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Selected articles list edit
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/1
The Case of the Dean of St Asaph, formally R v Shipley, was the 1784 trial of William Shipley, the Dean of St Asaph, for seditious libel. In the aftermath of the American War of Independence, electoral reform had become a substantial issue, and William Pitt the Younger attempted to bring a Bill before Parliament to reform the electoral system. In its support Shipley republished a pamphlet written by his brother-in-law, Sir William Jones, which noted the defects of the existing system and argued in support of Pitt's reforms. Thomas FitzMaurice, the brother of the Earl of Shelburne, reacted by indicting Shipley for seditious libel, a criminal offence which acted as "the government's chief weapon against criticism", since merely publishing something that an individual judge interpreted as libel was enough for a conviction; a jury was prohibited from deciding whether or not the material was actually libellous. The law was widely seen as unfair, and a Society for Constitutional Information was formed to pay Shipley's legal fees. With financial backing from the society Shipley was able to secure the services of Thomas Erskine KC as his barrister. Shipley was tried in 1784 by Mr Justice Buller and a specially convened jury at Shrewsbury. Edward Bearcroft, counsel for the prosecution, argued that on the basis of the existing system the jury could not decide on the nature of the pamphlet, while Erskine argued not only that they could, but that the material did not constitute seditious libel, containing as it did "a solemn protest against all sedition". Persuaded by Erskine's arguments, the jury ruled that Shipley was not "guilty" or "not guilty", but instead "guilty of publication only", a confusing and non-standard ruling which, after a long dialogue, Mr Justice Buller declared to mean "guilty on all charges". Erskine appealed the decision to the Court of King's Bench on 8 November, where the judges again ruled that juries could not decide whether material was libellous, but nevertheless released Shipley on a technicality; his freedom was greeted with fireworks and bonfires, and Erskine was rewarded with the Freedom of the City of Gloucester. Still seeking to reform the law, Erskine sent the court records to Charles James Fox and Lord Camden, who, after much effort, passed the Libel Act 1792, which secured the right of juries to decide whether or not material was libellous.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/2
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Cream Holdings Ltd v Banerjee and the Liverpool Post and Echo Ltd [2004] UKHL 44 was a 2004 decision by the House of Lords on the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 on freedom of expression. The Act, particularly Section 12, cautioned the courts to only grant remedies that would restrict publication before trial where it is "likely" that the trial will establish that the publication would not be allowed. Banerjee, an accountant with Cream Holdings, obtained documents which she claimed contained evidence of illegal and unsound practices on Cream's part and gave them to the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo, who ran a series of articles on 13 and 14 June 2002 asserting that a director of Cream had been bribing a local council official in Liverpool. Cream applied for an emergency injunction on 18 June in the High Court of Justice, where Lloyd J decided on 5 July that Cream had shown "a real prospect of success" at trial, granting the injunction. This judgment was confirmed by the Court of Appeal on 13 February 2003. Leave was given to appeal to the House of Lords, where a judgment was given on 14 October 2004 by Lord Nicholls, with the other judges assenting. In it, Nicholls said that the test required by the Human Rights Act, "more likely than not", was a higher standard than "a real prospect of success", and that the Act "makes the likelihood of success at the trial an essential element in the court's consideration of whether to make an interim order", asserting that in similar cases courts should be reluctant to grant interim injunctions unless it can be shown that the claimant is "more likely than not" to succeed. At the same time, he admitted that the "real prospect of success" test was not necessarily insufficient, granting the appeal nonetheless because Lloyd J had ignored the public interest element of the disclosure. As the first confidentiality case brought after the Human Rights Act, Cream is the leading case used in British "breach of confidentiality" cases.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/3
Greene v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2004] EWCA Civ 1462 is a case of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales that governs the use of injunctions against publication in alleged defamation cases. Greene, a businesswoman, sought an injunction against Associated Newspapers Ltd to prevent them publishing alleged links with Peter Foster; while they claimed to have emails showing links, she asserted that they were false. The test at the time for a preliminary injunction in defamation cases was Bonnard v Perryman, where it was established that the applicant has to show "a real prospect of success" at trial. The Human Rights Act 1998 established that judges should consider whether applicants are "more likely than not" to succeed at trial, a test applied to confidentiality cases in Cream Holdings Ltd v Banerjee and the Liverpool Post and Echo Ltd. Greene claimed that the Cream test should be applied rather than the Bonnard test. The case first went to the High Court of Justice, where it was heard by Fulford J; he decided that he did not have the authority to overrule Bonnard, and passed the case on to the Court of Appeal after granting a temporary injunction. In the Court of Appeal, the case was heard by May, Dyson and Brooke LJJ, with Brooke delivering the judgment on 5 November 2004. In it, Brooke judged that defamation, the subject of Greene, was significantly different from breach of confidentiality, the subject in Cream. While the damage from a breach of confidentiality can never be undone, justifiying a simple test for issuing injunctions, a defamation case that is won vindicates the injured party. Making it easier to grant injunctions in defamation cases would damage the delicate balance between freedom of the press and the right to privacy; as such, despite the Human Rights Act, Bonnard is still a valid test.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/4
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after twelve editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005. The newspaper announced that this publication was an attempt to contribute to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship. Danish Muslim organizations, who objected to the depictions, responded by holding public protests attempting to raise awareness of Jyllands-Posten's publication. The controversy deepened when further examples of the cartoons were reprinted in newspapers in more than fifty other countries. This led to protests across the Muslim world, some of which escalated into violence with police firing on the crowds (resulting in more than 100 deaths, altogether), including setting fire to the Norwegian and Danish Embassies in Syria, storming European buildings, and desecrating the Danish, Norwegian and German flags in Gaza City. While a number of Muslim leaders called for protesters to remain peaceful, other Muslim leaders across the globe, including Mahmoud al-Zahar of Hamas, issued death threats. Various groups, primarily in the Western world, responded by endorsing the Danish policies, including "Buy Danish" campaigns and other displays of support for free speech in Denmark. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen described the controversy as Denmark's worst international crisis since World War II.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/5
The United States Bill of Rights consists of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These amendments limit the powers of the federal government, protecting the rights of the people by preventing Congress from abridging freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religious worship, the freedom to petition, and the right to keep and bear arms, preventing unreasonable search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishment, and self-incrimination, and guaranteeing due process of law and a speedy, public trial with an impartial jury. In addition, the Bill of Rights states that "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," and reserves all powers not granted to the federal government to the citizenry or States. The Bill of Rights plays a central role in American law and government, and remains a fundamental symbol of the freedoms and culture of the nation.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/6
The Four Freedoms or Four Essential Human Freedoms is a series of oil paintings produced in 1943 by Norman Rockwell. The paintings are approximately equal in dimension with measurements of 45.75 inches (116.2 cm) × 35.5 inches (90 cm). The series, now in the Norman Rockwell Museum, was made for reproduction in The Saturday Evening Post over the course of four consecutive weeks in 1943 alongside essays by prominent thinkers of the day. Later they were the highlight of a touring exhibition sponsored by the Saturday Evening Post and the United States Department of the Treasury. The touring exhibition and accompanying sales drives raised over US$132 million in the sale of war bonds. The Four Freedoms theme was derived from the 1941 State of the Union Address by United States President Franklin Roosevelt delivered to the 77th United States Congress on January 6, 1941. During the speech he identified four essential human rights that should be universally protected and should serve as a reminder of our motivation for fighting. The theme was incorporated into the Atlantic Charter, and it became part of the charter of the United Nations. Roosevelt's message was as follows: "In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms."
