source shields are enacted, or not, at the discretion of the individual states.

By the State of Georgia. The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously struck down this legislation, passed in 2000, as being vague and overbroad. The primary fault with the law is that it was the victim of petty politicing; as originally proposed, it defined a hate crime as one motivated by race, religion, gender, national origin, or the sexual orientation of the victim, but after fights over the inclusion of sexual orientation, language was removed, and a hate crime was defined only as one in which a victim or his property is targeted simply because of bias or prejudice. Justice Carol Hunstein wrote in the opinion that the law could be invoked for:

A rabid sports fan convicted of uttering terroristic threats to a victim selected for wearing a competing team's baseball cap; a campaign worker convicted of trespassing for defacing a political opponent's yard signs; a performance car fanatic convicted of stealing a Ferrari -- any 'bias or prejudice' ... no matter how obscure, whimsical or unrelated to the victim".

Democratic state Sen. Vincent Fort, who wrote the law, announced that he would start on a constitutional version, but Eric Johnson, the Senate's top Republican, and who opposed the bill in 2000, predicted a tough fight over new legislation. He is quoted, "It shouldn't be worse for a white man to beat up a black man than for a white man to beat up a white man."

[Damned straight, although any such law should also be invoked against any black or hispanic who beats up a white man because he's white. This touches upon one bone I have to pick with hate-crimes and hate-speech legislations, though: in an effort to protect the human dignity of visible ethnic minorities, these groups are being singled out for lacking human spirit or strength of will. --MN]

By Puyallup students. The school board in this Pierce County, Washington, city stood by the "no Halloween in the schools" policy. Board president Greg Heath faced an angry crowd put at about four hundred at the board meeting on this day. Puyallup School District officials had announced last week that Halloween festivities would be canceled to stop losing instructional time and to avoid offending believers in the Wiccan religion. Mr. Heath is quoted from the meeting, "Improving student achievement is our highest priority. The school board supports the decision of our administration." The worse thing about this incident is that the action was taken unilaterally by the school board, instead of after consultation with the public. It is also a misguided movement.

District spokeswoman Karen Hansen said that Wiccans who have met with school officials had not asked for Halloween events to be cancelled but have said they are offended by images of witches with pointy noses flying on broomsticks. To this, Lisa Lawrence -- facilitator of Gaia's Grove in Puyallup and Wiccan high priestess of Sacred Oak Circle in Puyallup and Tacoma -- made this reply: "Taking Halloween away from children, that's just ridiculous. We don't particularly care for the images of witches but there are a lot of stereotypical images that a lot of people don't like, but that's part of life. People dress up as perverted priests, sexy nuns, drunken Irishmen, nerds, obese people, every group has its stereotype that is mocked or made fun of. As far as classroom time, this is just another attempt to take every bit of creativity and socialization out of schools. They want to take every bit of fun away from these kids and turn them into testing machines."

[Hoorah! You go, girl. --MN]
(see 22 Oct 2004)

Actors in the popular Saudi TV serial have received death threats from terrorists after the highly popular episode And life continues was broadcast. This episode, which is regarded by many Saudi viewers as the best of Tash Ma Tash this year, deals with terrorist groups and the horrible crimes they committed in Saudi Arabia. An unidentified terrorist group issued a threat on the Internet to kill the actors; Naser Al-Qasabi, the star of the serial, and some other actors were put on a hit list.

Ms. Aminah Salem, a university student, commented, "Tash Ma Tash is a popular Saudi serial. It has gained Arab recognition and respect since it went on air ten years ago. I was very disturbed when I heard about the threat. The episode about terrorism was emotional and it was the best episode this year. It exposed terrorist groups and showed their ugly face. Their mind is evil and they think only of destruction. The episode relates to the confessions of terrorists that were aired last month on Saudi TV. I was happy that the actors were brave enough to discuss this problem because Tash Ma Tash is the actual reflection of what is going on in our society. It identifies the problem and tries to find a solution, but in a comical way."

Naser Al-Qasabi is quoted by Okaz newspaper, "Many people now believe that these terrorist groups came from a different planet. We have to study these groups psychologically to determine where the defect is in their minds. These people used the Internet to threaten us and the institution that produces the program, claiming that by killing us they will end corruption. These people should know that Islam is a religion of peace and they should realize that disagreement does not mean fighting those with a different opinion."

By Saudi-owned MBC TV. This dramatic serial started at the beginning of Ramadan [this day is the fourteenth day of Ramadan, 1425] on three satellite channels after a huge publicity campaign. It was cancelled after airing eight of thirty episodes. Abeer Mishkhas, of ArabNews.com, described this affair thusly:

For an Arabic TV drama, it was an innovation as it explored still-unfolding events.

Arab historical drama usually shies away from portraying living issues and contemporary events; since the matter of the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan is still both hot and sensitive; the series quickly became a magnet for a wide range of viewers. The series deals with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the role of Arab and Afghan fighters. Some people watched it to criticize; others watched it out of curiosity and still others simply wanted to get some historical information the easiest way.

It is interesting to see the reactions triggered by canceling the series. First of all, the series was extremely popular and so canceling it provoked considerable discussion.

[...]

In this age of satellite TV and Internet, the imposition of censorship is patently pointless and absurd. But it is interesting to see how people are tired of being denied their right to know and the freedom to form their opinions. Saudi reaction has been amazing in that sense; for a segment of the Saudi audience, the series dealt with terrorism and religious intolerance and that hits a raw nerve.

[See the source article for more background; particularly: three samples of the kind of conspiracy theory such secrecy generates. --MN]

By FAIR. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By Knight-Ridder and Associated Press, and Julian Bond, chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, respectively. On 11 Jul, Mr. Bond gave the keynote address at the NAACP annual convention. In his speech, he was critical of the Bush administration for its racial policies. The NAACP is now the subject of an audit by the IRS which is looking into its tax exempt status; which it stands to lose. However, neither article by the two news services offered any evidence to even generate the impression that this was a censorship movement by the IRS. The only thing they did was to repeat the assertions of Mr. Bond that the NAACP was being attacked by a government agency.

Frances Hill, a University of Miami law professor and an expert on the political rights of tax-exempt organizations, read Bond's speech and said it was indeed critical of President Bush, but added that Bond was probably on safe legal ground because the speech was broadly conceived, did not focus solely on Bush, and touched on a range of issues that have long been trademarks of the NAACP. However, there necessarily exists the corollary that Bond was not on safe ground. Moreover, while the Knight-Ridder article admits that the IRS has also issued a warning against American clergy violating their own status, it also presented this a priori as censorship, rather than creating a contextual comparison with the NAACP audit. Any government agency must, perforce, walk a fine line at times, but there is no indication to date that the IRS is or has engaged in a consistent pattern of censorial behaviour.

By Shirin Ebadi. Ms Ebadi filed a suit against the U.S. government alleging that the U.S. government is standing in the way of the publishing of her memoirs. On this day a federal judge agreed to add her lawsuit to similar litigation brought in Sep 2004 by other publishing groups and authors. According to Treasury Department regulations, U.S. companies are forbidden to publish the works of authors from Iran, Cuba, and Sudan, unless the works have already been completed without American involvement. A hearing date had not been set as of 05 Nov.

The facts of this case that lend it so much irony are as follows:

• Shirin Ebadi is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to be Nobel Peace Prize winner (2003);
• has been praised by President George W. Bush;
• has been honored at universities for her work on behalf of democracy and human rights;
• as a lawyer and human-rights activist she has represented the families of writers and intellectuals who were murdered in Iran;
• these legal campaigns have landed her in prison;
• she wants to write a book about her life and career and publish it in America because in Iran it would be subject to state approval.

