Comic Book Legal Defense Fund joined a coalition of organizations and local booksellers today in filing suit to block a broad Massachusetts censorship law that bans constitutionally protected speech on the Internet for topics including contraception and pregnancy, sexual health, literature, and art.
Signed in April by Governor Patrick and effective yesterday, the law, Chapter 74 of the Acts of 2010, imposes severe restrictions on the distribution of constitutionally protected speech on the Internet. The law could make anyone who operates a website or communicates through a listserv criminally liable for nudity or sexually related material, if the material can be considered “harmful to minors” under the law’s definition. In effect, it bans from the Internet anything that may be “harmful to minors,” including material adults have a First Amendment right to view. Violators can be fined $10,000 or sentenced to up to five years in prison, or both.
engagement at Stockholm’s Uppsala University. Police used pepper spray and batons on protesters as they escorted Vilks from the lecture hall. Vilks, who was giving a lecture about free speech has said that he would like to reschedule the lecture if Uppsala University would allow him.