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/7
Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez, 531 U.S. 535 (2001), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning the constitutionality of funding restrictions imposed by the United States Congress. Justice Anthony Kennedy (pictured) wrote the majority opinion in the case. At issue were restrictions on the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), a private, non-profit corporation established by Congress. The restrictions prohibited LSC attorneys from representing clients attempting to amend or challenge existing welfare law. The Court ruled that these restrictions violated the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Because LSC facilitated "private" speech—that of its clients—the restrictions did not merely regulate government speech. Further, the nature of how LSC funds are distributed created a public forum, where the government's ability to regulate speech is highly limited. Because the restrictions excluded attempts to affect only a certain type of law, they could not be considered viewpoint-neutral, and the government is prohibited from making such viewpoint-based restrictions of private speech. Reactions to the decision were mixed within political circles, with Republicans and Democrats disagreeing on the propriety of the decision. In academia, there were more critical responses to the Court's holding. Several journals published articles that argued that the use of a 'distortion principle' to decide violations of free speech was unreasonable while others wrote that the Court mishandled the interpretation of the law at issue.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/8
Free Speech, "The People’s Darling Privilege": Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History is a non-fiction book about the history of freedom of speech in the United States written by Michael Kent Curtis and published in 2000 by Duke University Press. The book discusses the evolution of free speech in the U.S. within the context of the actions of individuals and how they affected change. The author writes that protests and actions by citizens helped to evolve the notions surrounding free speech in the U.S. before definitive statements on the matter from U.S. courts. Curtis writes that free speech rights were first developed in "the forum of public opinion", and that, "The history of free speech shows the need for broadly protective free speech rules applied generally and equally". For his work on Free Speech, "The People’s Darling Privilege", Curtis received the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award and the Mayflower Cup Award. Critics gave the book a positive reception. A review in Columbia Journalism Review called it a "rich and original study", and The Journal of American History said that it includes "fine analytic discussions". Perspectives on Political Science called the book "an extremely valuable contribution to the literature addressing the history of free speech in America." Timothy C. Shiell of the University of Wisconsin–Stout reviewed it for The Historian and wrote, "Michael Kent Curtis offers a major contribution to the scholarship of both that era and of free speech."
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/9
The AACS encryption key controversy, also known as the AACS cryptographic key controversy, arose in April 2007 when the Motion Picture Association of America and the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC (AACS LA) began issuing demand letters to websites publishing a 128-bit number, represented in hexadecimal as 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 (commonly referred to as 09 F9), which is one of the cryptographic keys for HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. The letters demanded the immediate removal of the key and any links to it, citing the anti-circumvention provisions of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In response to widespread internet postings of the key, the AACS LA issued various press statements, praising those websites that complied with their requests as acting in a "responsible manner", warning that "legal and technical tools" were adapting to the situation. The controversy was further escalated in early May 2007, when aggregate news site Digg received a DMCA cease and desist notice and then removed numerous articles on the matter and banned users reposting the information. This sparked what some describe as a digital revolt, or "cyber-riot", in which users posted and spread the key throughout the internet en masse. The AACS LA described this situation as an "interesting new twist".
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/10
The history of the Internet dates back to the early development of communication networks. In the 1950s and early 1960s, prior to the widespread inter-networking that led to the Internet, most communication networks were limited by their nature to only allow communications between the stations on the network. Some networks had gateways or bridges between them, but these bridges were often limited or built specifically for a single use. One prevalent computer networking method was based on the central mainframe method, simply allowing its terminals to be connected via long leased lines. This method was used in the 1950s by Project RAND to support researchers such as Herbert A. Simon, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when collaborating across the continent with researchers in Santa Monica, California, on automated theorem proving and artificial intelligence.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/11
The Accurate News and Information Act was a statute passed by the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Canada, in 1937, at the instigation of William Aberhart's Social Credit government. Aberhart and the Social Credit League had been in a stormy relationship with the press since before the 1935 election, in which they were elected to government. Virtually all of Alberta's newspapers—especially the Calgary Herald—were critical of Social Credit, as were a number of publications from elsewhere in Canada. Even the American media had greeted Aberhart's election with derision. The act would have required newspapers to print "clarifications" of stories that a committee of Social Credit legislators deemed inaccurate. It would also have required them to reveal their sources on demand. Though the act won easy passage through the Social Credit-dominated legislature, Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta John C. Bowen reserved royal assent until the Supreme Court of Canada evaluated the act's legality. In 1938's Reference re Alberta Statutes, the court found that it was unconstitutional, and it was never signed into law.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/12
The Report of 1800 was a resolution drafted by James Madison (pictured), arguing for the sovereignty of the individual states under the United States Constitution and against the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Virginia General Assembly adopted the Report in January 1800. The document primarily subtly amends arguments from the 1798 Virginia Resolutions, and the main reason for producing the Report was to answer criticisms that had been leveled at the Resolutions. The arguments made in the Resolutions and the Report were later used frequently during the nullification crisis of 1832, when South Carolina declared federal tariffs to be unconstitutional and void within the state. Madison, however, rejected the concept of nullification and the notion that his arguments supported such a practice. Whether Madison's theory of republicanism really supported the nullification movement, and more broadly whether the ideas he expressed between 1798 and 1800 are consistent with his work before and after this period, are the main questions surrounding the Report in the modern literature.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/13
To Kill a Mockingbird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was instantly successful upon its release and has become a classic of modern American fiction. The novel is loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old. The novel is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality. The narrator's father, Atticus Finch, has served as a moral hero for many readers, and a model of integrity for lawyers. One critic explained the novel's impact by writing, "[i]n the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism." As a Southern Gothic novel and a bildungsroman, the primary themes of To Kill a Mockingbird involve racial injustice and the destruction of innocence, but scholars have also noted that Lee addresses the issues of class tensions, courage and compassion, and gender roles in the American Deep South. The book is widely taught in schools in English-speaking countries with lessons that emphasize tolerance and decry prejudice. Despite its themes, To Kill a Mockingbird has been the target of various campaigns to have it removed from public classrooms.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/14
The bibliography of George Orwell includes journalism, essays, books, and fiction written by the British writer Eric Arthur Blair, pen name George Orwell (1903–50). Orwell was a prolific writer on topics related to contemporary English society and literary criticism, whom British newsweekly The Economist in 2008 declared "perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture." His non-fiction cultural and political criticism constitutes the majority of his work, but Orwell also wrote in several genres of fictional literature. Orwell is best remembered for his political commentary as a left-wing anti-totalitarian—as he explained in the 1946 essay "Why I Write", "every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." To that end, Orwell used his fiction writing as well as his journalism to defend his political convictions. He first achieved widespread acclaim with his fictional novella Animal Farm and cemented his place in history as a novelist with the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four shortly before his death. While fiction accounts for a small fraction of his total output, these two novels are his best-selling works, having sold almost fifty million copies in sixty-two languages by 2007—more than any other pair of books by a twentieth-century author.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/15
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, named after Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, was established in December 1988 by the European Parliament as a means to honour individuals or organisations who have dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedom of thought. A shortlist of nominees is drawn up by the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Development Committee, with the winner announced in October. As of 2010, the prize is accompanied by a monetary award of €50,000. The first prize was awarded jointly to South African Nelson Mandela and Russian Anatoly Marchenko. The most recent award, in 2011, was given to five representatives of the Arab Spring—Asmaa Mahfouz, Ahmed al-Senussi, Razan Zaitouneh, Ali Farzat, and Mohamed Bouazizi—for their contributions to "historic changes in the Arab world". The prize has also been awarded to different organisations throughout its history, the first being the Argentine Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (1992). The Sakharov Prize is usually awarded annually on or around 10 December, the day on which the United Nations General Assembly ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, also celebrated as Human Rights Day.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/16
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Article 14 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, specifically Article 14(1), guarantees to Singapore citizens the rights to freedom of speech and expression, peaceful assembly without arms, and association. However, the enjoyment of these rights may be restricted by laws imposed by the Parliament of Singapore on the grounds stated in Article 14(2) of the Constitution. There are two types of grounds. For the first type, it must be shown that restricting the rights is "necessary or expedient in the interest" of the grounds. The grounds are the security of Singapore and public order (applicable to all three rights protected by Article 14(1)), morality (freedom of speech and freedom of association), and friendly relations with other countries (freedom of speech only). In a 2005 judgment, the High Court expressed the view that the phrase necessary or expedient confers upon Parliament "an extremely wide discretionary power and remit that permits a multifarious and multifaceted approach towards achieving any of the purposes specified in Art 14(2) of the Constitution". It is unnecessary for the courts to determine whether a legislative restriction of a right is reasonable. All that is required is a nexus between the objective underlying the restrictive law and one of the grounds specified in Article 14(2) that Parliament is entitled to restrict the right on.
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Beyond the First Amendment: The Politics of Free Speech and Pluralism is a book about freedom of speech and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, written by author Samuel Peter Nelson. It was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2005. In the book, Nelson discusses how the more general notion of free speech differs from that specifically applied to the First Amendment in American law. He proposes an argument for a "pluralist framework" of free speech, in order to incorporate multiple factors which drive communication. The book was positively received in reviews from academic and legal journals. Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries recommended the book due to its thought-provoking propositions, and a review in The Journal of Politics described it as, "a nice effort to explore free speech issues not covered by the First Amendment or constitutional law." A review in the journal Political Communication concluded of the author's argumentation, "His is indeed a theory fraught with possibilities both favorable and unfavorable to an expanded scope for the contents of free speech." Law and Politics Book Review concluded, "Beyond the First Amendment is an intriguing and important contribution to the literature on free speech."