Ms. Ebadi commented that blocking her memoirs would be a: "critical missed opportunity both for Americans to learn more about my country and its people from a variety of Iranian voices and for a better understanding to be achieved between our two countries."
(see 28 Feb 2004; 04 Apr 2004; 11 Nov 2004)

By the U.S. Marine Corps. Reuters cameraman Dhia Najim was near his house in the Andalus district of Ramadi when he was struck in the back of the neck by a single bullet that killed him instantly. On this day, the U.S. military released a statement that he had died in a gunbattle between Marines and insurgents. It reads in part, "Marines from the 1st Marine Division of the I Marine Expeditionary Force engaged several insurgents in a brief small arms firefight that killed an individual who was carrying a video camera earlier Monday morning." It also said, "Identification badges found on the dead man confirmed employment with a major news agency. Inspection of videotape in the camera revealed footage of previous attacks on Multi-National Force military vehicles that included the insurgent use of RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), an IED (roadside bomb) and small arms fire." [...] "The insurgents fled the scene with their wounded but left the body of the dead man along the side of the road."

This was the military's first response to questions from Reuters about his death. It was not immediately clear how the U.S. military had been able to view the tape in Najim's camera or check his identity cards. Reuters has asked for the camera to be returned.

Video footage of the incident showed no apparent fighting and no sounds of shooting in the vicinity before Mr. Najim was killed by a single round. He had filmed heavy clashes between Marines and insurgents earlier in the day but that fighting had subsided. Mr. Najim's colleagues and family said they believed he had been killed by a U.S. sniper. The revealing film, shot from an upper floor of a nearby building, shows Najim half-hidden by a wall at first, then moving into the open. As soon as he emerges, a gunshot rings out and he falls to the ground, his arms outstretched. Civilians are then seen gathering calmly at the scene immediately afterwards to look at his lifeless body.

By Barbara Nitke and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. This lawsuit is challenging the Communications Decency Act (CDA) which is said to criminalize free speech on the Internet. Testimony was heard over the 27th and 28th Oct 2004 in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of NY. On this day, Seth Finkelstein issued a newsletter reporting on the hearing. (The report is also archived here.) A critical issue that was addressed was the matter of geolocation software which allows website hosts to block visitors from certain states or areas of states. The use of the software is to enforce local community standards. NCSF is challenging the CDA because personal websites and chat groups that include discussions and images of SM, swinging, or polyamory (group sex), are at risk of prosecution as obscenity. Since alternative sexual expression is outside the mainstream, it is an easy target.

[The Jackass of the Day Award in this one goes to Chris McCulloh, of Sinetimore Internet Security Service Provider, who reportedly suggested that Ms. Nitke request the full name and address of every user who wants access to her website. She would then confirm their physical location by mailing them confirmation. This is a process that would take several weeks. I wonder if he was being deliberately obtuse or was simply so ignorant of the internet culture that he doesn't know about a study finding that web surfers will wait for thirty seconds before giving up on a slow-loading web page and skipping to the next site. --MN]

By Saskatchewan. On this day the province became the seventh political area of Canada to strike down a discriminatory definition of marriage. Same-sex couples were already allowed to marry in:

• British Columbia,
• Manitoba,
• Nova Scotia,
• Ontario,
• Quebec, and
• the Yukon Territory.

The ruling was handed down by Justice Donna Wilson, of the Court of Queen's Bench, who wrote in part: "The common-law definition of marriage for civil purposes is declared to be 'the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.'" Justice Minister Frank Quennell has said the government of Saskatchewan will not contest the challenge. The next province to face such a challenge will probably be Newfoundland and Labrador, where two gay couples announced on 04 Nov that they are launching a suit over the issue.

In early Oct 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected a bid by religious and family groups to stop same-sex marriage, and the court is evaluating a draft federal law that could make gay weddings legal from coast to coast. The only real opposition to this movement appears to be from the Province of Alberta, although a Nova Scotia Conservative MP, Rob Moore, introduced a private member's bill aimed at upholding heterosexual marriage. He is quoted, "The bill will allow parliamentarians to determine the definition of marriage through a free vote in the House of Commons. In addition, it provides protections for the right of religious institutions to conduct ceremonies according to their own beliefs."

[Sorry, dumb-ass, but there's nothing in the Supreme Court ruling that says any individual church is required to marry a same-sex couple. There is no violation of church and state here, just an offense to your hypersensitivies. Calls to defend "traditional marriages" are equally misplaced. There is no threat to the marrying of heterosexual couples. Ultra-conservatives are ignoring the part of Judge Wilson's ruling that says specifically: "The common-law definition of marriage for civil purposes . . . " --MN]

By FAIR. This media watchdog group issued two newsletters about questionable journalist practices by American corporate media. One questioned the practice of the corporate press in quickly and widely stating that Bush had won a mandate. The group reported that the Washington Post had even called the win a "clearer mandate"; thereby disingeniously implying that the election of 2000, where Bush did not even win a plurality of the popular vote, was, if an unclear one, a mandate of sorts. Non-bandwagon journalists were:

• Columnist Margaret Carlson, who asked in the Los Angeles Times: "What kind of mandate does he think he has with a 51 percent win?"
• Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher who wrote: "It's true that President Bush got more votes than any winning candidate for president in history. He also had more people voting against him than any winning candidate for president in history."
• Al Hunt, who observed in the Wall Street Journal that Bush's victory was: "the narrowest win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916."

The easy proclamations of a mandate are questionable in light of much wider presidential victories.

[Ah, the good old, lackey corporate press. It's never too soon to kiss Der Feuhrer's ass. --MN]

The second newsletter reported how the The New York Times killed a story that would almost certainly have caught out Bush in a lie. Five days before the presidential election, the paper killed a story about the mysterious object President Bush wore on his back during the presidential debates. Although he said that it was result of bad tailoring, the spiked story included compelling photographic and scientific evidence that would have contradicted this claim. Dave Lindorff, of CounterSpin, commented, "The New York Times assigned three editors to this story and had it scheduled to run five days before the election, which would have raised questions about the president's integrity. But it was killed by top editors at the Times; clearly they were chickening out of taking this on before the election." Mr. Lindorff says two other major newspapers -- the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times -- also decided not to pursue the story.

[So much for "journalistic integrity". --MN]

By Alvis Coatings Inc. Alan and Linda Townsend of Dallas, Texas, were unhappy with the sprayed-on siding applied to their house so they launched a Web site to complain about it and to give other unsatisfied customers a forum. Visitor postings to the Web site said the product, Spray on Siding, cracked, bubbled, and buckled. Alvis Coatings Inc. filed a law suit in federal court claiming that the site infringes on the company's trademarks, defames its product, and intentionally misleads and confuses consumers. Alvis alleges that the name of the Townsends' web site, spraysiding.com, "is confusingly similar" to the official Alvis site, sprayonsiding.com, as well as to its trademark "Spray on Siding."

The company is seeking more than $75,000 in damages in addition to unspecified punitive damages and attorney fees. Alan Townsend is quoted, "We could lose everything, including the house, and still be in debt"; the house is valued at around $150,000.

[This is almost certainly a case of someone who can't take criticism, and who doesn't understand the purpose of criticism, reacting inappropriately. I have to ask myself how reputable Alvis can be if a number of dissatisfied customers complain about their product being shoddy and it sues them instead of trying to increase the quality of the product. --MN]

By Paul K. McMasters, First Amendment Center ombudsman. He had a commentary posted to the First Amendment Center site in which he examines how Andre Gainey was sentenced to three weekends in jail on a misdemeanor charge of public display of sexual material. He was running a pornogrphic film on his car's DVD system, and a police officer saw the film when he pulled up behind Mr. Gainey's car. At heart in this case is the question of whether a private citizen can view pornographic films -- which are not illegal in the U.S. -- where other people can also view the content.

[The commentary does not report if Gainey was watching the film or if he had any passengers, but apparently he was not cited for reckless driving. --MN]

By India Tracy. It was reported that Ms. Tracy's suit was settled for 50,000 dollars. The settlement was entered into federal court in Oct and announced on 05 Nov. Aside from the money, the settlement spells out guidelines for how the school system is to address outside religious events in the future. All that is left is for U.S. District Judge Thomas A. Varlan to approve the settlement.

