CENSORSHIP ALERT

ALERTS ARCHIVE: A. The Net UK Net Censorship Background SafetyNet becomes Internet Watch Foundation; RSACi dropped The Poison Spreads to Europe B. Real Life Savoy Books - the revenge of James Anderton Baby-pictures, sex education, and "Rosie" - the dirty-minded censors Boots the Chemists - your censor at home Spanner Goes to Europe Does your MP "get it"? Winter Update 1997/98 Pornfire- censorship in Edinburgh

FAC now has a blog! Check in at our new weblog to see what we're up to. Just click here. Come to the May London Alternative Market Sunday, 7 May 2006 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM London's new fetish fair, the London Alternative Market, is held on the first Sunday of every month and gives proceeds to a chosen group each month. In May, FAC will be that group, and we hope you'll join us there. Location: The Grand theatre, opposite Clapham Junction Railway Station. Directions and details on LAM's website. Come, have fun, buy things, contribute! FAC will have a stall and speak to the assembled masses. Be there, meet us, and give what you can. Government move to make downloading "extreme" pornography a crime Backlash: The Home Office has begun a consultation process on plans to strengthen the criminal law in respect of possession of extreme adult images. The government is currently discussing plans that could lead people to being imprisoned for downloading images from the internet. This is a step too far from a government determined to regulate every aspect of our lives and quash individual expression. Backlash is the campaigning organisation bringing together individuals and activist groups to oppose this legislation. Read more about us here. We urge you to voice your opposition to this legislation. Make a submission to the consultation document. You can view the document here as a PDF file, or here as html. Some basic advice on how to write your submission is available here. If you feel the way the consultation process is being carried out is itself unjust, then here is some further advice on how to complain to the Home Office. We also highly recommend that you write to your MP. You can find out who your MP is here. Some examples of letters members of Backlash have written can be found here. You should also contact justice organisations like Amnesty, Justice and Liberty to tell them about your opposition. If you are a member of a trade union or another lobby group, you could also write a letter to them. Posted 26 October 2005 Tony Smythe 1938-2004 A long-time civil libertarian has been lost to us. (Guardian obituary) Censorship is more degrading and corrupting than pornography can ever be. - Tony Smythe (posted 08/04/04) Watching Sex: How Men Really Respond to Pornography In 1990 when the Home Office report on pornography was released, perhaps its most interesting conclusion was that, although everyone seems willing to make confident statements about how men use and interpret pornography, no one had ever done any research at all on the subject. Such research was long overdue, in fact, but as time went by it became clear that no one was interested in funding such an exercise. Independently, David Loftus was apparently getting the impression that what he heard in the media about men's reactions to pornography didn't really reflect his own impression of how men use it. So he set out to examine that topic for himself. Since no publishers were interested in the subject, he had to work on the cheap, but the book is here now. Click the image above to learn more. (14 September 2003) Bush administration policy wonk uses UK laws to suppress American journalist in US Friends of both Bush administrations seem to prefer British law to their own when it suits them. According to The New York Sun, PERLE SUING OVER NEW YORKER ARTICLE: WASHINGTON — Richard Perle, the influential foreign policy hawk, is suing journalist Seymour Hersh over an article he wrote implying that Mr. Perle is using his position as a Pentagon adviser to benefit financially from a war to liberate Iraq. "I intend to launch legal action in the United Kingdom. I’m talking to Queen’s Counsel right now," Mr. Perle, who chairs the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, a non-paying position, told The New York Sun last night. He said he is suing in Britain because it is easier to win such cases there, where the burden on plaintiffs is much less. Hersh's article, written by an experienced and respected reporter in a magazine that still believes in fact-checking, looks pretty careful to me, and certainly wouldn't be taken seriously as libel in an American court. But wealthy Americans no longer have to worry about irresponsible lawsuits, apparently, if they can show that an article can be seen in Britain. And, of course, it can, since it's online. The editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, is backing Hersh, saying the article, "went through serious reporting, with four members of the board talking to Sy [Hersh], and rigorous factchecking, legal-checking and all the rest." He said he took issue with Mr. Perle’s description of Mr. Hersh on CNN Sunday as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist." "I would have thought after all this many years, Mr. Perle would be a bit more refined than that," Mr. Remnick said. The frightening thing is that someone close to the White House thinks he can protect his reputation by going on the record as an enemy of free speech. But then, perhaps that's not so surprising when it's this White House. American journalists are becoming increasingly aware that many residents of the US are relying heavily on the British news media via the Internet for international and even national news that is not being covered in America's sycophantic news media. The BBC and The Guardian online are now the news sources of choice for a growing number of US citizens who have become disgusted with the paucity of real news they are receiving from newspapers, broadcast, and cable media at home that seem to be unwilling to question Bush administration policies. Attacking journalists through the British courts is apparently the Republicans' answer. [13 March 2003] The Great Debate: Should we censor the Internet? 