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/18
Cyber Rights: Defending Free speech in the Digital Age is a non-fiction book about cyberlaw, written by free speech lawyer Mike Godwin. It was first published in 1998 by Times Books. It was republished in 2003 as a revised edition by The MIT Press. Godwin graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1990 and was the first staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Written with a first-person perspective, Cyber Rights gives the reader a background in legal issues and history pertaining to free speech on the Internet. It documents the author's experiences in defending free speech online, and puts forth the thesis that "the remedy for the abuse of free speech is more speech". Godwin emphasizes that decisions made about the expression of ideas on the Internet have an impact on freedom of speech in other mediums of communication as well, as granted by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The book was received favorably by Library Journal, where it was "Recommended for anyone concerned about expression on the Internet and democratic society." Booklist recommended Cyber Rights, for both circulating and professional collections", and School Library Journal recommended it for young readers. Law Library Journal recommended Cyber Rights for "large academic law libraries". The Philadelphia Inquirer highlighted Cyber Rights among "1998's Best Reading".
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/19
Freedom of Expression® is a book about freedom of speech issues with respect to concepts of intellectual property, written by Kembrew McLeod. The paperback edition includes a foreword by Lawrence Lessig. The book was first published in 2005 by Doubleday as Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity, and in 2007 by University of Minnesota Press as Freedom of Expression®: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property. The author recounts a history of the usage of counter-cultural artistry, illegal art, and the use of copyrighted works in art as a form of fair use and creative expression. The book encourages the reader to continue such usages, in art and other forms of creative expression. The book received a positive reception, and Kembrew McLeod was recognized by the Intellectual Freedom Round Table of the American Library Association with the Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award, which honors the "best published work in the area of intellectual freedom." A review in The American Scholar noted, "Kembrew McLeod ... delivers a lively, personal account of the ways intellectual property messes with people--and how he messes with intellectual property." American Book Review characterized the work as "a clever compendium of examples" for those familiar with its subject matter. The Journal of Popular Culture characterized the book as "an informative, thought-provoking, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny examination of specific ways the privatization of ideas suppresses creativity in contemporary culture." Publishers Weekly noted that McLeod's views echo prior comments about intellectual property by academics including Lawrence Lessig.
Portal:Freedom of speech/Selected article/20
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization. Its website is the most popular American online newspaper website, receiving more than 30 million unique visitors per month. Although the print version of the paper remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States, as well the third largest newspaper overall, behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, its weekday circulation has fallen since 1990 (not unlike other newspapers) to fewer than one million copies daily, for the first time since the 1980s. Nicknamed "the Old Gray Lady", and long regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record", The New York Times is owned by The New York Times Company, which also publishes 18 other newspapers including the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe. The company's chairman is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896. The paper's motto, printed in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, is "All the News That's Fit to Print." It is organized into sections: News, Opinions, Business, Arts, Science, Sports, Style, Home, and Features. The New York Times stayed with the eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six columns, and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography. Access to the newspaper's online content is through a metered paywall which was put into place in 2011. Frequent users (over 20 articles per month) have to purchase digital subscriptions, unless they are subscribers to the print edition. Access remains free for light users. There are also apps to access content for various mobile devices, such as Android devices and Apple's iOS platform.
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Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment is a non-fiction book by Anthony Lewis about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of thought and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The book begins by quoting the relevant portion of the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press...", and traces the evolution of civil liberties in the United States through key historical events. Lewis provides an overview of important free speech case law including Supreme Court of the United States opinions in Schenck v. United States (1919), Whitney v. California (1927), United States v. Schwimmer (1929), New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), and New York Times Co. v. United States (1971). The title of the book is drawn from the dissenting opinion by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in United States v. Schwimmer, "If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate." Lewis warns the reader against the potential for government to utilize periods of fear and upheaval in society in order to suppress criticism and freedom of speech by members of the citizenry.
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Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties is a nonfiction book by law professor Christopher M. Fairman (pictured) about freedom of speech, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, censorship, and use of the word "fuck" in society. The book was first published in 2009 by Sphinx as a follow-up on the author's article "Fuck". It cites studies from academics in social science, psychoanalysis, and linguistics. Fairman establishes that most current usages of the word have connotations distinct from its meaning of sexual intercourse. The book discusses the efforts of conservatives in the United States to censor the word from common parlance. Fairman wrote his original article in 2006 and made it available on the Social Science Research Network. He had trouble finding a publisher for the article; it was rejected by the Kansas Law Review less than half an hour after submission. His article was published in 2007 in the Cardozo Law Review. Both the paper and subsequent book received favorable reception from news sources and library trade publications. Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries described the book as a sincere analysis of the word and its history of censorship. After the book's release, Fairman was consulted by media sources including CNN and The New York Times, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, on issues surrounding word taboo in society.
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The birth control movement in the United States was a social reform campaign from 1914 to the 1940s that increased the availability of contraception through education and legalization. The movement was started by Emma Goldman, Mary Dennett, and Margaret Sanger, who were concerned about the hardships that childbirth and self-induced abortions brought to low-income women. In 1916, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the US, but it was immediately shut down by police. A major turning point for the movement came during World War I, when many US servicemen were diagnosed with venereal diseases, leading to an anti-venereal disease campaign that treated contraception as a matter of public health. Sanger successfully opened a second birth control clinic in 1923. Legal victories in the 1930s continued to weaken anti-contraception laws and in 1937 the American Medical Association adopted contraception as a core component of medical school curriculums. In 1942, the Planned Parenthood organization was formed, creating a nationwide network of birth control clinics.
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The Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders were a series of trials held from 1949 to 1958 in which leaders of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) were accused of violating the Smith Act, a 1940 statute that set penalties for advocating the violent overthrow of the government. The prosecution argued that the CPUSA's policies promoted violent revolution; the defendants countered that they advocated a peaceful transition to socialism, and that the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and association protected their membership in a political party. The first trial in 1949 prosecuted the top leaders of the party and was featured in the national headlines. After a ten-month trial, all defendants were found guilty and sentenced to five-year prison terms. The judge also sent all five defense attorneys to jail for contempt of court. Prosecutors then tried over 100 additional CPUSA officers for violating the Smith Act. Some were tried solely because they were members of the CPUSA. Many defendants had difficulty finding attorneys to represent them. Prosecutions came to an end following the US Supreme Court's 1957 Yates v. United States decision, which held that defendants could be prosecuted only for their actions, not for their beliefs. Membership in the CPUSA plummeted due to the trials, and never recovered.
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United States v. The Progressive was a 1979 lawsuit against The Progressive magazine by the United States Department of Energy (DOE). A temporary injunction was granted against The Progressive to prevent the publication of an article by activist Howard Morland that purported to reveal the "secret" of the hydrogen bomb. The case was brought before Judge Robert W. Warren in the Eastern District of Wisconsin (Federal courthouse pictured). Though the information had been compiled from publicly available sources, the DOE claimed that it fell under the "born secret" clause of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Because of the sensitive nature of the information, two separate hearings were conducted, one in public, and the other in camera. The defendants would not accept security clearances, and so were not present at the in camera hearings. The article was eventually published after the government lawyers dropped their case during the appeals process, calling it moot after other information was independently published. Despite its indecisive conclusion, law students still study the case, which tested the limits of the presumption of unconstitutionality attached to prior restraints.
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The CPJ International Press Freedom Awards honor journalists or their publications around the world who show courage in defending press freedom despite facing attacks, threats, or imprisonment. Established in 1991, the awards are administered by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, non-governmental organization based in New York City. In addition to recognizing individuals, the organization seeks to focus local and international media coverage on countries where violations of press freedom are particularly serious. Every November four to seven individuals or publications are honored at a banquet in New York City and given an award. The ceremony also honors the winner of the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award for "lifelong work to advance press freedom". Past hosts have included crime correspondent and former hostage Terry A. Anderson, Amanpour host Christiane Amanpour, and NBC Nightly News anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw In 1998, the ceremony was briefly disrupted by protesters who unfurled a banner calling for the release of former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal from Pennsylvania's death row. The first awards were given in 1991 to American photojournalist Bill Foley and his wife, journalist Cary Vaughan; Cameroonian reporter Pius Njawé; Chinese dissidents Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming; Russian television news anchor Tatyana Mitkova; and Guatemalan reporter Byron Barrera. In 2012, the organization awarded its twenty-second group of journalists. On three occasions, an award was also given to a news organization of which multiple staffers have been at risk: Tajikistan newspaper Navidi Vakhsh (1994), several reporters of which murdered during the 1992–97 civil war; Guatemalan newspaper Siglo Veintiuno (1995), which was subject to police and army raids for its uncensored coverage of government corruption and human rights violations; and Turkish newspaper Özgür Gündem (1996), which was subject to a campaign of publication bans, assassinations, and arrests for its reporting on the conflict between the Turkish Armed Forces and the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
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From October 1988 to September 1994 the voices of representatives from Sinn Féin and several Irish republican and Loyalist paramilitary groups were banned by the British government from being broadcast on television and radio in the United Kingdom. The restrictions, announced by the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, on 19 October 1988, covered eleven organisations based in Northern Ireland and followed a heightened period of violence in the history of the Troubles, as well as the government's belief in a need to prevent Sinn Féin from using the media for political advantage. Broadcasters quickly found ways around the ban, chiefly by using actors to repeat the words of anyone who was prevented from speaking directly. The legislation did not apply during election campaigns, and under certain other circumstances. The restrictions caused difficulties for British journalists who objected to censorship in various other countries, such as Iraq and India. Ireland had its own similar legislation that banned anyone with links to paramilitary groups from the airwaves, but repealed this in January 1994. This added pressure on the British government to do likewise. The broadcast ban was finally lifted on 16 September 1994, a fortnight after the first Provisional Irish Republican Army ceasefire.