[See the source article for more background. --MN]
(see 22 Apr 2003)

By Sen. John McCain. A co-sponsor of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, he and other backers of the law are planning on increasing its scope. There is an Associated Press report on this movement at the First Amendment Center.

[The way I see this, it's similar to the Taliban avalanche down the slippery slope where they had to increasingly ban one thing after another because the people were never righteous enough. In the end, they outlawed applause and paper bags. For McCain, imposing a cap on political donations didn't do enough, so now he has to go after grass roots groups and private citizens for doing the spending the politicos couldn't do themselves. But that would constitute a clear and present free speech violation in my not so humble opinion. Which is exactly what opponents of the law feared when it was enacted. --MN]

By Stephen Chbosky. The Arrowhead School District, in the town of Merton, Wisconsin, is considering a complaint by parent Karen Krueger against The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The Arrowhead School District has appointed an ad hoc committee as per its review process policy. The book is one of sixteen available to high school juniors and seniors enrolled in the semester-long Modern Literature course. Perks is an epistolary novel in which the main character, shy, introspective, 15-year-old Charlie, writes letters to an unnamed person to describe situations and issues he encounters in high school: making friends, family tensions, a first relationship, a friend's suicide, date rape, drug use, abuse, homosexuality, masturbation, oral sex, and abortion.

Ms. Krueger's complaint alleges that descriptions of oral sex and use of graphic language in the book violate community standards, and she filed the formal complaint after she and her husband were unable to resolve the issue informally by taking it to school staff.The couple became concerned about the book after their older son brought it home to read during the last school year. Since filing the complaint on 21 Oct, Ms. Krueger said she has found other parents with similar concerns. She also examined some of the other books on the course list and found five more that she said contain objectionable material. Three of the other five titles are:

• Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel,
• Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
• The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan.

The review commmitte will consider Perks exclusively at first, and will consider the other books only if it determines that Perks does violate commuity standards.

[Addendum (17 Nov 2004:) An article in the Lake Country Reporter identified The Snapper by Roddy Doyle, about an unmarried, pregnant woman, and Krik Krak by Edwidge Dandicat, about life under Haiti's dictatorships, as also having been challenged. --MN]

By Saving Private Ryan. Steven Spielberg's Academy Award-winning film was shown on ABC with relatively little controversy in 2001 and 2002. This year, however, ABC was subjected to the FCC's Big Chill from the Janet Jackson Tit Affair; some stations canceled the airing scheduled for Veteran's Day. Saving Private Ryan has an exceedingly graphic depiction of the Invasion of Normandy, but it is also sprinkled with fornigraphy. As a result, and due in part to Janet's exposure at the half time show and partly to a March ruling in which the FCC said an expletive uttered by rock star Bono during NBC's live airing of the 2003 Golden Globe Awards was both indecent and profane, some station owners -- including several in large markets, refused to carry the film, and several others said that ABC refused to reschedule the film during the Supreme Court mandated Safe Harbor. The film had been scheduled for 8:00 P.M.

Ray Cole, president of Citadel Communications, said the network could not protect its affiliates against other FCC sanctions, even though it had offered to cover any fines. Cole cited recent FCC actions and the re-election of President Bush as reasons for replacing "Saving Private Ryan" with a music program and the TV movie "Return to Mayberry"; he is quoted, "We're just coming off an election where moral issues were cited as a reason by people voting one way or another and, in my opinion, the commissioners are fearful of the new Congress."

[I don't imagine any of them see the irony in this. The film cannot be edited because ABC's contract with Spielberg specifically says so. It's a safe bet from where I'm sitting that he foresaw exactly this kind of censorship. Why, I'd like to know, did ABC schedule this film for so early in the evening? {Probably because it's a longish film and would have finished too late for most viewers.} --MN]

By Loup County, Nebraska. The case began in Oct 2004 when Loup County Sheriff Dan Kling warned Larry Lentz that he could be ticketed for flying the U.S. flag upside-down in his yard. Nebraska's flag law states: "A person commits the offense of mutilating a flag if such person intentionally casts contempt or ridicule upon a flag by mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning, or trampling upon such flag." Violating the law is a misdemeanor punishable by three months in jail and a $500 fine. Lentz was flying the flag upside down to protest the war in Iraq. After issuing the warning, Sheriff Kling returned later, took the flag down and had Lentz ticketed. Lentz then bought another flag, but this time flew it upside down from his backyard flagpole. When returned a third time and threatened to issue another ticket, Lentz called the ACLU for help.

American Civil Liberties Union officials announced on this day that Loup County authorities had agreed to drop the charges after having met with the county attorney. Mr. Lentz said in a statement released by the ACLU, "My opinion is this country is in upside down mode right now. I decided to fly my flag upside down to show someone needs to make a change for the better. This doesn't mean anything against the boys or girls in the war right now. They're doing their job. I just wanted to express myself on my own land." He served in the Navy from 1959 to 1967 and later in both the Navy and Army reserves.

By Luis Rodriguez. This book about gang life on the streets of Los Angeles was removed from Santa Barbara Unified School District schools this week after a parent complained about graphic passages depicting violence and sex. Parent Anne Aziz-Cutner wrote, "The book ... contains detailed descriptions of oral sexual acts and fornication ... and the rape of 12- to 14-year-old girls. What exactly are you teaching our children?" As a result, on 09 Nov interim Superintendent Brian Sarvis unilaterally removed the book from the schools throughout the district. Mr. Rodriguez commented in an interview from his San Fernando home on 10 Nov, "The reason why kids like the book is they don't see their lives in any of the other books presented to them. They're looking for literature that has some meaning in their lives, and when they don't have that, they usually don't want to read."

[Naturally, the assumption is not that the book is teaching about the counterproductive and self-destructive nature of gang life, but that it must necessarily be teaching young adults about the glory of being a crack or heroin addict. And, of course, God forbid they should ever be allowed access to anything that is at all relevant to the emotional turmoil in their own lives. --MN]

By Iraq's Media High Commission. On 11 Nov, Iraq's media regulator warned news organizations to stick to the government line on the offensive in Fallujah or face legal action. The commission was set up by the former U.S. governor of Iraq to be independent of the government and to encourage investment in the media and to deter state meddling after decades of strict control under President Saddam Hussein. The Commission warned the media to:

• "differentiate between the innocent Fallouja residents who are not targeted by military operations and terrorist groups that infiltrated the city and held its people hostage under the pretext of resistance and jihad."

• "guide correspondents in Fallouja -- not to promote unrealistic positions or project nationalist tags on terrorist gangs of criminals and killers."

• "set aside space in your news coverage to make the position of the Iraqi government, which expresses the aspirations of most Iraqis, clear."

The statement then said: "We hope you comply -- otherwise we regret we will be forced to take all the legal measures to guarantee higher national interests." It did not specify what legal actions, but in August, satellite television channel Al Jazeera was asked to close its Baghdad office for one month for backing "criminals and gangsters". A month later the channel said the ban had been extended indefinitely.

[Oh, sure! -- That's my idea of a free press all right! Someone should tell these fools that the resistant fighters in Iraq -- not terrorists, gangsters, criminals, or insurgents -- do come mostly from the general population; and they are not more criminals and killers than the illegal occupation forces. --MN]

By Paul K. McMasters, First Amendment Center ombudsman. Mr. McMasters wrote a thoughtful piece about perceived bias, incompetence, and malfeasance of the commercial press. It is well worth the read.

[Personally, my problem with the commercial press is not an issue of the "truth", but of the "facts". See my commentary about related issues. --MN]

By the Bush administration. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By the "Tali-banned". See the anti-Bush sentiment suppression timeline.

