MEDIA COALITION HIGHLIGHTS 1998-1999

Media Coalition Fights For Free Speech in Cyberspace

In March 1999, a federal Judge blocked enforcement of Computer Online Protection Act, a second attempt at a broad federal restriction on using the Internet to

transmit non-obscene material with sexual content. ABFFE, and two bookstores were among a large group of plaintiffs who argued that the law would make it impossible to sell books and other materials on the web that are protected by the First Amendment. Members of Media Coalition filed a friend of the court brief with a wide range of national groups. The government has appealed the preliminary injunction to the Third Circuit Court. In June 1998, a U.S. District Court granted a preliminary injunction against a New Mexico law banning computer transmission to minors of "material harmful to minors." The judge found a high likelihood that the statute violates both the First Amendment and the Commerce Clause. New Mexico has appealed the injunction to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In January 1999, the members of Media Coalition joined a brief supporting Time Warner and Oliver Stone’s request for review by the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn a Louisiana state court decision allowing the victim of a convenience store robbery to sue the makers of the movie Natural Born Killers. The robbers watched the movie and days later held up a convenience store and shot the clerk. The victims argue that Oliver Stone intended people to watch the movie and immediately commit copy cat crimes. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case and both sides are preparing for a possible trial in Louisiana state court.

Media Coalition fights censorship legislation in states

In 1998, Media Coalition actively opposed 14 bills and tracked an additional 71 bills in 30 different states. Proposed laws we fought included a prohibition against selling records with a parental warning sticker to minors, barring minors from any commercial establishment that displays or sells violent video games and many different attempts to restrict material available to adults and minors on the Internet.

The militant anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue, continues to protest at bookstores that sell books that include depictions of nude children, despite repudiation by prosecutors and police across the country. In April 1999, Operation Rescue staged a week of protest in Buffalo that included picketing a Barnes & Noble store for selling works by the photographer Jock Sturges that the group considers "child pornography." This was the latest in a series of protests directed at bookstores that carry the books of

Jock Sturges, Sally Mann and David Hamilton. In 1997-98, protestors entered stores and destroyed copies of books by Sturges in New York City, Dallas, Denver, Omaha, Kansas City and Independence, Missouri, Salem and Beaverton, Oregon, Binghamton, New York, and Rockford, Illinois. Another group of protestors, members of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, sought to suppress the sale of these books by pressuring law enforcement officials to file child pornography charges against booksellers. Following police investigations in over a dozen cities, counties and towns, prosecutors concluded that works by Sturges are protected by the First Amendment. In the whole country, only two Barnes & Noble stores in Alabama have been charged with selling child pornography for the carrying Sturges books. After the bright lights of publicity for the attorney general dimmed, one of these charges was dismissed and there has been no effort by the district attorney to proceed with the second charge. Media Coalition members were among the national organizations representing booksellers, artists, librarians, writers, religious leaders and educators who have condemned both censorship campaigns.

Media Coalition Helps Narrow Starr Bookstore Subpoena

In June 1998, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr withdrew the subpoena issued to Kramerbooks & afterwards to produce records of any purchases made by Monica Lewinsky over a 30 month period after she agreed to voluntarily give him the information. Judge Norma Holloway Johnson had narrowed the subpoena agreeing that the original subpoena was so broad it would make bookstore customers afraid that government could easily gain access to information about their purchases and prevent them from purchasing books they want. Members of Media Coalition supported Kramerbooks’ decision to challenge the subpoena by joining an amicus brief filed by American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.

Media Coalition Joins Challenge to Military censorship law

In October 1998, soldiers, service personnel and a magazine distributor filed a lawsuit challenging the Military Honor and Decency Act; a law violates the First Amendment rights of U.S. servicemen and women by banning the sale or rental, at a military facility, of any magazine, recording or video that "depicts or describes nudity . . . in a lascivious way." The military has created a censorship board that reviews all magazines, records and videos that are available in military PX and then issues lists of magazine titles and videos that are permanently banned from all PXs. There is no right to appeal the board’s decision nor is there any review of a subsequent issue of a magazine or video.

Victory for Media Coalition Members in The Tin Drum Litigation

In December 1998, District Judge Thompson ruled that the Academy Award-winning film, The Tin Drum, is First Amendment-protected speech and not child pornography as claimed by the Oklahoma City District Attorney. The judge also ruled that the police had violated the Video Privacy Protection Act by forcing clerks in a video store to disclose the names of customers who had rented the movie and that the movies were unconstitutionally seized. The city and the district attorney agreed to pay over $500,000 for legal fees as part of the settlement of this case.