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Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (formerly titled as Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association) is a United States Supreme Court case that struck down a California law enacted in 2005 that was intended to ban the sale of certain violent video games to children without parental supervision. In a 7–2 decision, the Court upheld the lower court decisions and revoked the law, ruling that video games were protected speech under the First Amendment as other forms of media. The Court left open the possibility that a more narrowly tailored law regulating the sale of video games to minors could survive constitutional scrutiny. The ruling was seen as a significant victory for the video game industry and a defeat for parental rights groups. Several of the Court's justices suggested that the issue may need to be re-examined in the future, considering the changing nature of video games and their continuously improving technology. Some video game analysts have seen this as a wake-up call for the industry to mature in light of the Court's opinions.
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In Taiwan, the White Terror (Chinese: 白色恐怖; pinyin: báisè kǒngbù) was the suppression of political dissidents following the February 28 Incident. The term "White Terror" in its broadest meaning refers to the entire period from 1947 to 1987. Around 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned during this period, of whom from about 3,000 to 4,000 were executed for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party) government led by Chiang Kai-shek. Most of those prosecuted were labeled by the Kuomintang as "bandit spies", meaning spies for Chinese communists, and punished as such.
The KMT mostly imprisoned Taiwan's intellectual and social elite out of fear that they might resist KMT rule or sympathize with communism. For example, the Formosan League for Reemancipation was a Taiwanese independence group established in 1947 which the KMT believed to be under communist control, leading to its members being arrested in 1950. The World United Formosans for Independence was persecuted for similar reasons. However, other prosecutions did not have such clear reasoning; in 1968 Bo Yang was imprisoned for his choice of words in translating a Popeye comic strip. A large number of the White Terror's other victims were mainland Chinese, many of whom owed their evacuation to Taiwan to the KMT. Often, after having come unaccompanied to Taiwan, these refugees to Taiwan were considered more disposable than local Taiwanese. Many of the mainland Chinese who survived the White Terror in Taiwan, like Bo Yang and Li Ao, moved on to promote Taiwan's democratization and the reform of the Kuomintang. In 1969, future president Lee Teng-hui was detained and interrogated for more than a week by the Taiwan Garrison Command, which demanded to know about his "communist activities" and told him "killing you at this moment is as easy as crushing an ant to death."
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The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights. Initially, the First Amendment applied only to laws enacted by the Congress, and many of its provisions were interpreted more narrowly than they are today. Beginning with Gitlow v. New York (1925), the Supreme Court applied the First Amendment to states—a process known as incorporation—through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the Court drew on Founding Father Thomas Jefferson's correspondence to call for "a wall of separation between church and State", though the precise boundary of this separation remains in dispute. Speech rights were expanded significantly in a series of 20th and 21st-century court decisions which protected various forms of political speech, anonymous speech, campaign financing, pornography, and school speech; these rulings also defined a series of exceptions to First Amendment protections. The Supreme Court overturned English common law precedent to increase the burden of proof for defamation and libel suits, most notably in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964). Commercial speech, however, is less protected by the First Amendment than political speech, and is therefore subject to greater regulation. The Free Press Clause protects publication of information and opinions, and applies to a wide variety of media. In Near v. Minnesota (1931) and New York Times v. United States (1971), the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protected against prior restraint—pre-publication censorship—in almost all cases.
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Gyles v Wilcox (1740) 26 ER 489 was a decision of the Court of Chancery of England that established the doctrine of fair abridgement, which would later evolve into the concept of fair use. The case was heard and the opinion written by Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, and concerned Fletcher Gyles, a bookseller who had published a copy of Matthew Hale's Pleas of the Crown. Soon after the initial publication, the publishers Wilcox and Nutt hired a writer named Barrow to abridge the book, and repackaged it as Modern Crown Law. Gyles sued for a stay on the book's publishing, claiming his rights under the Statute of Anne had been infringed. The main issues in the case were whether or not abridgements of a work were inherently pirated copies, or whether they could qualify as a separate, new work. Lord Hartwicke ruled that abridgements fell under two categories: "true abridgements" and "coloured shortenings". True abridgements presented a true effort on the part of the editor, and by this effort, constituted a new work which did not infringe upon the copyright of the original. Leaving it to literary and legal experts to decide, Hartwicke ruled that Modern Crown Law was not a true abridgement, but merely a piracy intending to circumvent the law. The case set a legal precedent which has shaped copyright law up until the present day. It established the common law doctrine of fair abridgement, which was cited in other cases, ultimately building up to the idea of fair use. The opinion also recognised the author's right to a work through the nature of the labour it took to produce it, shifting copyright away from publishing rights and towards the idea of serving the greater good by encouraging the production of new, useful works.
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The Haymarket affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre or Haymarket riot) refers to the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded. In the internationally publicized legal proceedings that followed, eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy. The evidence was that one of the defendants may have built the bomb, but none of those on trial had thrown it. Seven were sentenced to death and one to a term of 15 years in prison. The death sentences of two of the defendants were commuted by Illinois governor Richard J. Oglesby to terms of life in prison, and another committed suicide in jail rather than face the gallows. The other four were hanged on November 11, 1887. In 1893, Illinois' new governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the remaining defendants and criticized the trial. The Haymarket affair is generally considered significant as the origin of international May Day observances for workers. The site of the incident was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1992, and a public sculpture was dedicated there in 2004. In addition, the Haymarket Martyrs' Monument at the defendants' burial site in nearby Forest Park was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997.
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The Manifesto of the Sixteen (French: Manifeste des seize), or Proclamation of the Sixteen, was a document drafted in 1916 by eminent anarchists Peter Kropotkin and Jean Grave which advocated an Allied victory over Germany and the Central Powers during the First World War. At the outbreak of the war, Kropotkin and other anarchist supporters of the Allied cause advocated their position in the pages of the Freedom newspaper, provoking sharply critical responses. As the war continued, anarchists across Europe campaigned in anti-war movements and wrote denunciations of the war in pamphlets and statements, including one February 1916 statement signed by prominent anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Rudolf Rocker. At this time, Kropotkin was in frequent correspondence with those who shared his position, and was convinced by one of their number, Jean Grave, to draft a document encouraging anarchist support for the Allies. The resulting manifesto was published in the pages of the pro-war socialist periodical La Bataille on March 14, 1916, and republished in other European anarchist periodicals shortly thereafter. The manifesto declared that supporting the war was an act of resistance against the aggression of the German Empire, and that the war had to be pursued until its defeat. The position of the Manifesto was in stark contrast to that of most anarchists of the day, many of whom denounced its signatories and their sympathizers, and accused them of betraying anarchist principles. In the fallout over the war, Kropotkin became increasingly isolated, with many former friends cutting their ties to him.
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McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism." The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1950 to 1956 and characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. Originally coined to criticize the anti-communist pursuits of Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, "McCarthyism" soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries. During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were accused of being communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. Many people suffered loss of employment and/or destruction of their careers; some even suffered imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned, laws that would be declared unconstitutional, dismissals for reasons later declared illegal or actionable, or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute. The most famous examples of McCarthyism include the speeches, investigations, and hearings of Senator McCarthy himself; the Hollywood blacklist, associated with hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC); and the various anti-communist activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Director J. Edgar Hoover. McCarthyism was a widespread social and cultural phenomenon that affected all levels of society and was the source of a great deal of debate and conflict in the United States. Some conservatives regard the term as inappropriate and deprecate what they say are myths created about McCarthy.