By Pennsylvania State Supreme Court. Douglas Lee wrote an insightful analysis of two rulings likely to chill free speech in reporting in Pennsylvania. He writes in part that the decisions will deny the people of Pennsylvania important information about elected officials and the court system for years, by making newspapers complicit in libel from simply reproducing the defamatory statements, or even by reporting on public documents such as filings for law suits.

By Arkansas. U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Eisele ruled that certain portions of this law violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution in that they are: "overbroad and impose unconstitutional prior restraints on the availability and display of constitutionally protected, non-obscene materials to both adults and older minors." Lawyers for those who filed the law suit against the Act said it effectively makes the entire law meaningless and unenforceable. His ruling is founded on the State Supreme Court interpretation from Oct 2004, and reads in part, "It is now clear that ... material which is only harmful to the youngest of the minors may not be displayed ... even though such material would not be harmful to adults or older minors. The statute therefore effectively stifles the access of adults and older minors to communications and material they are entitled to receive and view."
(see 21 Oct 2004)

By Sierra Club. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By Jim Taricani, WJAR-TV, Rhode Island. He was found guilty of contempt on this day for refusing to to say who gave him an FBI videotape showing former Mayor Vincent Cianci Jr. taking a bribe. The tape was part of a federal probe into corruption at Providence City Hall during the former Mayor's administration. He and Frank Corrente, a top aide of his, were both convicted and were serving time as of Taricani's trial. The conviction comes more than three years after a special prosecutor was appointed to find out who leaked the tape in violation of a court order prohibiting any of the attorneys, investigators or defendants from disseminating tapes connected to the probe. Even though Mr. Taricani broke no law by airing the tape, U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres has said the leak was meant to either disrupt the corruption investigation or to deprive defendants of a fair trial by influencing prospective jurors. Mr. Taricani refuses to say who leaked the copy to him because he has promised his source anonymity.

[This case is more nuanced than the Valerie Plame and Wen Ho Lee affairs. Resolution of this one turns on whether or not the judge is right that the leak was meant to compromise the case against Cianci and Corrente, and whether that end was achieved even though they were convicted in the end. Given that the suspects were convicted, I tend to side with Taricani. --MN]

[Addendum (20 Nov 2004:) Also see this commentary alluding to this case in a call for a national sheild law from 19 Nov, and this commentary examining the likely impact of the decision on press freedoms from 20 Nov. --MN]

By Myanmar Republic (AKA Burma). It was announced on State radio that the goverment, a military junta, would release 3,937 persons on the grounds that this people had been "improperly detained". According to a BBC report, some 600 prisoners, 30 of them political prisoners, had been released by Friday, 19 Nov. This move is seen as resulting from a shake up in the ruling junta, and from an effort to have trade sanctions lifted that were imposed for human rights violation. During the shake up, a government controlling body, the National Intelligence Bureau, was abolished, and many of its officers subsequently imprisoned. The shake up itself seems to derive from Khin Nyunt, the head of military intelligence for twenty years, having been removed from power on 19 Oct and placed under house arrest because of allegations of corruption.

There was no word as to the status of Aung San Suu Kyi who has been under house arrest, although Win Tin, one of the NLD's founders, and who has been imprisoned since 1989, has been released. Amnesty International estimates there are 1,350 political detainees in Burma, many associated with Ms. Suu Kyi's party.
(see 18 Sep 1988; 1990; 27 Mar 1999; 05 Jun 2003; 14 Apr 2004; 27 Mar 1999; 18 Nov 1999)

By the U.S. Senate Commerce subcommitte on science. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., chairman of the subcommittee, organized a panel of anti-porn advocates, some of whom testified about a condition called "porn addiction". Mary Anne Layden, co-director of a sexual trauma program at the University of Pennsylvania, reportedly said that the effect of pornography on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine. Other issues addressed were the perceived -- though not proven -- pervasiveness of internet pornography. Ms. Layden's recommendation was to suggest attacking strip clubs and prostitution as much as pornography

[Addendum (28 Dec 2004:) On 27 Dec, Robert D. Richards and Clay Calvert had a commentary reprinted at CommonDreams.org in which they examine the lack of due process behind this hearing. From what they wrote, and from my own opinions about the validity of the "science" behind this attack on pornography, I would say that this proceeding constituted an outright conspiracy to defraud to American public. At the very least, it is a clear and present failure of the principles of open government. --MN]

By Senator Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn. Senator Dodd proposed the legislation as lone sponsor amid a number of free press challenges, pitting the government against journalists over confidential sources. He commented at a news conference, "Democracy is premised on an informed citizenry. A free press is the best guarantee of a knowledgeable citizenry." Thirty-one states as well as the District of Columbia already have shield laws, but no federal law exists. Under the bill, neither the judicial, legislative, or executive branch could not compel a journalist to divulge a source of information, regardless of whether that person had been promised confidentiality. This shield would extend to the journalist's notebooks, photographic negatives, and other material; but it does allow that a court could force disclosure of news in cases in which it is critical to a legal issue, when the information cannot be obtained anywhere else, and if an overriding public interest exists in the disclosure. Lawyers who have handled First Amendment cases welcomed the legislation as overdue.

By King Hamad of Bahrain. His Majesty ordered the release of a human rights activist who had been sentenced to one year in prison earlier on this day for having incited political dissent. An official said the king issued a decree stipulating that "the imprisonment should be limited to the period preceding the publication of this decree." Abdul Hadi Al-Khawaja, former vice president of the now-disbanded Bahrain Center for Human Rights, had been arrested on 25 Sep 2004 after publicly blaming Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa ibn Salman Al-Khalifa for the economic woes and human rights abuses in the country. His wife commented in a telephone interview with Arab News:

Why is being pardoned? Why use that word? Why was he arrested in the first place? Is this the price we Bahrainis have to pay in order to express our thoughts? I know my husband; he will leave jail but will continue to have the same thoughts. What we need now in Bahrain is to amend the laws that are outdated.

Mr. Khawaja, who had pleaded not guilty to the charges, was not present at the brief hearing, and his lawyers also boycotted the session, saying the trial was "unconstitutional". The source article did not report any specific charges.

[See the source article for more background on both this case and civil liberties interactions in Bahrain. --MN]

By John Mangels, of the Cleveland Plain. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By Principal Stephen P. Gollhofer, Webb City High School, and the Webb City R-7 school district. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court against these two defendants on behalf of Brad Mathewson. On 20 Oct 2004, he went to school wearing a shirt from the Gay-Straight Alliance at his former high school in Fayetteville, Ark. He was told to either turn the shirt inside out or to go home and change. He traded shirts with a friend instead, and that person wore the shirt without incident the rest of the day. On 27 Oct, Mr. Mathewson wore a T-shirt bearing the phrase: "I'm gay and I'm proud." He left school after refusing to turn the shirt inside out, and was briefly suspended. He returned to school Nov. 2 after promising not to wear gay-themed T-shirts until the issue could be resolved. The district has said the T-shirts were disruptive and therefore a violation of the school dress code. Mr. Mathewson was reported as saying in a statement, "The school lets other students wear anti-gay T-shirts, and I understand that they have a right to do that. "I just want the same right."

By Stevens Creek School, Cupertino, California. Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher, has been barred by the school from giving students documents from American history that refer to God; including the Declaration of Independence. On Monday, 21 Nov, he filed a law suit for discrimination, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian. Attorney, Terry Thompson of the Alliance Defense Fund is representing Mr. Williams; he commented, "It's a fact of American history that our founders were religious men, and to hide this fact from young fifth-graders in the name of political correctness is outrageous and shameful. Williams wants to teach his students the true history of our country. There is nothing in the Establishment Clause that prohibits a teacher from showing students the Declaration of Independence."

Williams asserts in the lawsuit that he has been required to submit all of his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to Principal Vidmar for approval since May 2004, and that the principal will not permit him to use any materials that contain references to God or Christianity. Among the materials rejected are excerpts from:

• The Declaration of Independence,
• George Washington's journal,
• John Adams' diary,
• Samuel Adams's The Rights of the Colonists, and
• William Penn's The Frame of Government of Pennsylvania.