26 November, Gateshead Civic Centre 6:00 pm. Tickets £4/£3 With commentator Bill Thompson, Avedon Carol of FAC, Chris Evans of Internet Freedom, and Ruth Dixon of Internet Watch Foundation. More details here. Update on BBFC and Female Ejaculation videos When FAC wrote to the BBFC late last year in response to their denial of female ejaculation, the BBFC responded that we had been misinformed. But we have since received a letter from a documentary maker who says they wouldn't even look at his video and assured him that even discussion of female ejaculation would be cut. See our submission, the BBFC's letter to us, and the letter from John Setchell here. [25 June 2002] US right-wing war on truth: Attempts to suppress book on minors & sexuality The University of Minnesota Press is about to release a book by Judith Levin about the moral panic over minors, much to the outrage of American moral rightists. In a fine article in The Boston Phoenix, The kids are alright, Michael Bronski writes: Now, just as the predatory-priest scandal is capping years of heightened anxiety about our children's well-being, here comes Judith Levine's Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (University of Minnesota Press). Not surprisingly, with a title like that, the book is already in the middle of a political firestorm - and it hasn't even been released yet. The culture-war battle sparked by the publication of Levine's book has serious ramifications for both civil liberties and freedom of expression. That's because the choked agitation triggered by Levine's book is both a reaction to our excessive cultural obsession with kids and sexuality and a symptom of how unable we are, as a culture, even to begin discussing such issues. [...] Harmful to Minors, which is being released by the University of Minnesota Press on May 1, is a carefully researched examination of the myriad ways American culture attempts to control, monitor, suppress, and even eradicate children's access to information about sexuality, sexual health, and reproduction - all in the name of protection - and how it pathologizes and criminalizes children's and teens' sexual expression. The book addresses such varied topics as federally funded abstinence-only programs (which ban even mentioning contraception or condoms) in public schools; the myth that predators and child rapists are lurking all over the Internet; the appalling lack of access teens - especially young women - have to sexual-health and reproductive information; and how it is nearly verboten to discuss masturbation in sexual-education classes. Levine argues strongly, thoughtfully, and persuasively that children are far more harmed by these misguided attempts at "protection" than they would be by having full access to honest information about sexuality, as well as (in some cases) the ability to discover and explore their own sexual desires and feelings. Basically, then, Levine argues that children should have accurate sex-and-health information and the chance to grow up with safe, fulfilling sexual attitudes. Who could complain? Well. First it was Robert Knight of Concerned Women For America (CWA) who, on March 28, issued a press release that called Harmful to Minors "evil," "hideous," and "every child molester's dream." Within days his message was trumpeted by that doyenne of the air waves, the redoubtable Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who also issued a stirring condemnation of the book. After this, events began moving fast and furiously. Republican Tim Pawlenty, the majority leader of Minnesota's House of Representatives and a potential gubernatorial candidate, publicly condemned the book (which he admittedly had not read) as "state-sanctioned support for illegal, indecent, harmful activity such as molesting children." Along with Schlessinger and CWA, he issued calls for the University of Minnesota Press not to distribute the book. Within days, the press and university received more then 800 phone calls and e-mails to complain about the book. (It is safe to say, since Harmful to Minors had not yet been shipped to bookstores, that none of these complainers had actually read the book either.) This cheap, right-wing political grandstanding proved effective when Christine Miziar, who supervises the press as the University of Minnesota's vice-president for research, announced on April 5 the establishment of an outside advisory committee to survey the press's peer-review and acquisitions policy. By all accounts, it is an unprecedented step. Bronski's article is well worth reading in its entirety as it provides much discussion of the way the moral right has used the issue of "protecting" children - to their detriment - as a weapon in their culture war. We haven't read the book itself yet, but it has all the sounds of just what FAC would say. [21/04/02] FAC Responds to the BBFC's ruling on showing female sexual response Two of our members have done extensive review reserch and original interviews investigating the British Board of Film Classification's claim that female ejaculation does not exist. Read their conclusions in our Submission to the BBFC. (January 2002) WAR ON IGNORANCE RAWA vs. Taliban Long before the US administration recognized that "evil doers" were, well, evil, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan have been organizing a quiet resistance against the Taliban's ban on female education, holding secret schools where women and girls are taught to read. Feminists Against Censorship congratulates these women for not bowing to the regime's war against women. (15 November 2001) WAR ON FREEDOM David Blunket vs. Free Speech First round to Rowan Atkinson Congratulations to Rowan Atkinson for his response to the new Labour Home Secretary's attempt to suppress speech. His 15 October 2001 letter to The Times began this way: I hope that I am not the only person in the creative arts who feels great disquiet about the proposals outlined by the Home Secretary in the Commons today, to introduce legislation to outlaw what has been described as "incitement to religious hatred" (reports, October 16). Having spent a substantial part of my career parodying religious figures from my own Christian background, I am aghast at the notion that it could, in effect, be made illegal to imply ridicule of a religion or to lampoon religious figures. Supporters of the proposed legislation would presumably say that neither I, nor any of my colleagues in the comedy world, are its intended targets, but laws governing highly subjective or moral issues tend to drag a very fine net, and some of the most basic freedoms of speech and expression can get caught up in it.

