Free Expression

In a significant First Amendment decision, on Tuesday, April 20, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 8-1, declared unconstitutional a law banning photos, film, and video depictions of animal cruelty and, in doing so, rejected the federal government's attempt to create a new exception to the First Amendment. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., noted that the law "created a criminal prohibition of alarming breadth," which could have made the sale of magazines or videos showing hunting a crime in Washington, D.C., where hunting is illegal.

HarperCollins Vice President for Independent Retailing Carl Lennertz has pulled together a second collection of regional essays inspired by State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America (edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey, Ecco). Booksellers and librarians from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska contributed to the Pacific Northwest Reader, which is available now. The first regional collection, the Great Lakes Reader, was published last year.

 The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) has welcomed an April 15 federal appeals court ruling that held that an Ohio statute that imposes fines and prison terms for providing non-obscene, sexuallyexplicit material to minors cannot be applied to communications on websites, in public chatrooms, and through e-mail listservs and mailing lists.

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) is working with Alaska booksellers and other free speech organizations to oppose House Bill 298, which bans the sale of sexual material to minors, because two provisions of the bill remain unconstitutional.

On Wednesday, the Campaign for Reader Privacy (CRP) said that progress is being made in the fight to restore the safeguards for the privacy of bookstore and library records that were eliminated by Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act.

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) welcomed a ruling on Wednesday by the Ohio Supreme Court that booksellers and other owners of "generally accessible" websites cannot be prosecuted under an Ohio law that makes it a crime to electronically disseminate to minors material that is "obscene or harmful."

Work to reach a final compromise on key provisions of the USA Patriot Act that are set to expire at the end of this year has been put off until 2010.

The bookseller members of the Board of Directors of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) are encouraging their fellow booksellers to take a minute during the holiday selling season to join ABFFE, the bookseller's voice in the fight against censorship.

With the U.S.

The American Booksellers Association and its partners in the Campaign for Reader Privacy are urging supporters to contact members of the U.S.