Said Thompson, "He hands out a lot of material and perhaps 5 to 10 percent refers to God and Christianity because that's what the founders wrote. The principal seems to be systematically censoring material that refers to Christianity and it is pure discrimination."

[Addendum (04 Dec 2004:) On 02 Dec, American Atheists issued a newsletter in which they examined this incident and essentially accused the mainstream press of misrepresentative reporting:

The suit, filed last Monday in U.S. District Court charges that the school's principal, Patricia Vidmar, required Mr. Williams to submit all lesson plans and various supplemental handouts for vetting. Along with the Declaration, the materials included "George Washington's Prayer Journal," "The Rights of the Colonists" by Samuel Adams, and a pamphlet titled "What Great Leaders Have Said About the Bible."

The school district has yet to respond to the complaint. Talk and cable radio, however, along with a slew of media pundits were all quick to respond, some arguing that the California story is just the latest incident of secularism and state-church separation run amok, and at the cost of free speech and academic freedom.

This may not be the case, though, says Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists. During an appearance earlier this week on "Scarborough Country," she told MSNBC's Monica Crowley that all of the facts are not yet known, and that the story may involve religious bias, not bias against religion.

"This is possibly yet another case of certain religious people pushing their agenda and proselytizing in an inappropriate venue, namely, a public school classroom."

Johnson added that while there are religious references in many early-American documents, "they need to be appreciated in context. Mr. Williams may not have been telling his students the full story."

Casting more doubt on the story is information revealed in the official complaint as obtained by AANEWS. Filed by attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund, a religious legal advocacy group, some of the details have not been covered by mainstream media.

A fine illustration of why one must reserve judgement in all matters and always try to get both sides of the story. --MN]

[Addendum (05 Feb 2005:) On 04 Feb a column was posted to First Amendment Center examining Church/State frictions; including this one. The author wrote in part:

The Phoenix-based Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing Williams, says the school's policy effectively bans the teacher from handing out such important historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, which says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator -- ."

Nonsense, say school district officials. In fact, the Declaration of Independence is right in the students' textbooks, district communications manager Jerry Nishihara points out. What's not in the textbooks is the material Williams was handing out to students on his own.

There was a classroom handout entitled, "What Great Leaders Have Said About the Bible," containing quotes from nine U.S. presidents and another from Jesus. Some of these quotes, school officials say, are fictitious. Then there is the text of a prayer book, supposedly George Washington's, that Williams handed out to students. Historians concluded in the 19th century that the book wasn't Washington's, although it may have belonged to one of his descendants.

So, not only might Williams have breached Church/State separation, but he might have been deliberately teaching falsehoods. --MN]

By 22 national feminist, health and population organizations. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By Lower Canada College. Two graduating students placed coded messages calling for death to all Jews in the school's yearbook as a practical joke.

Headmaster Paul Bennett said the two hidden messages were spotted thanks to a tip from fellow students. He wrote in a letter sent yesterday to the parents of all LCC students. "We have concluded that the two offensive comments were intended as a 'secret' that the two 16-year-olds thought no one would notice. The incident stemmed from a personal disagreement between two boys and was isolated in nature." Jewish community groups said they felt the incident wasn't serious, but did express satisfaction with the school's action. This reactionism probably derives from LCC garnering unwanted headlines in Oct when a handful of students were caught trying to circulate crude counterfeit money to cover gambling debts. Mr. Bennett said the comments do not reflect the views of the school's 745 students, that the authors have Jewish friends, and that they are not anti-Semitic.

The statements, in a jumble of acronym-like e-mail shorthand, were spotted hours before the 2003-2004 yearbook was to be widely distributed. All 1,000 copies of the yearbook were destroyed.

By Nabila Mahjoob. A veteran writer at Al-Madinah newspaper, Ms. Mahjoob returned to writing her weekly column after being suspended for over a month. Arab News had reported her suspension during the week of 21-27 Nov, but did not mention her name or the paper because she wanted to work things out with quietly before taking further measures. Ms. Mahjoob is quoted, "At first I didn't know how long the suspension would last. I was very upset about the whole thing because I don't think I wrote some thing that deserved suspension. If I had, the paper wouldn't have published it in the first place or would at least have removed the offensive parts."

In the offending article, Ms. Hahjoob wrote about corruption at one of Saudi Arabia's major financial institutions, and criticized a senior general manager. She did not name either the institution or the general manager, but the manager immediately contacted the newspaper and threatened to pull the institution's advertisements if action was not taken against her. The editor in chief gave in and the next day he informed Ms. Mahjoob through an assistant that her articles would not be published until further notice.

[I call the article non-defamatory by the U.S. criteria of what constitutes defamation. Those are the most free speech friendly criteria I'm familiar with. See the source article for more background on how such cases are handled in Saudi Arabia. --MN]

By State Press Magazine of Arizona State University. An article by Associated Press reported how university administrators were calling for a more specific content policy (prior restraint) for student journalists after State Press Magazine cover included a photo of a woman's bare breast with a pierced nipple. The article was specifically about body piercing. The source article is chock full of charge and countercharge and rationalizations to justify prior restraint.

By the U.S. Supreme Court. Two articles were posted to TruthOut.org on 28 Nov and 29 Nov respectively. Between the two, they paint a picture of anti-free choice movements and how they fly in the face of popular acceptance of free choice.

Chipping Away at Roe vs. Wade, a Los Angeles Times editorial reports on the ongoing Bush administration movement to re-enslave the reproductive faculties of women. It alleges that there are dozens of bills still in the congressional legislative queu, but examines specifically:

• Abortion Non-Discrimination Act [A Macadamia Nut Rider --MN]
• Unborn Victims of Violence Act
• Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act
• The Global Gag Order [His first offical act of presidential censorship --MN]

The second piece, Poll: Americans Want Roe v. Wade Upheld, by Will Lester of Associated Press, indicates that the majority of Americans do not support the anti-free choice movement.

A majority of Americans say President Bush's next choice for an opening on the Supreme Court should be willing to uphold the landmark court decision protecting abortion rights, an Associated Press poll found.

The poll found that 59 percent say Bush should choose a nominee who would uphold the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. About three in 10, 31 percent, said they want a nominee who would overturn the decision, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

"While I don't have a strong feeling about abortions personally, I wouldn't want the law overturned and return to the days of backdoor abortions," said Colleen Dunn, 40, a Republican and community college teacher [...].

[This piece generally puts paid to the notion that the ultra-conservatives have a lock on "community values". --MN]

By Rob Thomas of The Capital Times. In this examination of the arbitrary nature of censorship, Mr. Thomas wrote in part:

You'd think that the networks would have learned their lesson after ABC's tawdry "Monday Night Football" spectacle of a couple of weeks ago, in which "Desperate Housewives" star Nicolette Sheridan bared her back during a pregame skit.

Self-described "pro-family" groups were outraged, and Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell said an investigation would be launched, adding, "I wonder if Walt Disney would be proud." (ABC is part of the Disney empire.)

But no, the network suits in New York City and Hollywood truly have no shame. There I was watching NBC on Saturday night, during the so-called 7 p.m. "family hour," no less, and I saw something that was equally offensive.

In the scene, a young couple are on their way home from a party, and the young woman, clearly identified as being only 18, was wearing a bathrobe and nothing else. The couple flirted with each other, and then the clumsy (or clever?) male suitor accidentally stepped on her belt, and the young woman jumped right out of the robe!

Thereafter, NBC showed a clearly naked teenage girl (we saw part of her bare shoulder) cowering in the bushes. Rather than showing good morals and returning the robe immediately, the boy taunted the cowering nude teen. How, I wondered, is this any different than Sheridan dropping her towel in front of Terrell Owens?

The difference, of course, is that the program I was watching was Frank Capra's 1946 classic "It's a Wonderful Life."

