This week marks the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week, an annual event that celebrates the freedom to read and calls attention to the wealth of creative expression that is stifled when books can be barred from library shelves. The ACLU has always believed that our country functions best when citizens exercise their right to freely explore the world around them, and we’ll be blogging about banned books and censorship all week. Join the conversation using #IReadBannedBooks.
Book banning still makes headlines, but today the practice seems pretty old school. As we touched on yesterday, the 21st century form of censorship has now become Internet filtering. Who needs a bonfire when technology can do your dirty work?
In the past year alone, the ACLU of Eastern Missouri has had two high-profile cases involving blocked websites caused by overzealous administrators and filtering software. While similar, the cases are disturbing in their own ways.
The Lake of the Ozarks’ Camdenton R-III School District in Missouri had been using software on school computers that blocked many websites advocating equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, while comparable anti-gay websites were not blocked. Thanks to the ACLU, Camdenton students no longer have to contend with this unconstitutional bias. A United States District judge ordered the school district to stop using the discriminatory filter and in a March consent judgment the district was ordered to stop blocking pro-LGBT sites, submit to monitoring for 18 months, and pay $125,000 in legal fees and costs. We’ll be keeping an eye on Camdenton.
Meanwhile, just three counties east, a similar problem was brewing in Salem, Missouri. The Children’s Internet Protection Act requires public libraries to employ Internet filtering software to block children from viewing obscene visual depictions, child pornography and images that are harmful to minors. However, Salem Public Library officials decided to go beyond the law and censor any websites that its filtering software provider, Netsweeper, categorized as pertaining to the occult or criminal skills. This prevented library users from accessing information about minority religions, yoga, meditation and astrology. Well, sort of. They could still find sites discussing some of these subjects from a mainstream religious viewpoint. For example, Wikipedia’s page on the Wiccan church was blocked, while the Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on Paganism popped right open.
Anaka Hunter, a Salem Public Library patron researching indigenous American tribes and their spirituality, asked that sites about Native American cultural and religious history and the Wiccan Church be unblocked. She was told by the library director that there was nothing that could be done because the filtering system determined which websites library patrons could view. Yet, when Anaka later asked the director to unblock a site pertaining to the lives of prominent Native American women, the director was able to unblock a single page of the site. When this discrepancy was pointed out, the director admitted that she only allows people to view blocked websites if it pertains to their job, if they are writing a paper, or if she determines that they have another legitimate reason to view the content. The director added that she had an obligation to call the proper authorities to report those who attempted to access blocked sites, if she thought they would misuse the information they were seeking. Talk about a chilling effect. After unsuccessfully seeking help from the library’s board of trustees, Anaka quit using the library and contacted the ACLU, rather than risk being reported to the local police.
In January the ACLU filed a complaint in the federal court on Anaka’s behalf. The case is still going on.
By the way, the Lake of the Ozarks’ Camdenton R-III School District and the Salem Public Library Board of Trustees each received one of the nine Jefferson Muzzles awarded in 2012. These dubious awards are presented every year around April 13—the anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birth—by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression to those who have committed egregious or ridiculous affronts to free expression in the previous year.
If you encounter any onerous filters in your public school or library, please report them to your local ACLU affiliate. You never know — they could be a future winner of the not-so-coveted Jefferson Muzzles.
Learn more about Banned Books Week: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
MississippiJul 2024
Free Speech
Privacy & Technology
NetChoice v. FitchNetChoice v. Fitch
Whether a law that mandates age verification for all users of social media services violates the First Amendment. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Free Speech
Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.
We break down the absurd-but-true history of trying to censor sexual speech under the guise of "keeping kids safe." -
Minnesota Supreme CourtNov 2024
Free Speech
Energy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn RiotEnergy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn Riot
This case in the Minnesota Supreme Court asks whether the MFFIA's protections apply to newsgatherers even if they are alleged to have engaged in trespassing while newsgathering. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Minnesota and law firm Biersdorf & Associations, filed a brief representing Unicorn Riot, a media organization that covered protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The brief argues that MFFIA and constitutional reporter’s privileges, under both the U.S. and Minnesota constitutions, protect Unicorn Riot from having to comply with Energy Transfer’s subpoenas.