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Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoft was a legal dispute between Microsoft and a Canadian Belmont high school student named Mike Rowe over the domain name "MikeRoweSoft.com". The case received international press attention following Microsoft's perceived heavy-handed approach to a 12th grade student's part-time web design business and the subsequent support that Rowe received from the online community. A settlement was eventually reached, with Rowe granting ownership of the domain to Microsoft in exchange for Microsoft products and training.
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Moral rights in United Kingdom law are parts of copyright law that protect the personal interests of the author of a copyrighted work, as well as the economic interests protected by other elements of copyright. Found in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the moral rights are the right to be identified as the author of a work, known as the right of paternity, the right to object to derogatory treatment of a work, known as the right of integrity, the right not to be identified as the author of someone else's work, and the right to privacy. The right of paternity exists for the entire copyright term, and requires individuals who commercially broadcast, sell, perform or exhibit literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works to identify the author of the work – this but does not apply to things such as typefaces, encyclopaedias or works subject to crown copyright. The right of integrity protects authors from having their copyrighted works altered in such a fashion as to constitute a "distortion" or "mutilation" of the original work, or in a way that harms the author's reputation or honour. Cases vary as to how the right of integrity should be interpreted, with some judges saying that "distortion" or "mutilation" should be taken to be part of the wider clause on reputation and honour to avoid subjective decisions, and others interpreting each clause as distinct types of violation. The right to object to false attribution protects individuals from being identified as the authors of works they have not contributed to; unlike the other moral rights it exists only for the individual's lifetime and the 20 years after death, not for the full term of copyright. The United Kingdom's law on moral rights has been criticised for failing to correctly implement the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, and for being unreasonably narrow in the types of creative works it covers.
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Motte v Faulkner (decided 28 November 1735) was a copyright lawsuit between Benjamin Motte and George Faulkner over who had the legal rights to publish the works of Jonathan Swift in London. This trial was one of the first to test the Statute of Anne copyright law in regards to Irish publishing independence. Although neither held the copyright to all of Swift's works, the suit became a legal struggle over Irish rights, which were eventually denied by the English courts. Faulkner, in 1735, published the Works of Jonathan Swift in Dublin. However, a few of the works were under Motte's copyright within the Kingdom of Great Britain, and when Faulkner sought to sell his book in London, Motte issued a formal complaint to Jonathan Swift and then proceeded to sue Faulkner. An injunction was issued in Motte's favor, and the book was prohibited from being sold on British soil. The basis of the law protected the rights of the author, and not the publisher, of the works, and Swift was unwilling to support a lawsuit against Faulkner. With Swift's reaction used as a basis, the lawsuit was later seen as a struggle between the rights of Irishmen to print material that were denied under English law.
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The Obscene Publications Act 1959 (c. 66) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament that significantly reformed the law related to obscenity. Prior to the passage of the Act, the law on publishing obscene materials was governed by the common law case of R v Hicklin, which had no exceptions for artistic merit or the public good. During the 1950s, the Society of Authors formed a committee to recommend reform of the existing law, submitting a draft bill to the Home Office in February 1955. After several failed attempts to push a bill through Parliament, a committee finally succeeded in creating a viable bill, which was introduced to Parliament by Roy Jenkins and given the Royal Assent on 29 July 1959, coming into force on 29 August 1959 as the Obscene Publications Act 1959. With the committee consisting of both censors and reformers, the actual reform of the law was limited, with several extensions to police powers included in the final version. The Act created a new offence for publishing obscene material, repealing the common law offence of obscene libel which was previously used, and also allows Justices of the Peace to issue warrants allowing the police to seize such materials. At the same time it creates two defences; firstly, the defence of innocent dissemination, and secondly the defence of public good. The Act has been used in several high-profile cases, such as the trials of Penguin Books for publishing Lady Chatterley's Lover and Oz for the Schoolkids OZ issue.
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Odex's actions against file sharing were legal actions against Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and their subscribers in Singapore by Odex, a Singapore-based company that virtually distributes sub-licensed Japanese anime. From early 2007 to January 2008 Odex took action against anyone who had downloaded anime through BitTorrent for alleged copyright infringement. Odex tracked their IP addresses without their consent and sought subpoenas to compel the ISPs to disclose the personal details of these subscribers. After rulings from the Subordinate Courts, Odex took personal data from affected ISPs and sent letters demanding payment in place of litigation. More than a third of the individuals contacted by Odex opted to settle out of court for at least S$3,000 (US$2,000) to S$5,000 (US$4,000) each. The Singaporean anime community considered Odex's actions to be controversial, sudden, and heavy-handed—especially when it was discovered that the youngest person threatened was nine years old. In response, Odex dropped its pay-or-be-sued letter approach in favor of cease-and-desist emails to downloaders. Odex halted active enforcement after its third subpoena was rejected by the courts and lost a lawsuit when trying to obtain customer data from another ISP. In January 2008, Odex appealed the decision, and the High Court of Singapore ruled that one ISP was required to release data, but only directly to Japanese anime studios. Subsequently, these studios started their own legal actions against Singaporean downloaders. Some observers predicted that the High Court's decision would set a precedent for online privacy in Singapore by making it more difficult for copyright licensees to take legal action against downloading. The case raised issues of individual privacy, intellectual property, and free use of the Internet. Odex's actions attracted widespread criticism in Singapore and international attention and press coverage, which coincided with similar actions against consumer file sharing of music in the United States.
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The Petition of Right is a major English constitutional document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing. Passed on 7 June 1628, the Petition contains restrictions on non-Parliamentary taxation, forced billeting of soldiers, imprisonment without cause, and restricts the use of martial law. Following disputes between Parliament and King Charles I over the execution of the Thirty Years' War, Parliament refused to grant subsidies to support the war effort, leading to Charles gathering "forced loans" without Parliamentary approval and arbitrarily imprisoning those who refused to pay. Moreover, the war footing of the nation led to the forced billeting of soldiers within the homes of private citizens, and the declaration of martial law over large swathes of the country. In response, the House of Commons prepared a set of four Resolutions, decrying these actions and restating the validity of Magna Carta and the legal requirement of habeas corpus. These were rejected by Charles, who also announced that Parliament would be dissolved; in response, the Commons met on 6 May to discuss alternatives, and concluded that a petition of right was the way forward. Accordingly, a committee under Sir Edward Coke drafted such a petition, and it was passed by the Commons on 8 May and sent to the House of Lords. After three weeks of debates and conferences between the two chambers, the Petition of Right was ratified by both houses on the 26th and 27 May. Following additional debates in which the King restricted the right of the Commons to freely speak, he bowed to the pressure; in need of Parliamentary support for the war effort, the Petition was accepted on 2 June. Unhappy with the method chosen, both houses joined together and demanded the King fully ratify the Petition, which he did on 7 June. Despite debates over its legal status, the Petition of Right was highly influential. Domestically, the Petition is seen as "one of England's most famous constitutional documents", of equal value to the Magna Carta and Bill of Rights 1689. In a period in which Charles's main protection from the Commons was the House of Lords, the willingness of both chambers to work together marked a new stage in the constitutional crisis that would eventually lead to the English Civil War. The Petition remains in force in the United Kingdom and, thanks to Imperial legislation, many parts of the Commonwealth of Nations including Australia and New Zealand. Internationally, it helped influence the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, and is seen as a predecessor to the Third, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
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"PTV" is the 14th episode of season four of the FOX animated series Family Guy. The episode sees the FCC censor the shows on television after a controversial wardrobe malfunction at the Emmy Awards. Peter starts to create his own TV network which he calls PTV, broadcasting classic shows unedited and uncut, as well as original programming. PTV is a big success and Stewie and Brian join him creating shows for the network. Lois calls the FCC to close PTV as she is concerned over the issue of how children will be influenced by Peter's programming. Not only do the FCC close down the network, but they also start censoring the citizens of Quahog, so the Griffin family travel to Washington, D.C. and convince the Congress to have the FCC's rules reversed. The episode was written by Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild and was directed by Dan Povenmire. The episode is a response to the FCC's measures to the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy. Show creator Seth MacFarlane commented that the episode's plot was inspired by the rage of the Family Guy crew towards the strict rules that the FCC made after the controversy. The episode contains a sequence of various scenes from different previous episodes. Many of the scenes were cut from the episodes they were originally made for owing to Fox's internal censors. With a Nielsen rating of 4.4, "PTV" was the nineteenth most-watched episode of the week in which it was broadcast. The episode gained mostly positive responses from critics, and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) as well as an Annie Award nomination for directing.