["There is nothing that cannot be found offensive by someone, somewhere." The biggest problem with censorship advocacy tends to be the selective nature in determining what is offensive and what is not, even when two separate cases are so closely parallel. --MN]

By authors, teachers, academics, scientists, researchers, or guest speakers -- straight or gay. A bill, filed early for the 2005 Alabama legislative season, by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle"; and he reportedly said that he filed the bill to protect children from the "homosexual agenda". Representative Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed. He is quoted: "I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them." Mark Potok, a spokesman for the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center, commented in reply: "It sounds like Nazi book burning to me."

Aside from being a wanton assault against the humanity of homosexuals, the bill will also ban materials that recognize or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of Alabama; which means books with heterosexual couples committing those acts.

[Never mind the fact such laws are clearly unconstitutional in light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down similar laws in Texas. I say, let this bill pass into effect and then challenge it and the laws upon which it will be based and get them all stricken in one fell swoop. --MN]

By CBS and UPN [Viacom], and NBC. The United Church of Christ wanted to run a 30 second commercial promoting the openness of the church to seek new adherents on these networks along with others. In what appears to be a flagrant rejection of tolerance and kissing up to Bush administration neo-fascism, both television networks refused to run the ad. As reported by the 365Gay.com Newscenter:

UCC says that on Tuesday, CBS, NBC told the Church that the ads, which say "like Jesus -- the United Church of Christ (UCC) seeks to welcome all people, regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstance or sexual orientation," imply the acceptance of gay and lesbian couples and therefore violate network standards.

"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations," reads an explanation from CBS, "and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks."

Similarly, a rejection by NBC declared the spot "too controversial."

"It's ironic that after a political season awash in commercials based on fear and deception by both parties seen on all the major networks, an ad with a message of welcome and inclusion would be deemed too controversial," said the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president.

The ad has been accepted by and will air on a number of other networks, until 26 Dec; these include but are not limited to:

ABC Family, AMC, BET,

Discovery, Fox, Hallmark,

History, Nick@Nite, TBS,

TNT, Travel, and TV Land.

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting also commented on this incident in an action alert that was issued on 03 Dec. The alert contains a more precise description of the commercial than that from 365Gay.com.

By Police Captain Abdullah Al-Haidan, of Riyadh. Seven people and three journalists were detained while covering the opening of the trial of three Saudi activists. the police arrested the journalists after they tried to attend the proceedings inside the courtroom. According to Andrew Turner, spokesman of the Canadian Embassy, "Among those refused entry was a Canadian diplomat." The journalists were held overnight until the police were furnished with "letter of introduction". A fourth journalist, a local who was also detained and later released by the police, told Arab News that they were picked up for no apparent reason. Witnesses outside the court said that the trial was marred by protests from the friends and relatives of the activists.

By the ACLU. See the entry on the COINTELPRO page.

By FAIR. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin. John A. "Junior" Gotti's lawyer had argued for a gag order against radio host Curtis Sliwa, on the grounds that Sliwa's virulent commentary about Gotti would poison the well of prospective jurors. On this day, Her Honour ruled that the prejudicial effects of Sliwa's on-air rants can be overcome by thorough questioning to weed out biases, and by emphatic instructions to the jury to avoid media reports on the case. Prosecutors say the younger Gotti had directed several associates to attack Mr. Sliwa on June 19, 1992, for uncomplimentary comments he made about Gotti's father; particularly his description of the Gambino family members as "thugs" and "low lifes." Mr. Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels grassroots crime-fighting group, was shot several times on that date while sitting in a cab. He then turned his vehemence against this new target.

By Julianne Thompson, elementary-school bus driver, Grand Island, New York. Just before her afternoon run on 01 Nov 2004, Ms. Thompson was reading an interview with Mel Gibson in which the actor spoke out against embryonic stem-cell research. When her passengers hopped aboard the bus for the ride home, she decided to share what was still fresh in her mind. She told her passangers that in twenty-three years of stem cell research, not one cure had been found. She encouraged the students to tell their parents -- and some of them did. A week later she was fired. District officials reportedly told her that her conversation was inappropriate and that parents had complained. She said she was also accused of running an unruly bus. Superintendent Thomas Ramming said personnel policy prevented him from discussing specifics of the case, but that in general, employees are told that discussions of political or religious points of view should be confined to an appropriate setting, such as a classroom. He is quoted, "Individuals who are employees can advocate a point of view, just not with students while they're on the job." Ms. Thompson said there is nothing in her contract that prohibits her from expressing facts or opinions and that it wasn't unusual for her to share tidbits with her riders. She is considering legal action, saying officials have yet to explain to her why her comments were inappropriate.

[Ms. Thompson's comments about stem cell research seem very much to have been religiously motivated, but there was no indication in the source article that she made any mention of religion to her riders. Off the top of my head, I'd say that her firing is a seriously overblown reaction. --MN]

By the People's Republic of China. The ad, featuring LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers, was banned by China's broadcaster regulator, the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television in November. This department said the ad: "violates regulations that mandate that all advertisements in China should uphold national dignity and interest and respect the motherland's culture. It also goes against rules that require ads not to contain content that blasphemes national practices and cultures." The agency stated that the ad had, "received an indignant response from Chinese viewers", but did not elaborate on why the ad was deemed offensive. The issue may have been the use of Chinese iconography. James, who is a fan of the late Bruce Lee, is shown defeating a kung fu master, being confronted by women in traditional Chinese garb, and playing basketball against dragons seemingly made of smoke.

By Robert Novak and associates. See the entry on the censorship by media outlets page.

By the California Supreme Court. Thirteen years after pleading guilty to being an accessory to murder, the Discovery Channel aired a program called "The Prosecutors" in 2001 which retold the story behind the shooting of Stephen Gates's employer. Mr. Gates, who served 13 months of a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact, sued Discovery Communications Inc. and New Dominion Pictures for invasion of privacy and libel, saying he was no longer a public figure. The California Supreme Court ruled on 06 Dec that the criminal case was a public record, as the defence contended, and there was no statute of limitations on such records. Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote in the opinion, "We conclude that an invasion of privacy claim based on allegations of harm caused by a media defendant's publication of facts obtained from public, official records of a criminal proceeding is barred by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution." The decision is based on the 1975 U.S. Supreme Court decision Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn.

By Jim Taricani. U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres sentenced Mr. Taricani to home confinement only because he has had a heart transplant. He could have gotten up to six months in federal prison, which is what the prosecutors asked for. Judge Torres said he would impose strict conditions to make the sentence as similar as possible to serving prison time.

By expatriate Iranian women and men. In March 2000 Zia Atabay, a sixtysomething former rock star known as the "Tom Jones of Iran," launched National Iranian Television, a commercial station in Los Angeles aimed at his compatriots in the United States and Europe. What happened next was:

Six months later, an NITV host, Ali Reza Meybodi, received a call from a man in the Iranian city of Isfahan during his live show. The man said he was receiving NITV's signal. Meybodi didn't believe him, so he jotted down the man's number and dialed him back. Sure enough, the man answered. Still doubtful, Meybodi grabbed a piece of fruit from a wooden tureen sitting on the nearby coffee table. "What am I holding?" he asked. By this time Atabay and others had filtered into the makeshift studio.

"An apple," replied the caller.

Before long, everyone in the studio was weeping, and calls began pouring in from all over Iran. It turns out NITV reached Iran as the result of a technical snafu; someone at Eutelsat, the French satellite company, had flipped the wrong switch.

Since then, a new radio station called Voice of Women has been established that will be streamed over the internet to a German company, which will broadcast the recordings into Iran via short-wave. The station, which is slated to broadcast live for an hour each week, will feature news, talk, and a call-in segment during which Iranian women can air their views. See the source article for more background.

