A New Type of Protest

On Tuesday evening June 16, I saw a news report about the Iran election and the Iranian government’s attempt to impose a media blackout. They do not want the mass protests regarding the results of the election out there. I think I saw it on CBS but wasn’t sure, so found this story today on Variety.com. Not my regular news source but I feel it covered the gist of the story I had seen. Given recent forum discussions on intellectual freedom that included discussing international differences in intellectual freedom as well as discussions about social networking and its pros and cons, I felt that this article would be appropriate to share in this week’s blog.
This is definitely an exciting pro stance for the value of Twitter and other social networking sites.

To summarize, on Tuesday the Iranian Culture Ministry banned all foreign journalists from covering opposition rallies in Tehran. There are reports that eight opposition supporters have already been killed. Foreign journalists in Iran had not been able to leave their offices or film in Tehran for much of Tuesday.

However, this is where Twitter and the other social networking sites come in. Eyewitness accounts of the street confrontations and protests have been transmitted via Twitter and other social networking sites. So the news is still getting out by the citizens! The U.S. State Dept. had even urged Twitter execs to delay a planned upgrade for fear it would cut Iranian citizens off from using the service. So despite widespread mobile phone and Internet outages in Tehran making it difficult for the journalists to cover the situation, the truth is still getting out. The attempts to stop the flow of information have had the reverse effect. A new kind of protest is at work!

Here is the link: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005038.html?categoryid=19&cs=1

Campaign for Reader Privacy

In the April 13, 2009 issue of Publishers Weekly is a news brief about the Campaign for Reader Privacy. They sent a memo to Congress in April in an effort to have the USA Patriot Act revised, believing it will likely be extended by the end of the year. The group is not opposing the extension of Section 215, which eliminated safeguards protecting the confidentiality of the records of bookstore customers and library patrons. Instead it seeks to exempt bookstore and library records from its provisions.

The group was formed in 2004 to restore reader privacy safeguards that were eliminated by the USA Patriot Act in 2001. Members of the Campaign for Reader Privacy include the ALA and the Association of American Publishers, among others. Some progress was made when the Patriot Act was re-authorized in 2006, including gaining the right to consult an attorney about a Patriot Act order and the right to challenge an order in court. However, the government can still search the records of anyone who it believes might be "relevant" to a terrorism investigation, even if that person is NOT suspected of criminal conduct! Thus the recent memo to Congress.

To learn more about the Campaign for Reader Privacy, or even to join, go to http://www.readerprivacy.org.

National Coalition Against Censorship

In the May 2009 issue of Focus on Indiana Libraries is a story reported by Doug Archer, ILF & ALA Intellectual Freedom Chair. Archer is reporting on two intellectual freedom items that have not yet shown up in the national media. (I blogged about the other of these items in a prior blog.) This item involves rating systems, such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) system for motion pictures. The Utah legislature recently passed a "Truth in Advertising" bill and sent it to their governor. If the governor signs it, citizens will be allowed to sue retailers and others who say they use private rating systems but get caught selling or providing access to someone who does not meet a system’s age requirement.

Archer sees this as having the intent to keep constitutionally protected speech out of the hands of minors. It gives private, advisory rating systems the force of law. Courts have generally agreed to the objection of attempts to turn these codes into legal standards, but there is always the danger of something like this passing. And, there could be unintended consequences. What if we as a librarian staffer check out material to someone that doesn’t fit the patron’s age according to some "recommended age" advisory system? Sue the library? Also noted is that businesses could stop using the codes in order to avoid liability, resulting in less guidance than before for parents and minors as they try to select appropriate materials. More details about this case are available at the National Coalition Against Censorship web site at http://www.ncac.org/Action-Alert-Call-on-Governor-Huntsman-to-Veto-HB-353.

Addendum: Apparently Governor Huntsman did veto HB 353 after the publication of this article. Another victory for intellectual freedom. But look how far it got. What if the governor wouldn’t have vetoed it. Thank you to the National Coalition Against Censorship!

Kindle 2

In the April 13, 2009 issue of Publishers Weekly I saw a picture that caught my eye. Protestors with signs saying, "Equal access. It’s the law." And "Don’t disable the Kindle" and "Why don’t authors want to be heard?" Next to the picture is a news brief about the Kindle. A group of approximately 200 people protested in front of the Authors Guild headquarters in New York City. These protestors were people with print disabilities – physical impairments that restrict their ability to read print – and they were protesting against the Authors Guild attempt to disable the Kindle 2’s text-to-speech function.

While I have been thinking of intellectual freedom in terms of books and the Internet, this is something I had not considered. Most of the press about the Kindle that I’ve seen has been more about the copyright issues with the authors and publishers. I am very fortunate not to have a print disability, and this disagreement with the Authors Guild is very understandable. At the library where I am employed we have books on CD that patrons with print disabilities can use. We have not started using e-books yet, though I think that is coming soon. And if various authors do not want to have their books in other formats, I could see that they have the right to do that on an author-by-author or format-by-format basis. But for this Guild to request that a company disable its text-to-print function on its entire stock of Kindles which is part of the product's very reason for existing? I agree with the protestors that that is denying equal access. It is too broad a denial. A new avenue of intellectual freedom issues is here to address.

Federal Bureau of Prisons

In the May 2009 Focus on Indiana Libraries is an article entitled, "Not Yet Hot Off the Press" by Doug Archer, ILF & ALA Intellectual Freedom Chair. He lists two potentially high impact items that have not yet shown up in the national media. I'm just going to address one of them, and that is the recently proposed regulation from the Federal Bureau of Prisons which would scrap the "Standard Prison Chapel Library Project" and replace that with a system that involves the selection of approved religious books by a "quasi-secret" government panel with an item by item rejection system administered by prison officials. The ACLU is opposing these new rules because it violates statutory and constitutional requirements and statutory protections for the free exercise of religion among other things. More pertinent to our class is the ACLU's objection that the proposed rules fail to specify a decisionmaker and raises the specter of censorship by "low-level" officials.

My reaction to this is mixed. I on theoretical grounds have to agree with the ACLU that prisoners do not give up all constitutional protections once incarcerated, and letting local prison officials make decisions on which books can be read and which cannot introduces more bias than I like to think about. I was employed with the Indiana DOC for seven years as a substance abuse counselor. I saw abuse coming from both sides. I saw AA big books carved out so that drugs could be smuggled in them. It was commonly known that religious services at one institution where I worked were a meeting and trading place for drugs. I also saw authorities exercise unnecessary authority and restrictions and abuse just because they could. However, what about those offenders (no longer called inmates or prisoners) who truly just want to educate themselves and are denied religious books based on stereotypes about a particular religion? I agree with Doug Archer that the Federal Bureau of Prisons need to come up with a better plan, specifically about who the decision-makers will be regarding selection of religious materials. I also understand that those incarcerated have rightfully lost some rights and should not get to have free reign over what they select to read.

At last

This is just a test blog. I seemed to have difficulty, not with setting up the blog account, but actually finding how to make a first entry! I had forgotten to validate via my email. I look forward to blogging things of more substance later.