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The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (c.23) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that protects whistleblowers from detrimental treatment by their employer. Influenced by various financial scandals and accidents, along with the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the bill was introduced to Parliament by Richard Shepherd and given government support, on the condition that it become an amendment to the Employment Rights Act 1996. After receiving the Royal Assent on 2 July 1998, the Act came into force on 2 July 1999. It protects employees who make disclosures of certain types of information, including evidence of illegal activity or damage to the environment, from retribution from their employers, such as dismissal or being passed over for promotion. In cases where such retribution takes place the employee may bring a case before an employment tribunal, which can award compensation. As a result of the Act, many more employers have instituted internal whistleblowing procedures, although only 38 percent of individuals surveyed worked for a company with such procedures in place. The Act has been criticised for failing to force employers to institute such a policy, containing no provisions preventing the "blacklisting" of employees who make such disclosures, and failing to protect the employee from libel proceedings should his allegation turn out to be false.
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Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist punk rock protest group based in Moscow. Founded in August 2011, it has a variable membership of approximately 11 women ranging in age from about 20 to 33, who wear brightly colored balaclavas and use only nicknames during interviews. They stage unauthorized provocative guerrilla performances in unusual public locations, which are edited into music videos and posted on the Internet. Their lyrical themes include feminism, LGBT rights, opposition to the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom they regard as a dictator, and links between the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin. On February 21, 2012, five members of the group staged a performance on the soleas of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Their actions were stopped by church security officials. By evening, they had turned it into a music video entitled "Punk Prayer - Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!". The women said their protest was directed at the Orthodox Church leader's support for Putin during his election campaign. On March 3, 2012, two of the group members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, were arrested and charged with hooliganism. A third member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was arrested on March 16. Denied bail, they were held in custody until their trial began in late July. On August 17, 2012, the three members were convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”, and each was sentenced to two years imprisonment. Two other members of the group, who escaped arrest after February's protest, reportedly left Russia fearing prosecution. On October 10, following an appeal, Samutsevich was freed on probation, her sentence suspended. The sentences of the other two women were upheld. In late October 2012, Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were separated and sent to prison. The trial and sentence attracted considerable criticism, particularly in the West. The case was adopted by human rights groups including Amnesty International, which designated the women prisoners of conscience, and by a wide range of musicians including Madonna, Courtney Love, Sting, and Yoko Ono. Public opinion in Russia was generally less sympathetic towards the women. Putin stated that the band had "undermined the moral foundations" of the nation and "got what they asked for". Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he did not think the three members of Pussy Riot should have been sent to jail, but stressed that the release of the remaining two imprisoned members was a matter for the courts.
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R v Baillie, also known as the Greenwich Hospital Case, was a 1778 prosecution of Thomas Baillie for criminal libel. The case initiated the legal career of Thomas Erskine. Baillie, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Greenwich Hospital for Seamen, a facility for injured or pensioned off seamen, had noted irregularities and corruption in the hospital, which was formally run by the Earl of Sandwich. After his official reporting of the problems failed to bring about reform in the hospital, Baillie published a pamphlet that was critical of the hospital's officers, alleging that Sandwich had given appointments to pay off political debts; Sandwich ignored the pamphlet but ensured that Baillie was indicted for criminal libel. Baillie hired five barristers, including Erskine, then newly called to the Bar, and appeared before Lord Mansfield in the Court of King's Bench on 23 November 1778. After four of the barristers had spoken, Mansfield announced that the court session would resume the next morning rather than continue into the night, which gave Erskine the time he needed to present a full speech rather than a brief comment. In it he accused Sandwich of cowardice and of orchestrating the attack on Baillie, arguing that Baillie was merely doing his duty by attempting to bring the problems with the hospital into the public eye, and was therefore not acting in bad faith. If the issues with the hospital were not acknowledged, Erskine claimed, the Royal Navy would be "crippled by abuses", with seamen no longer willing to risk their lives for a fleet that would fail to treat them well in their retirement. Erskine was successful in having Baillie found not guilty, and after leaving the court was met with a standing ovation; Emory Speer writes that "It is probably true that never did a single speech so completely ensure professional success".
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Tax protester constitutional arguments are assertions that the imposition of the federal income tax violates the United States Constitution. These kinds of tax protester arguments are distinguished from related statutory arguments and conspiracy arguments, which presuppose the constitutionality of the income tax. Although the most frequent Constitutional arguments are directed towards the validity and effect of the Sixteenth Amendment, arguments exist that the income tax violates some other provision of the Constitution; or that some other provision, that would prevent the assessment of the income tax, was ratified but wrongfully excluded from the Constitution. Other constitutional amendment arguments have been raised by tax protesters. Some argue that imposition of the income tax violates the First Amendment freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Protesters argue that the income tax violates the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the Takings Clause, or the right that no person shall be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". Tax protesters have argued that income taxes impose involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. Some tax protesters argue that Americans are citizens of the individual states as opposed to citizens of the United States, as the Fourteenth Amendment was not properly ratified. Another argument is a missing amendment to the Constitution, known as the Titles of Nobility Amendment, which precedes the current Thirteenth Amendment. Another argument raised is that because the federal income tax is progressive, the discriminations and inequalities created by the tax should render the tax unconstitutional. These arguments have been rejected by the courts. The authority of the federal government has been challenged by protesters, arguing that they should be immune from federal income taxation because they are sovereign individuals or natural individuals, have not requested a privilege or benefit from the government, or are outside the "federal zone" (D.C. and various federal enclaves such as military bases). Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor any other federal court has ruled that an income tax imposed under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is unconstitutional. Under the Supreme Court ruling in Cheek v. United States, a defendant in a tax evasion prosecution who has made arguments that the federal income tax laws are unconstitutional may have the arguments turned against him (or her). Such arguments, even if based on honestly held beliefs, may constitute evidence that helps the prosecutor prove willfulness, one of the elements of tax evasion.
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Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read "tweets", which are text messages limited to 140 characters. Registered users can read and post tweets but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through the website interface, SMS, or mobile device app. Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco and has offices in New York City, Boston, San Antonio and Detroit. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass and by July 2006, the site was launched. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with 500 million registered users in 2012, who posted 340 million tweets per day. The service also handled 1.6 billion search queries per day. Twitter is now one of the ten most visited websites, and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet."
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United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. ___ (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act, a federal law that criminalized false statements about having a military medal. The law had been passed as an effort to stem instances where people falsely claimed to have won the medal in an attempt to protect the "valor" of those who really had. While a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court agreed that the law was unconstitutional under the First Amendment's free speech protections, it could not agree on a single rationale. Four justices concluded that a statement's falsity is not enough, by itself, to exclude speech from First Amendment protection. Another two justices concluded that while false statements were entitled to some protection, the Stolen Valor Act was invalid because it could have achieved its objectives in less restrictive ways. Reaction from the political community and from veteran organizations were negative. Several months after the decision, both chambers of Congress passed new versions of the Stolen Valor Act based on the suggestions in the Court's opinion. Despite the Supreme Court having struck down the conviction under the Act, Alvarez remained in prison for fraud on other matters.
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Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. was a case heard by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. In their complaint, Universal Studios alleged that Nintendo's video game Donkey Kong was a trademark infringement of King Kong, the plot and characters of which Universal claimed for their own. Nintendo argued that Universal had themselves proved that King Kong's plot and characters were in the public domain in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. RKO General, Inc. Sweet ruled that Universal had acted in bad faith by threatening Nintendo's licensees and that it had no right over the name King Kong or the characters and story. He further held that there was no possibility for consumers to confuse Nintendo's game and characters with the King Kong films and their characters. Universal appealed the case, but the verdict was upheld. The case was an enormous victory for Nintendo, which was still a newcomer to the U.S. market. The case established Nintendo as a major player in the industry and arguably gave the company the confidence that it could compete with the giants of American media. The case was selected as #20 on GameSpy's list of the "25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming".
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The Weiquan movement is a non-centralized group of lawyers, legal experts, and intellectuals in China who seek to protect and defend the civil rights of the citizenry through litigation and legal activism. The movement, which began in the early 2000s, has organized demonstrations, sought reform via the legal system and media, defended victims of human rights abuses, and written appeal letters, despite opposition from Communist Party authorities. Among the issues adopted by Weiquan lawyers are property and housing rights, protection for AIDS victims, environmental damage, religious freedom, freedom of speech and the press, and defending the rights of other lawyers facing disbarment or imprisonment. Individuals involved in the Weiquan movement have met with occasionally harsh reprisals from Chinese officials, including disbarment, detention, harassment, and, in extreme instances, torture. Authorities have also responded to the movement with the launch of an education campaign on the "socialist concept of rule of law," which reasserts the role of the Communist Party and the primacy of political considerations in the legal profession, and with the Three Supremes, which entrenches the supremacy of the Communist Party in the judicial process.
