The North Carolina Department of Revenue has reached a settlement in the legal fight regarding the state’s request for sales data from Amazon.com in its efforts to recoup an estimated $50 million in lost tax revenue for online purchases.
ABFFE is co-sponsoring a new program that will bring media lawyers and reporters to bookstores around the country to discuss important free speech issues, including censorship, source confidentiality, and the impact of the Internet on press freedom.
With debate picking up in Washington over reauthorization of sections of the USA Patriot Act that are set to expire on February 28, the Campaign for Reader Privacy is urging supporters to ask their members of Congress to support the restoration of safeguards for reader privacy eliminated by passage of the act in 2001.
Sales at Wi6 of a T-shirt featuring an “enhanced” version of the classic painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware” will benefit the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.
Last week, President Obama signed into law a new ban on the sale of animal “crush” videos, which replaces a 1999 law struck down in April as a violation of the First Amendment. The new law applies to a narrower range of material, but it has raised concerns for ABFFE and other free speech advocates.
ABFFE President Chris Finan talks about the recent controversy regarding Amazon.com’s decisions to sell and then pull from its website a constitutionally protected work that is, nonetheless, abhorrent to many.
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington ruled this week that Amazon.com would not have to comply with the North Carolina Department of Revenue’s request for data revealing the identities of North Carolina customers and “detailed records of their purchases, including the expressive content.”
A federal district court has granted a preliminary injunction against an online censorship law that went into effect in Massachusetts earlier this year. In July, Harvard Book Store, Porter Square Books, and ABFFE joined in a suit to block the law because it imposes severe restrictions on constitutionally protected speech on the Internet.
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