[Freedom will find a way -- even if it is by mistake. --MN]

By J.D. Salinger. Andrea Minnon of Lebanon, Maine, had never heard of Salinger's book until she learned it was on her son's freshman reading list. After she and her husband researched the book online, Ms. Minnon concluded that it espouses immoral ideas which are inappropriate for freshmen-aged students. She then asked that it be removed not only from the freshman curriculum at Noble High School in North Berwick, but throughout School Administrative District 60. School policy already states that students can sit out class discussions about a book they consider objectionable. Ms. Minnon, who took to reading the book, said mature themes such as drinking and prostitution, and profane language, are inappropriate for a 14-year-old. Noble High principal Christian Elkington said he is standing by the teacher's decision to put the book on the class reading list.

By Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen, founder of the FAIR media watchdog. Writes Mr. Solomon: "The P.U.-litzer Prizes were established a dozen years ago to provide special recognition for truly smelly media performances." The 2004 "winners", in brief, are:

• MANDATE MANIA: Too many winners to name
  [For mindless repetition of the Bush Mandate claims. --MN]
• MEDIA BIGOT OF THE YEAR: MSNBC and radio host Don Imus
• NO APOLOGY FOR BEING GULLIBLE AWARD: CBS anchor Dan Rather
• TIMIDITY RULES PRIZE: The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius
• "ONLY RIGHT-WING POLITICS THIS ELECTION YEAR" AWARD: Disney's Michael Eisner
• MEDIA MOGULS FOR BUSH PRIZE: Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone
• MOUTHPIECE FOR POWER AWARD: The Washington
• WINNING HEARTS AND LUNGS AWARD: Thomas Friedman, The New York Times
• ORWELLIAN FORCES AWARD: Nic Robertson and others
• OUTFOXING FOX PRIZE: Jack Cafferty, CNN

See the source article for more background.

By the ACLU on behalf of Aliakbar and Shahla Afshari. According to a news release from the ACLU in West Virginia, this couple, who are Shiite Muslims, immigrated from Iran 18 years ago to study at West Virginia University; they stayed in the community to build careers and raise three children; both are legal permanent residents. They were fired May 5 because they failed to pass a secret background investigation that was conducted on employees from countries considered a threat to the United States, including Iran. According to the lawsuit, filed the week previous to this one, the Afsharis were told only that they were fired for national security reasons that are classified. They were escorted to the door and told not to return.

The Afsharis passed background checks when they were hired in 1996 and in 1997, and were not aware of the secret reviews until they were told that they had failed them. When Allan Karlin, their lawyer, requested the documents used to justify their firing, he was told none existed.

[To top it all off, the Afsharis shouldn't even have had to undergo security clearance checks. I tend to chalk this up to the creeping fascism of the Bush regime. Both were fired from government departments. See the source article for more background. --MN]

Now under assualt in the same location for 213 years. See this commentary by Paul K. McMasters, the First Amendment Center ombudsman, which was published at First Amendment Center on 12 Dec.

By the Bush administration. The government, via the Treasury Department, which enforces embargoes, announced on this day that American publishers are free to engage in publishing activities with people in Cuba, Iran and Sudan without fear of violating U.S. economic penalties against those countries. The rule lists permissible activities related to the publishing and marketing of manuscripts, books, journals and newspapers in either paper or electronic form. Such activities include:

• collaborating on the creation of publications;
• adding photographs, artwork, translations and explanatory material to a publication;
• making substantive edits;
• creating marketing campaigns; and
• making advance payments and paying royalties.

U.S. publishers, however, are still restricted in their dealings with the governments of those countries, government officials, or people acting on behalf of those governments. In addition, publishers wanting to operate a publishing house, sales, or other office in the three countries would need get permission from the U.S. government.
(see 28 Feb 2004; 04 Apr 2004; 01 Nov 2004; 15 Dec 2004)

By subscribers. In October this year, Saul Levine asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to modify its satellite radio rules to include an indecency provision similar to the one that governs broadcast stations using public airwaves. Mr. Levine owns three radio stations in California. He had complained that the commission needed to create a "level playing field" in protecting the public interest. The FCC rejected the request to begin imposing indecency standards on satellite radio on this day. Satellite transmissions are protected from indecency standards due to being a subscription service rather than a public resource. As such, subscribers are requesting the material and content being transmitted.

Media bureau chief Kenneth Ferree, declined LevineGÇÖs request, writing in part, "he commission has previously ruled that subscription-based services do not call into play the issue of indecency." Levine, subsequently said that the dismissal amounted to a double standard by the FCC, and is quoted from a telephone interview: "The commission is saying it's fine to have obscenity any time of the day or night on satellite radio even though satellite radio is being made available to people without subscriptions," [such as in rental cars that come with free service.]

[Cynic that I am, I have to wonder whether this request was motivated by profits or reactionism. The idea that it was to "protect the public interest" is laughable, since there are U.S. Supreme Court rulings that protect the public interest by forbidding indecency on public airwaves. It might have been motivated by profit because Levine doesn't want to or can't get into the satellite broadcasting field. --MN]

By raving fools on both sides of the fence. See the source article for more background.

By the Bush adminstration. See the entry on the Bush censorship page.

By Rory O'Connor. This insightful commentary on the use of the media as a propaganda tool by the government was posted to Alternet.org. Mr. O'Connor begins it with:

Whether it involves embellished stories of heroism meant to drum up patriotic sentiment (Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman) -- or sophisticated "psychological operations" to spread false information -- the militarization of the media continues to undermine the credibility of both the military and the media.

As noted in a recent USA Today editorial: "Both forms of misinformation have their short-term appeal. Embellished stories of heroism generate favorable press when much of the news is bleak, and first impressions are the ones that stick. Psy-ops campaigns can give soldiers a tactical advantage or produce valuable intelligence."

But both do more harm than good -- a lesson that should have been learned from the war in Vietnam, with its phony body counts and inflated assessments of how the war was being won.

He goes on to report how the biased, U.S. established press in occupied Iraq is so rife with tensions that the staff of the newspaper walked out and the general director of the television network resigned after just six months.

By Nevada State Supreme Court. Jimmy Lerner, who was convicted in Washoe County of manslaughter for the 1998 death of Mark Slavin, wrote a book about his imprisonment and the killing of Mr. Slavin. Donna Seres, the victim's sister, sued under Nevada's "Son of Sam" law on behalf of her mother, seeking recovery of the money Lerner earned for writing the book. In Seres v. Lerner, the justices of the court unanimously found that the law is overly restrictive and upheld a previous decision by Washoe District Judge Brent Adams. The decision reads in part, "Although the measure addresses compelling state interests in compensating victims and prevention of criminal profiteering, it suffers from overinclusiveness because it regulates more speech than is necessary to serve the state's interest." This ruling was based largely on the 1991 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Simon & Schuster v. New York Crime Victims Board.

By Abdul Wahid Hawash, Abdul Jabbar Saad, and Nabil Subaye and his editor.

Mr. Hawash was convicted of publishing a series of articles written by Mr. Saad, "containing insults against a brotherly country and promoting terrorism". In a series of articles published last May, Mr. Saad had criticized Saudi Arabia's crackdown on militants as part of its war on terror. The Yemeni Information Ministry sent the two men to trial on 19 May after ruling the articles:

• violated the Press Law,
• harmed Yemen's relations with Saudi Arabia, and
• promoted terrorism, extremism and the perpetrators of the same.

A suspended six-month prison sentence was given to the editor in chief of the weekly Al-Tajamou for reporting about an alleged assassination attempt on Crown Prince Abdullah in March 2004. Nabil Subaye, a journalist with the paper, received a four-month suspended jail sentence under similar charges.