Recommended Reading:
Not in Front of the Children

Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth, Marjorie Heins, Hill and Wang, New York, 2001. ISBN 0-374-17545-4

Marjorie Heins was one of the lawyers on the American Civil Liberties Union team in their winning case against the Computer Decency Act (Reno v. ACLU). As she points out, the central issue in that case, and in most of the legal and legislative moves to restrict the Internet and other media, was never really addressed: Do we actually know that violent or sexual media harm children (or minors)?

The history of this kind of censorship often gives the appearance of a course in moral philosophy untainted by any serious attention to the facts. Evidence that seeing "adult" fare harms children is thin at best, but that doesn't stop the censors.

Heins takes the reader on a tour of the legal "reasoning" behind moves to restrict media - allegedly on behalf of children - all over the globe, through legislation and court tests, noting the paucity of scientific support along the way. Her discussion of ratings systems for the Internet sounds a clear warning against a process being pushed in legislatures around the world that is potentially devastating to free speech online.

We highly recommend this book as a laudably clear and readable primer on censorship generally and on the issue of harm to minors in particular, as well as the attacks on Internet freedom that are being promoted in the name of protecting children.

For more about this book, check out the review and interview with Marjorie at Salon.com. (2 July 2001)

R18 Videos - at last?

When the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) refused to give their stamp of approval to seven hard core videos, the maker of those videos, Sheptonhurst, turned around and appealed to the Video Appeals Committee. The VAC rejected the BBFC's claim that the videos threatened harm to children. The BBFC appealed this to the High Court, which concluded that the VAC had it right. This left the BBFC with little choice but to draw up new guidelines allowing more explicit material in erotic videos. So, it seems, you can now show penetration, erections, and genital contact, including oral sex. (Some movie-makers doubt, however, that many close-up shots will be permitted.) The new guidelines have appeared on the BBFC's site at http://www.bbfc.co.uk/.

To no one's surprise, the papers were immediately full of the usual fulminations, especially from our beloved Home Secretary, Jack Straw, the man who made us miss Michael Howard. Straw has already been trying to get around the fact that pornography itself isn't really illegal under current law by removing the right to jury trial of those accused of obscenity violations - if no jury has to say it's obscene, the government can make up charges about anything it likes.