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YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005 and owned by Google since late 2006, on which users can upload, view and share videos. The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, the BBC, Vevo, Hulu, and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can watch videos, while registered users can upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users at least 18 years old. YouTube, LLC was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion in November 2006 and now operates as a Google subsidiary.
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The Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance (WSFA), previously known as the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, is an American non-profit organization founded in 2003 that advocates for sexual freedom as a fundamental human right. The organization is based in Washington, D.C., United States. Named after an influential member of the American woman's suffrage movement, Victoria Woodhull, its focus includes analyzing groups and individuals that seek to perpetuate a culture of sexual repression. Sexual Freedom Day, officially recognized in 2011 in Washington, DC, celebrates the birthday of Victoria Woodhull. Beginning in 2010, Woodhull has held an annual event, the Sexual Freedom Summit. Organization members have included LGBT activist Jeffrey Montgomery, former chairwoman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights Mary Frances Berry, writer Eric Rofes, author Hardy Haberman, lawyer Lawrence G. Walters, and activist Dan Massey. In the furtherance of activities relating to its goals, the organization has allied itself with groups including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, the Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University, National Coalition Against Censorship, the Heartland Institute, National Association of Scholars, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, Accuracy in Academia, and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. An academic paper in the Journal of Homosexuality characterized the organization as one "that addresses both international and national sexual freedom issues as well as a host of other health and human rights issues."
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Golos Truda (Russian: Голос Труда English: The Voice of Labour) was a Russian-language anarcho-syndicalist newspaper. Founded by working-class Russian expatriates in New York in 1911, Golos Truda shifted to Petrograd during the Russian Revolution in 1917, when its editors took advantage of the general amnesty and right of return for political dissidents. There, the paper integrated itself into the nascent anarcho-syndicalist movement, pronounced the necessity of a social revolution of and by the workers, and situated itself in opposition to the myriad of other left-wing movements. The rise to power of the Bolsheviks marked the turning point for the newspaper however, as the new government enacted increasingly repressive measures against the publication of dissident literature and against anarchist agitation in general, and after a few years of low-profile publishing, the Golos Truda collective was finally expunged by the Stalinist regime in 1929.
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Beck v. Eiland-Hall is a case filed before the United Nations agency the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2009 by political commentator Glenn Beck concerning the satirical website "GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com". The site was created by Isaac Eiland-Hall as a parody of Beck's commentary style. Its name was based on a joke initially used by comedian Gilbert Gottfried at a 2008 comedy roast of Bob Saget, in which Gottfried jokingly implored listeners to disregard the (non-existent) rumor that Saget raped and murdered a girl in 1990. Online posters began an Internet meme comparing Gottfried's joke with Beck's style of arguing, by requesting Beck disprove he had committed the act in question. Eiland-Hall launched his website on September 1, 2009. Beck filed a complaint to the WIPO under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), asserting that the domain name of the website was defamatory and claimed trademark infringement in its use of his name. Marc Randazza represented Eiland-Hall and filed a response brief to WIPO comparing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court case Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, asserting that the website's domain name was protected political speech and satirical political humor. Randazza asserted that Beck's action (going to the WIPO to get the website taken down) contradicted his previous statements that he preferred U.S. law over international law. On October 29, 2009 the WIPO ruled against Beck, and concluded Eiland-Hall was making a political statement through parody in a justified usage of the Glenn Beck mark which did not seek profit. Commentators noted that Beck's actions triggered the Streisand effect; his suit against the website drew increased attention to it. Representatives of Public Citizen, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Citizen Media Law Project agreed that Beck's trademark claim in his complaint against the website was ridiculous. The assistant director of the Citizen Media Law Project commented at the conclusion of the case, "It's good to see that this WIPO arbitrator had no interest in allowing Beck to circumvent the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution."
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonpartisan non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, lobbying, and community education. Founded in 1920 by Crystal Eastman, Roger Baldwin, Walter Nelles and Helen Keller, the ACLU has over 500,000 members and has an annual budget over $100 million. Local affiliates of the ACLU are active in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases in which it considers civil liberties to be at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation, or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments (when another law firm is already providing representation). When the ACLU was founded in 1920, its focus was on freedom of speech, primarily for anti-war protesters. During the 1920s, the ACLU expanded its scope to also include protecting the free speech rights of artists and striking workers, and working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to combat racism. By 1964, membership had risen to 80,000, and the ACLU was directly involved in a major expansion of civil liberties. In the 1960s, the ACLU continued its decades-long effort to enforce separation of church and state, and it also defended several anti-war activists during the Vietnam War who burnt draft cards or wore armbands. The ACLU was involved in the Miranda case, which addressed misconduct by police during interrogations; and in the New York Times case which established new protections for newspapers reporting on government activities. In the 1970s and 1980s, the ACLU ventured into new legal areas, defending homosexuals, students, prisoners, and the poor.
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'Part III – Fundamental Rights' is a charter of rights contained in the Constitution of India. It guarantees civil liberties such that all Indians can lead their lives in peace and harmony as citizens of India. These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, such as equality before law, freedom of speech and expression, and peaceful assembly, freedom to practice religion, and the right to constitutional remedies for the protection of civil rights by means of writs such as habeas corpus. Violation of these rights result in punishments as prescribed in the Indian Penal Code or other special laws, subject to discretion of the judiciary. The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms which every Indian citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality. These rights universally apply to all citizens, irrespective of race, place of birth, religion, caste, creed, colour or gender. Aliens (persons who are not citizens) are also considered in matters like equality before law. They are enforceable by the courts, subject to certain restrictions. The Rights have their origins in many sources, including England's Bill of Rights, the United States Bill of Rights and France's Declaration of the Rights of Man.
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In Singapore, Speakers' Corner is an area located within Hong Lim Park where people can demonstrate, hold exhibitions and performances, and speak freely on most topics. It was launched on 1 September 2000 as a "free speech area" where speaking events could be held without the need to apply for a licence under the Public Entertainments Act (Cap. 257, 1985 Rev. Ed.), now the Public Entertainments and Meetings Act (Cap. 257, 2001 Rev. Ed.) ("PEMA"). However, it was necessary for people to register their intention to speak at the venue with a police officer at the Kreta Ayer Neighbourhood Police Post any time within 30 days before the event, though there was no requirement for the police to be informed of the topic of the proposed speech. Other conditions imposed were that speeches had to take place between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., and the use of sound amplification devices was prohibited. In 2002, exhibitions and performances were permitted to be held at Speakers' Corner. Conditions for the use of Speakers' Corner were further liberalized in 2008. Responsibility for registering people wishing to speak or stage an exhibition or performance was taken over by the Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, and online registration was introduced. It became possible to hold demonstrations provided they are organized by Singapore citizens and the participants are only citizens and permanent residents. Events can now be held around the clock, and self-powered amplification devices like loudhailers may be used between 9:00 a.m. and 10:30 p.m.
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Fuck is a 2005 American documentary film by director Steve Anderson, which argues that the word is key to discussions about freedom of speech and censorship. The film provides perspectives from art, linguistics, society and comedy. Linguist Reinhold Albert Aman, journalism analyst David Shaw, language professor Geoffrey Nunberg and Oxford English Dictionary editor Jesse Sheidlower explain the term's history and evolution. The film features the last interview of author Hunter S. Thompson before his suicide. It was first shown at the AFI Film Festival at ArcLight Hollywood; it has subsequently been released on DVD in America and in the UK and used as a resource on several university courses. The New York Times critic A. O. Scott called the film a battle between advocates of morality and supporters of freedom of expression, while other reviews criticized its length and repetitiveness. Law professor Christopher M. Fairman commented on the film's importance in his 2009 book on the same subject. The American Film Institute said, "Ultimately, [it] is a movie about free speech ... Freedom of expression must extend to words that offend."