By William Fisher. In which Mr. Fisher examines the wholesale abuse of due process by the Bush administration in prosecuting the "War on Terror" domestically. The piece contains a link to a new report entitled Worlds Apart by the American Civil Liberties Union [in .PDF, Adobe Acrobat required]. The report documents the effect of the civil liberties violations on thirteen victims of anti-terrorism hysteria. The violations mean that many of the disappeared immigranst were subjected to:

• arbitrary arrest and seizure
• cruel and unusual punishment
  • many were kept in cells for 23 hours a day,
  • were made to wear hand and leg shackles when leaving their cells, and
  • were denied telephone calls and visits with family members;
  • some were kept in solitary confinement for extended periods with no explanation,
  • lights were left on 24 hours a day,
  • immigrants were denied the use of blankets.
• denial of the right to counsel,
• presumptions of guilt, and
• the government refused to release the names of people it had detained.

[I interpret the phrase "Uncivil Liberties" to describe the kind of liberties the Bush regime is taking with the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. A very nice play on words. --MN]

By Salman Rushdie. Mr. Rushdie expressed his horror at the British government's failure to criticise Sikh protesters who attacked the Birmingham Repertory Theatre during the week of 19-25 Dec. The attack, which caused thousands of dollars in damage, was against the play Behzti, a black comedy, which depicts a rape and murder in a Sikh temple. Its run ended last week after Sikh community leaders declined to give assurances that there would no repeat of the violence. The play was written by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, who is now in hiding after receiving death threats. Mr. Rushdie is quoted by The Sunday Telegraph, "It's been horrifying to see the response. It is pretty terrible to hear government ministers expressing approval of the ban and failing to condemn the violence when they should be supporting freedom of expression."

[Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart refused to condemn the mob violence against the play, because the reactionaries say that it demeans Sikhism. She said both the theatre and the protesters had a right to free speech which should be respected. I wonder if someone burned down her house and threatened her life, would she simply consider that freedom of speech or start screaming about that person being a terrorist? --MN]

By the People's Republic of China. On this day Reporters Without Borders condemned the arrest of 11 members of the Falun Gong. They had been arrested during December for using the internet to disseminate photos of the torture some of them say they underwent in prison. The organization commented, "In a country where the press is under the authorities' control, Falun Gong members have no choice but to use the Internet to denounce the atrocities of which they are victims. Like political dissidents, they are targeted by a regime that cannot stand criticism and closely controls information circulating online." Chinese authorities, through the People's Daily, described the offending photos as "pure invention", and reiterated the state's position that the Falun Gong is a sect that needs to be "eradicated" because it fosters "lying and conspiracy in order to disturb the construction of a well off society."

By Liese Pruitt. A high school sophomore in 2003, she took a creative writing class which eventually encouraged the students to send their work to various magazines, contests, and organizations in the hope of being published. Ms. Pruitt sent a poem about George W. Bush to a nationwide contest, that being the only piece she had that fit the length guidelines. Over the summer of 2004, she was advised that the poem was a semifinalist in the contest and that the organizations running the contest would like to publish it, along with several hundred others, in an annual book of youth poetry. She gave them permission to print the poem and ordered three copies of the book. When her copies arrived, she found her poem had been unilaterally altered. She wrote of the incident in the Opinion & Letters section of the Wayland Town Crier:

About a week and a half ago I received my three copies of the book. I was quite excited the day they arrived. It is an attractive paperback with a photograph of a young boy on a bridge as the cover. I flipped through it and found my poem. My first impression was that the format was all wrong. They had combined lines and added punctuation, but I understood that they had space limitations. In the fourth I line I discovered that they had removed my exclamation of "Good God," had replaced it with "I say," and had enclosed the rest of the line in quotation marks. I was slightly disappointed, but understood that to many taking the Lord's name in vain is a serious offense. The change had been made in such a way that the meter of the poem was preserved, and it did not change the message I was trying to get across. I was somewhat surprised that any significant changes had been made without asking my permission or approval. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning.

The ninth line of my poem is two rhetorical questions. The original line read, "Who needs gay rights? Or Roe and Wade?" The version in this publication had been changed to "Who needs rights, or Roe and Wade?" This change is upsetting and offensive on many levels. From a purely poetical standpoint this change ruined the meter I had established and the whole line becomes awkward. The change diluted the point I had been trying to make. Because our current administration seems to embrace fundamentalist Christian values, I feel that gay rights are specifically threatened. I was not necessarily referring to gay marriage, although I support it, but the legal rights all same-sex partners should have, such as visitation at hospitals, health benefits and next-of-kin status when it comes to medical decisions. This is an issue that is important to me; as having this poem published was supposed to be about me expressing myself, I was offended and appalled that this word had been stricken from it wit hout my input.

[...] Five pages after my poem I encountered a poem written about New York City. Towards the end it includes a list of aspects of our culture that the city introduces to children. This list implies that all of these things are negative and includes drugs, sex, violence and homosexuality. The implications of this poem were offensive to my liberal beliefs, and deeply upset me because of the apparent intolerance of one of my peers. However, that person had every right to write that way and I don't have a problem with the fact that they were published. What I have a problem with is the fact that his poem was published with that line including the word homosexuality, but "gay" was removed from my poem.

By Algeria. After thirteen journalists appeared before the Sidi M'Hamed court in Algiers in the space of 24 hours on charges for which they face six months to a year in prison. Throughout the year, Dozens of journalists have received judicial summonses as a result of defamation complaints by the authorities. RSF commented, "We roundly condemn the application of prison sentences in defamation cases and we call on the Algerian authorities to amend the criminal code and abolish imprisonment for press offences." The body noted that article 144 of the code provides for sentences of two to 12 months in prison and fines for referring to the president in an insulting or defamatory way, and that the fines requested by prosecutors were disproportionate and likely to result in the forced closure of newspapers because of financial hardships.

• The editor of the daily Le Soir d'Algérie, Fouad Boughanem, and three of his journalists, Mohammed Bouhamidi, Hakim LaGlam and Kamel Amarni, were given one-year suspended sentences by the court on 28 Dec for "insulting the president" and "libel", and the newspaper was fined 2,500,000 dinars (26,000 euros). The prosecution stems from several articles about presidential abuse of authority and political corruption, and which were published before the Apr 2004 presidential elections.

• Le Matin managing editor Mohamed Benchicou, cartoonist Ali Dilem, and journalists Sid Ali Semiane and Ghada Hamrouche also appeared before the court on libel charges brought by the national defence ministry because an article by Hamrouche quoted comments by Dilem and Semiane after an early prosecution by the ministry was postponed. Dilem and Semiane were sentenced to six months in prison while Hamrouche and Benchicou received six-month suspended sentences. Benchicou has meanwhile already been serving a two-year prison sentence since 14 Jun 2004.

• In another libel case, the General Directorate for National Security (DGSN) brought a prosecution against the daily papers El Khabar and El Watan; they had published a letter from police officers criticising the "doings" of both the DGSN director-general and secretary-general. The suit asks for damages of 300 million dinars (more than 3 million euros). The prosecutor is also seeking six-month prison sentences for El Watan managing editor Omar Belhouchet, reporter Salima Tlemtani, who wrote the article, and El Khabar editor Ali Jerri.

• Redouane Boudjemaa of the daily El Youm received an 18-month suspended sentence for libel over a series of articles criticising the management of public funds, the choice of programmes on the state TV broadcaster ENTV, and ENTV's recruitment methods.

• The Arabic-language daily Essabah was closed on 1 Dec. The reason stated was financial problems, but all indications are that it was closed because it published an article about President Bouteflika's alleged attempts to find out about "illegal" money deposited in Switzerland by Algerians.

[What's the big deal about suspended prison sentences, you might be asking? They can be used as a threat to extort cooperation in the future. If the papers continue to blow the whistle on the government and officials, the already convicted parties can be picked up and jailed to serve their sentences while they are being prosecuted for the new "crimes". --MN]

Appendix A: The Salman Rushdie Death Threat timeline

Appendix G1: Censorship by President GeeDubya and company

Appendix G2: George Bush religious initiatives and cover-ups

Appendix G3: Actions to shield George Bush from free speech

Appendix G4: 21st Century COINTELPRO operations

For information about the history of the flag       amendment and the veterans who oppose it       see the ACLU site: