The nomination of John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court in 2005 caused considerable protest among politicians and law experts, many of whom voiced concerns over Roberts’ typically conservative stance in his decisions.
The First Amendment Center recently analyzed Roberts’ decisions regarding First Amendment cases, starting with the idea the “Conservatives are often portrayed as hostile or indifferent to First Amendment issues.” They found that Roberts “has not been a disaster — far from it.”
Following a successful legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, local booksellers, and others, including the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Governor Deval Patrick yesterday signed into law an amendment to controversial 2010 legislation that imposed severe restrictions on Internet content, including discussion of topics such as literature, art, and sexual and reproductive health.
The amendment, which goes into effect immediately, is a direct response to the granting of a preliminary injunction by U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel last fall that found the law likely violated the First Amendment. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley filed the bill in order to address the constitutional flaws in the existing law. CBLDF joined the Harvard Book Store, Porter Square Books, the Photographic Resource Center, a licensed marriage and family therapist, trade associations, and the ACLU of Massachusetts in filing suit last July to block the law because it made providers of constitutionally protected speech on the Internet criminally liable if such material might be deemed “harmful to minors.”
“Comic book creators and retailers are pleased to see this amendment go into effect, because it protects their constitutionally protected works as they are circulated and sold online,” said Charles Brownstein, Executive Director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund today published the advisory document “Legal Hazards of Crossing International Borders with Comic Book Art.” The advisory was created in response to an increasing number of reports from travelers who have been stopped, searched, and/or detained by customs agents because of comic book art they carried in print and electronic forms. CBLDF legal counsel Robert Corn-Revere prepared the advisory for the Fund’s constituents and members.
“Most people do not know that their constitutional rights are not guaranteed, even from U.S. Customs agents, when they cross international borders,” Corn-Revere said. “Their books, papers, laptop computers, and even cell phones are subject to routine search and possible seizure by the government, even without any suspicion of criminal activity. This is important to know in an age when many people carry with them a great deal of highly personal information in electronic form.”
The CBLDF’s advisory shines light on Immigrations and Customs Enforcement policies pertaining to the search of information, and also explains how border searches lack traditional legal protections otherwise afforded to speech. Finally, the document offers suggestions for avoiding intrusive border searches and protecting the safety of your information.
The CBLDF Advisory is available here as a Word document, and here as a PDF file.
The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear Golan v. Holder, a case that could redefine the relationship between copyright and the First Amendment. CBLDF takes a look at the First Amendment Center analysis of the case, and inquires about how it can affect comics.
Full story
Last weekend, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was presented the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award, an honor presented by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to acknowledge individuals or groups who have furthered the cause of intellectual freedom, particularly as it impacts libraries and information centers and the dissemination of ideas. The award was presented last Saturday at a presentation during the American Library Association midwinter conference, and accepted by CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein. His acceptance remarks highlight the rise of comics from being hobbled by junk science in the 1950s to their near universal embrace by contemporary culture, and are presented in full after the jump.
CBLDF Board Member Neil Gaiman & Executive Director Charles Brownstein with the Downs Intellectual Freedom Award. Photo by Cat Mihos.
Check out what the CBLDF’s been up to in our 2010 Year In Review mini-comic, brought to you by great CBLDF supporting artists! Enjoy this mini-comic and then please renew your membership or make a donation for great premiums in our Rewards Zone!
For their dedication to the preservation of First Amendment rights for members of the comics community, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) has been selected to receive the 2010 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award given by the faculty of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In a Washington Post op/ed piece that draws heavily upon ground covered by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s amicus brief in EMA v. Schwarzenegger, pundit George Will discusses the moral panic facing the video game industry today and its roots in the censorship in comics. Check out his perspective here.
The Hooded Utilitarian’s Sean Michael Robinson delivers a well constructed analysis of the case of Steve Kutzner, an Idaho man who plead guilty to possession of “obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse” last month.
The most widely reported element of Kutzner’s conviction is that he plead guilty to possessing pornographic art depicting characters from the Simpsons, but Robinson digs into the plea agreement and talks to the prosecuting attorney to find that the case wasn’t so clear-cut. Kutzner was flagged by German authorities who believed he was participating in file-sharing of actual child pornography, and when United States authorities investigated they found there was evidence enough to argue that he had, although that evidence was triable.
Robinson’s reporting paints a vivid picture of the legal issues at stake. He speculates on the probable defensive posture that would have been taken if this case had gone to trial, emphasizing that the government would have had the burden of proving the material Kutzner plead guilty to possessing was obscene.
More intriguingly, he illustrates how the threat of mandatory minimum sentences is being used by prosecutors to scare up plea agreements from people like Kutzner and Handley.
The conclusion Robinson arrives at is that, in this case, probably Kutzner was guilty of something. But the law in question is being applied on a case by case basis in a way that makes more people vulnerable to prosecution for possession of drawings. As more prosecutors begin taking up these sorts of cases, the line between art and obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse is in the eye of the prosecuting beholder.
It’s a good article about a bad law.
Robert Corn-Revere, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s general counsel, provides a detailed summary and analysis of the oral arguments in Schwarzenegger v. EMA, which was argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week. One of the country’s leading First Amendment experts, Corn-Revere successfully litigated U.S. v. Stevens and recently wrote the CBLDF’s amicus brief in the Schwarzenegger case. Full story follows the jump.