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonpartisan non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, lobbying, and community education. Founded in 1920 by Roger Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, Helen Keller, and Walter Nelles, the ACLU has over 500,000 members and has an annual budget over $100 million. Local affiliates of the ACLU are active in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases when it considers civil liberties to be at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation, or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments (when another law firm is already providing representation). When the ACLU was founded in 1920, its focus was on freedom of speech, primarily for anti-war protesters. During the 1920s, the ACLU expanded its scope to include protecting the free speech rights of artists and striking workers, and working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to combat racism and discrimination. In 1940, the ACLU leadership was caught up in the Red Scare, and voted to exclude Communists from its leadership positions. The ACLU was involved in the Miranda case, which addressed misconduct by police during interrogations; and in the New York Times case, which established new protections for newspapers reporting on government activities. In the 1970s and 1980s, the ACLU ventured into new legal areas, defending homosexuals, students, prisoners, and the poor. In the twenty-first century, the ACLU has fought the teaching of creationism in public schools and challenged some provisions of anti-terrorism legislation as infringing on privacy and civil liberties. In addition to representing persons and organizations in lawsuits, the ACLU lobbies for policies that have been established by its board of directors. Current positions of the ACLU include: opposing the death penalty; supporting same-sex marriage and the right of gays to adopt; supporting birth control and abortion rights; eliminating discrimination against women, minorities, and homosexuals; supporting the rights of prisoners and opposing torture; supporting the right of religious persons to practice their faiths without government interference; and opposing government preference for religion over non-religion, or for particular faiths over others.
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Aasiya Noreen better known as Asia Bibi is a Pakistani Christian woman who was convicted of blasphemy by a Pakistani court, receiving a sentence of death by hanging. In June 2009, Noreen was involved in an argument with a group of Muslim women with whom she had been harvesting berries after the other women became angry at her for drinking the same water as them. She was subsequently accused of insulting the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, a charge she denies, and was arrested and imprisoned. In November 2010, a Sheikhupura judge sentenced her to death. If executed, Noreen would be the first woman in Pakistan to be lawfully killed for blasphemy. The verdict, which was reached in a district court and would need to be upheld by a superior court, has received worldwide attention. Various petitions, including one that received 400,000 signatures, were organized to protest Noreen's imprisonment, and Pope Benedict XVI publicly called for the charges against her to be dismissed. She received less sympathy from her neighbors and Islamic religious leaders in the country, some of whom adamantly called for her to be executed. Christian minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti and Pakistani government politician Salmaan Taseer were both killed for advocating on her behalf and opposing the blasphemy laws. Noreen's family has gone into hiding due to receiving death threats and has voiced concerns that she could be killed by extremists if released from prison.
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The Whistleblower is a 2010 thriller film directed by Larysa Kondracki, written by Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan and starring Rachel Weisz. The film was inspired by the story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska police officer who was recruited as a peacekeeper for DynCorp International in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1999. While there, she discovered a sex trafficking ring serving (and facilitated by) DynCorp employees. Bolkovac was fired and forced out of the country after attempting to report (and shut down) the ring. She took the story to BBC News in England, and won a wrongful-dismissal lawsuit against DynCorp. Kondracki wanted her debut film to concern human trafficking, and encountered Bolkovac's story in college. She and Kirwan struggled to obtain financial support for the project. Eight years after Kondracki decided to produce the film, she secured funding and production began when Weisz agreed to play the lead role. Filming took place in Romania from October to December 2009. Advertised as a fictionalization of events occurring during the late 1990s, Kondracki said that the facts are broadly accurate but some details were omitted for the film; for example, a three-week "breaking-in" period for trafficking victims was not shown. The Whistleblower premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released theatrically in the United States by Samuel Goldwyn Films in August 2011. The film received mixed reviews. The performances by Weisz and her co-stars were praised but the intense violence depicted in several scenes was debated by critics, with some calling it exploitive. Kondracki and Weisz responded that what happened in Bosnia had been toned down for the film. The Whistleblower received several awards and nominations, including the 2012 Genie Awards.
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"Langit Makin Mendung" ("The Sky is Increasingly Cloudy") is a controversial Indonesian short story. Published in Sastra magazine under the pen name Kipandjikusmin in August 1968, it tells the story of Muhammad descending to Earth with the angel Gabriel to investigate the decreasing number of Muslims entering heaven, only to find that Muslims in Indonesia have begun fornicating, drinking alcohol, waging war on Muslims, and otherwise going against the tenets of Islam because of nasakom, a government policy during Sukarno's administration that combined nationalism, religion, and communism. Unable to do anything to stop the rampant sinning, Muhammad and Gabriel watch the political maneuvering, crime, and famine in Jakarta in the form of eagles. Upon publication, "Langit Makin Mendung" drew heavy criticism for its depictions of Allah, Muhammad, and Gabriel. Sastra was banned in North Sumatra, and the magazine's offices in Jakarta were attacked. Despite published apologies from the writer and publisher, the head editor of Sastra, HB Jassin, was tried for blasphemy; he was later sentenced to a one-year suspended sentence. Critical views of the story vary; the story has been compared to Dante's Divine Comedy for its depiction of a man on a spiritual quest with a spiritual companion, yet criticized for depicting Allah, Muhammad, and Gabriel in a negative light. The legal case itself has been subject to debate, with both sides arguing freedom of expression and the scope of imagination.
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Fucking Machines (also known as Fuckingmachines.com and fuckingmachines) is a pornographic website founded in 2000 that features video and photographs of women engaged in autoerotic sexual stimulation with penetrative sex-machines and sex toys. The site is based in San Francisco, California, and is operated by Kink.com. Web entrepreneur Peter Acworth launched Fucking Machines on September 25, 2000, as his company's second website after Kink.com. Devices shown on the site were created with the intent to bring women authentic orgasms. Performers were instructed to allow themselves to be recorded experiencing pleasure. After the site applied in 2005 to trademark the phrase "fuckingmachines", the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) denied the application and ruled that the mark was obscene. Free speech lawyer Marc Randazza represented the site and appealed the decision. Orlando Weekly called his legal brief, "one of the most entertaining legal documents you're likely to come across." The appeal was denied in April 2008 and the case was terminated. Randazza's argument in the case became known as The Fuck Brief. The website has received analysis from journalists and academics studying sexuality. Writer Regina Lynn highlighted the site's emphasis on communication, and Annalee Newitz of AlterNet classed it as part of Porn 2.0. Violet Blue wrote in The Adventurous Couple's Guide to Sex Toys that it helped popularize the idea of machines aiding in sex acts. The 2008 edition of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History described the aesthetic of the devices as disturbing. Jessica Roy wrote for The New York Observer that Fucking Machines' examples of orgasms were a form of transhumanism. Sarah Schaschek devoted a chapter to the phenomenon in Screening the Dark Side of Love: From Euro-Horror to American Cinema, titled "Fucking Machines: High-Tech Bodies in Pornography". She observed, "Strictly speaking, the women in these videos are both the controllers and the controlled."
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Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth is a non-fiction book by lawyer and civil libertarian Marjorie Heins (pictured) about freedom of speech and the relation of censorship to the oft-cited argument "think of the children". Ordered chronologically, the book gives a history of censorship from time periods including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, the Meese Report, up to the present day. Heins explores whether or not children and adolescent youth are negatively impacted by exposure to media deemed inappropriate by adults, including violence and pornography. The author argues throughout the book that youths are not in danger due to sexually explicit material. Heins asserts that there is no simple tactic by which the government could censor material from children without violating the rights guaranteed to adults by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Not in Front of the Children concludes that censorship performed under the auspices of looking out for the believed negative impact on youths, actually harms these individuals through the censorship itself. Not in Front of the Children received the Eli M. Oboler Award in 2002 from the American Library Association as recognition for "Best Published Work on Intellectual Freedom".
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Free Expression Policy Project (FEPP) is an organization devoted to assisting researchers with assembling information related to freedom of speech, media democracy, and copyright, and advocating for these issues. Civil liberties lawyer Marjorie Heins founded the nonprofit organization in 2000. Based in Manhattan, New York, it was initially associated with the National Coalition Against Censorship, and subsequently operated as part of the Democracy Program of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. The FEPP conducted a survey in 2001 which revealed that online monitoring software including Net Nanny, SurfWatch, and Cybersitter cast too broad a net and often blocked legitimate educational websites in their attempts to censor material from youths. In 2003, the organization assisted 33 academics in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in a challenge to a law which restricted the sale of violent video games to minors. In coordination with the Brennan Center for Justice of New York University Law School, the FEPP released a public policy report in 2006 on the inefficiency of Internet filtering; the report concluded freedom of expression was harmed by such online censorship activity. In 2007, the FEPP became independent of its prior supportive organizations: National Coalition Against Censorship and New York University Law School. The New Walford Guide to Reference Resources praised the FEPP website for its links to resources on freedom of expression and censorship. FEPP has been characterized by the Austin American-Statesman as a think tank devoted to researching the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Denver Post described the organization as a censorship watchdog organization, and a separate article from the same newspaper called it a left-of-center politically aligned group which advocated for both intellectual freedom and artistic freedom.
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