CBLDF’s legal efforts in 2017 protected our community, overturned unconstitu-tional laws, and preserved the right to free expression. Some highlights: California’s “Autograph Law” The Fund helped facilitate the replacement of California’s flawed autograph law, protecting the rights of comics retailers,…
Category: Legal
CBLDF Joins Call to Restore BUCK to Classrooms in Maryland
CBLDF has joined the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Kids’ Right to Read Project in calling for the restoration of BUCK: A Memoir by M.K. Asante to Baltimore County School District classrooms. CBLDF is a sponsor of KRRP. CBLDF joins coalition efforts like these…
Indian Political Cartoonist Faces New Charges
Five years ago, Aseem Trivedi dodged a bullet when sedition charges against the Indian political cartoonist were dropped. But that bullet has come back around: new charges have been brought against the outspoken artist. In 2012, Trivedi was arrested for…
Lawyers Ask UN to Help Cartoonist Detained in Equatorial Guinea
It has now been almost three months since graphic novelist and political cartoonist Ramón Esono Ebalé was arrested without charge in his native country of Equatorial Guinea. Now a U.K.-based law firm specializing in human rights issues has teamed up…
Protecting Our Rights: 2017 CBLDF Annual Report
Free expression withstood a wide range of attacks in 2017. Thanks to donors like you, CBLDF was at the forefront, protecting our community from an increasing tempo of challenges to comics and other expressive material. From deploying our lawyers to…
VICTORY! CA “Autograph Law” Replaced, Protecting Comics Retailers & Artists
CBLDF cheers the passage of California Assembly Bill 228, a new law that amends the state’s flawed “autograph law” passed in 2016. The new law incorporates feedback from CBLDF and other advocacy groups in a way that offers protection for…
Lawsuit Overturns Utah Schools Ban on ‘Advocacy of Homosexuality’
Advocacy groups in Utah settled a discrimination lawsuit against the state last week, after both the legislature and the statewide board of education repealed rules that banned “advocacy of homosexuality” in public schools. In practice the rules had basically quashed…
ACLU & EFF Challenge Warrantless Border Searches of Electronic Devices
In response to a skyrocketing rate of warrantless searches of travelers’ smartphones and other electronic devices at U.S. border crossings, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation this week filed a lawsuit challenging the practice as unconstitutional.…
Florida Governor Signs School Censorship Bill into Law
Florida governor Rick Scott yesterday approved legislation that will facilitate challenges to classroom materials, allowing any county resident to lodge a challenge against textbooks or supplemental materials that they claim fail to present “a noninflammatory, objective, and balanced viewpoint on…
New TSA Rules May Require Books to be Scanned Separately
Air travel in the U.S. may be about to get a bit worse for the literate, as the Transportation Security Administration is reportedly testing a new requirement for passengers to remove books and other paper items from their carry-on luggage…