Seth Finkelstein writes “Nitke vs. Ashcroft
is a case challenging Internet censorship law, involving issues of
“community standards” and the Internet (and, disclaimer, I’m
an expert witness). Case lawyer
John Wirenius
describes the decision:
“[On July 25, 2005], the three judge panel of the Southern District of
New York issued a 25 page per curiam opinion finding against the
plaintiffs–us, to be clear–in Nitke v. Ashcroft. The decision is a
stunner–as much for what it doesn’t say as for what it does. The
Court found that Barbara [Nitke] and NCSF (through The Eulenspeigel Society)
had been chilled in their speech and had censored themselves because
of the statute allowing the Government to choose which venue any
artist using the Internet may be prosecuted in, and applying that
local community’s standards to all art on the Internet. The Court also
found that Barbara and NCSF could not rest easy on the obvious social
value of their speech, because not all prosecutors and not all juries
see social importance the same way. Then they found we had not
produced enough evidence as to how many artists would be chilled, and
how local community standards varied. Thus, we had not shown to what
extent the standards varied from community to community, and how much
speech was effected.””
Can librarians help?
They need to document how community standards differ across the country. Does the ALA keep records of book challenges? That could be very effective in showing how titles are accepted in some places and challenged elsewhere.
Re:Can librarians help?
Yes; once a year, in conjunction with Freedom To Read Week, they release a Top Ten Challenged Books list of the previous year. However, this is not a archival record of challenges, it is simply an effort to get an overview of censorship actions throughout the U.S. Moreover, I question the ALA’s habit of categorizing as censorship every challenge, including those of parents who are simply concerned about what their children are reading.
The way the ALA works it is to send a survey form to a large number of schools (typically over a thousand), and then compile the responses they get. Responding is voluntary, and many school don’t. You can see the ALA page about challenges and bannings here, with the list from 2004, and the ten most challenged authors, averaged out, it appears, starting from 1990 to 2004.
If you’d like a fairly indepth look into free speech and censorship issues, you can check my Chronology of Censorship.