Legislation introduced in Congress last month (the "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act") would take an aggressive and needed stand against online piracy, a growing problem that hurts American consumers and costs Americans jobs. Critics of the legislation argue that this bill would hurt free speech, encourage censorship in foreign…

The United States federal government, through a combination of statutes and regulations, has imposed restrictions on the activities of photojournalists that are not equally applicable to those of their print colleagues. For example, two statutes of the United States Code prohibit the photographing of defense installations and military equipment…

Describes legal challenges and opposition to the Communications Decency Act (CDA) provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Groups opposing the CDA provisions argue that forbidding the distribution of explicit materials over the Internet is a form of government censorship. World Wide Web sites that contain Telecommunications Act…

The Freedom of Information Act amendments, which became effective in February 1975, have so far yielded mixed results. This report provides an account of how different federal agencies are implementing this amended statute. Among the topics discussed are modifications of the original 1966 Freedom of Information Act, which were made in the attempt…

Three principles concerning children's intellectual rights are proposed and discussed. The principles are: (1) intellectual rights of children include access to ideas and freedom of expression; (2) denial of rights on the basis of lack of competence requires empirical justification; and (3) denial of rights on the basis of lack of competence…

Discusses the consequences that schools may face as a result of the Hatch Amendment, which prevents a school from inquiring about seven subject areas if a single parent disagrees. (DF)

An examination of the changes in press laws after India gained its independence in 1947 shows how a free press is shaped mostly by the structure and evolution of the democratic society that it is intended to serve. The most salient features that have characterized the Indian press, from the early nineteenth century to the present day, are…

Documentation of the spread of censorship is extensive, and although challenges to films and videocassettes have not figured prominently in the literature, in the future there may be more emphasis on these media than on print material. On the state level, increasing censorship of films and videocassettes has occurred in North Carolina, California,…

The Communications Act of 1934 has been cited as the justification for federal regulation of the growing cable television industry, but it has not ended the debate over the jurisdiction of regulating agencies and the First Amendment protections afforded to broadcasters. Because the authority of the Federal Communications Commission to regulate…

Exemption 1 of the Freedom of Information Act provides for the secret classification of matters that are "specifically required by Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of the national defense or foreign policy." As such, it provides a formidable barrier to the inquisitive citizen or Congress seeking the disclosure of secret…

A study explored, through a review of the literature, specific problems that scholars have identified regarding free expression in student publications since "Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier" (1988). It then analyzed the six state statutes which were passed to clarify the extent of school administrators' rights to censor student journalism and…

This study reports the results of a national survey of the attitudes of five demographic groups toward freedom of the press. The groups are newsmen, state legislators, high school teachers, high school students, and the general public. The survey is broken into two parts, the first dealing with general principles (e.g., support for a law against…

Recently, there has been a definite shift away from United States government support for the unrestricted exchange of new, unclassified scientific and technical information at professional meetings. This has been substantiated by numerous specific examples of censorship by branches of the government. Scientists in the target professional…

This book surveys the implications of freedom of the press for a constitutionally rooted public right of access to electronic and print media. Part one provides general perspectives on access to the media, including discussions of access in relation to the Supreme Court, to First Amendment history and theory, to current perceptions of the press,…