The Home Office appears to have given up on trying to find some voodoo to simply overturn the High Court decision and has now produced a Consultation Paper on the Regulation of R18 Videos, attempting to heap even more restrictions onto the category (which can only be sold in sex shops as it is - and there aren't that many such places in the entire country) and increase the the number of offenses and the penalties involved in violating those restrictions. The document can be downloaded as a .pdf file at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/consult/r18video.pdf)

Submissions in response to the Consultation Paper are due in October. We hope you will join us in going over it carefully and addressing the points it raises. Naturally, it begins with the assumption that seeing erections and penetration will harm children, and that something must be done! (30 August 2000).

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIP)
- Still a threat

This is slated to become law in October 2000, but there is so much nonsense floating around about it (most of it from the government, of course) that we thought you might like to know why you should write to your MP to ask why the government still hasn't answered the biggest questions about it. Here they are:

1. Why does this bill create a new kind of crime?

The bill makes it an offence, punishable by two years' imprisonment, not to give the authorities your passwords or decryption keys on demand.

Now, historically, you might be charged with obstruction of justice or contempt of court if you refused to provide some material to the police in an investigation, but there is no specific crime of "failure to turn over a [specified, legal item]." Nope, not "failure to turn over your house key", not "failure to turn over your muddy Doc Martens", not even "failure to turn over your steak knives that look remarkably like the murder weapon."

That's not the only thing wrong with it, either. Normally, if the police confiscate your papers and some of them are in a language they don't speak, they can't demand that you teach them that language. But, in effect, that's what this part of the bill does by forcing you to turn over your passwords and keys - it's not just that you may have to tell them what a document says, but you have to make them actually able to read it on their own. Why should you?

2. Why is the definition of a "serious crime" so broad that it includes "conduct by a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose"?

It used to be that to tap someone's phone or read your mail, the authorities had to believe you were involved in a genuine threat to the security of the country. But under this bill, anyone committing "a serious crime" can be placed under surveillance. And a "serious crime" is conduct that "involves the use of violence, results in substantial financial gain or is conduct by a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose."

Interestingly, only one of those three things - violence - is actually a crime at all, let alone a serious one. And since when has mere "violence" justified a phone tap? Well, um, never, because most violence is interpersonal and has nothing to do with writing letters and telephoning people. What would be the point of reading the e-mail of someone who was in a pub fight? And who writes letters about the fact that they've been committing domestic violence? It's not exactly something you plot in advance with a group of conspirators. But the bill's language makes no distinction between one-off, unplanned, personal violence and genuine terrorist activity.

The last time we looked, it wasn't a crime at all to incur "substantial financial gain". Indeed, the Prime Minister often talks like he is actually intending to promote it. Hmm, that sounds like activity that might result in "substantial financial gain" - security services, take note!

As to "conduct by a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose", well, that would appear to cover the Boy Scouts, the Women's Institute, both houses of Parliament, the BBC, labour unions, the government - hey, just about everyone. Plan a big church picnic and suddenly you're committing "a serious crime". Blimey.

Come to think of it, though, that definition would also cover Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and - oh, my, Feminists Against Censorship!

3. Why does the bill require "black boxes" to send a direct feed of all internet traffic from providers when they only need data about specific individuals that could be supplied by the ISPs?

Let's be honest: The bill's combined features allow the government to look at all internet data all the time on the strength of only four individual warrants issued in a given year. They can legally look at the entire feed for the British Isles on one three-month warrant supposedly directed at a single individual; three months later, they can issue a warrant directed at a different individual. And so on in perpetuity.

The government can say all they want about how they don't intend to do anything like that, but they've written a bill that allows them to spy on everyone all the time, and they've refused to narrow it so that it only allows them to spy on people who are a genuine threat. We can only surmise from this that it's because they want to spy on people they shouldn't be spying on.

If you haven't been worried about RIP, or thought recent news stories about a government "climb-down" meant the problems with it were solved, get yourself over to the RIP information centre on the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) site and find out the details. (Summer 2000)