Free Speech Bookshelf
Americans naturally assume that we have always enjoyed the freedom to say what we want, when and where we want. Why should we worry about free speech? Isn't it written into our Constitution? But there has always been censorship in the United States, and the fight for free speech is a daily battle.
Books play an important role in educating the public about the importance of free speech. Publishers are releasing new works almost daily that illuminate the history of the fight for free speech as well as the issues that are currently being debated in state legislatures, Congress and the courts.
The Free Speech Bookshelf will help booksellers and the public identify the best books on free speech, including lists of the top books on particular issues (including a list of the best books on the history of free speech), interviews with the authors of significant works and summaries of new books.
ABFFE Pick!
The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book
by Petra Couvée and Peter Finn
Pantheon, June 2014, $26.95, 9780307908001
This work is the remarkable story of a book that was banned in the Soviet Union and was used by the CIA in its 'battle' between East and West. The authors were able to write this book when government files were finally declassified.
Petra Couvée is a writer and translator and teaches at Saint Petersburg State University. Peter Finn is National Security Editor for The Washington Post and previously served as the Post’s bureau chief in Moscow.
Books About Free Speech
by Audrey Eisman, ABFFE Book Editor
Dubliners
by James Joyce
Penguin May 2014, $17.00 978-0-0-14-310745-3
First published in Great Britain in 1914 (it was published in the US two years later) Penguin Classics is releasing the centennial edition of James Joyce's remarkable short story collection,
DUBLINERS.
Column McCann, of LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN and TRANSATLANTIC, provided the forward.
The Burglary
by Becky Medsger
Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, $29.95, January , 2014, 978-0-307-96295-9
The Burglary is the story of the 1977 burglary of the FBI offices in Media, Pennsylvania, by a group of activists who wanted to expose FBI spying on groups htat were criticial of the American government. This robbery led to the release of FBI files to newspapers across the country, and the ultimate overhaul of the way that the FBI and other government agencies conduct secret surveillance.
UNCLEAN LIPS: Obscenity, Jews and American Culture
by Josh Lambert
New York University Press, 2014, $35.00, 978-1-4798-7643-3
For most of the 20th century, Jewish entrepreneurs and editors led the charge against obscenity laws. Jewish attorneys battled literary censorship, even when their non-Jewish counterparts refused to do so. These lawyers won court decisions in favor of books including ULYSSES, HOWL, LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER and TROPIC OF CANCER. In UNCLEAN LIPS, Mr. Lambert addresses these and other caes, and issues including sexual anti-semitism and the prestigue of dirty words and pictures. In his concluding chapter, Mr. Lambert states that one cannot predict how future debates regarding obscenity will evolve. For example, he cites that "the perniciousness of laws that were designated to protect children and teenagers from sexual predition but have ended up, too often, tarrying innocent people as sex criminals and limiting the freedom of artists - might involve American Jews, for better and worse."
Josh Lambert is Academic Director of the Yiddish Book Center, and Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
by Lewis Perry
Yale University Press, 2013, $35.00, 978-0-300-12459-0
Lewis Perry explores the practice of civil disobedience in the United States, from pre-revolutionary times to the present. He covers 'disobedience' as it relates to slavery, women's sufferage, civil rights, temperance, labor reform and social protest and, in his final chapter, reveals that 'the day of demonstrations isn't over.'
Lewis Perry is John Francis Bannon, S.J., Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Saint Louis University. His previous boooks have dealt with anarchism, antislavery movements, American intellectual life, and moral problems in history.
TAKING THE STAND: My Life in the Law
by Alan Dershowitz
Crown Publishers, October 2013, $28.00, 978-0-307-71927-0
Alan Dershowitz is acknowledged as one of the most respected and well-known attorneys in the United States. Mr. Dershowitz has been a professor at Harvard University for the past half-century and has been the author of several books. In TAKING THE STAND: My Life in the Law, he recounts his evolution as a lawyer, defending clients including O.J. Simpson, Claus von Bulow, Bill Clinton, Jeffrey MacDonald, Patty Hearst and Mike Tyson.
A section of the book is devoted to "The Changing Sound of Freedom of Speech." Topics include: the evolution of the First Amendment, the "offensiveness" of obscenity, disclosure of government secrets (The Pentagon Papers and Julian Assange), expressions that incite violence and disrupt speakers, the right to falsify, defamation and privacy, and speech that 'support' terrorist groups.
SEXPLOSION: From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange
HarperCollins, February 2014, 978-0-06-208834-5, $27.99
by Robert Hofler
Between 1968 and 1973, artists, writers and filmmakers challenged many of society's most powerful sexual taboos, and helped launch a sexual revolution. Author Robert Hofler provides a fascinating narrative of hte publication of The Joy of Sex, Myra Breckinridge and Portnoy's Complaint and the making of "Midnight Cowboy," "Last Tango in Paris," and "Deep Throat."
Hofler has spent over 40 years as an entertainment journalist. He is theater critic at The Wrap. Previously, he has served as editor at Variety, Life and US Weekly magazines. His earlier non-fiction works have included The Man Who Invtented Rock Hudson (about Henry Willson), Party Animal (about Allan Carr) and Variety's "The Movie That Changed My Life."
CENSORED 2014: Fearless Speech in Fateful Times
Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth, with Project Censored
Seven Stories Press, 2013, 201398-1-60980-494-7
Once Again, Project Censored has identified and provided in-depth analysis of the 25 most-censored stories of the current year (2012-2013). This year's volume includes a chapter of articles by "free speech and free speech advocates that make a difference," including Christopher Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and Acacia O'Connor, coordinator of the Kids' Right to Read Project, which is co-sponsored by ABFFE and the National Coalition Against Censorship.
MICKEY HUFF is director of Project Censored. He is a professor of social science and history, and co-chair of the history department at Diablo Valley College in the San Francisco Bay area. He is also on the Executive Committee of Banned Books Week, working with The National Coalition Against Censorship. Project Censored is a member of NCAC.
ANDY LEE ROTH is associate director of Project Censored. He teaches sociologist and anthropology at Haverford College, and teaches sociology at Sonoma State University and the College of Marin. He received his PhD in sociology at the University of California-Los Angeles and BA in sociology at Haverford College.
SPYING ON DEMOCRACY: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance
Heidi Boghosian, w/ foreword by Lewis Lapha
City Lights Publishers, September 2013, 978-0-87286-599-0, $18.95
Many American’s don’t realize the extent to which our government easily acquires personal information from supposedly ‘private’ sources. In SPYING ON DEMOCRACY, Heidi Boghosian provides the answer to the question so frequently posed: ‘If you’re not doing anything wrong, why should you care if someone’s watching you?’ She discusses how technology is being used to categorize and monitor people based on their associations, their movements, their purchases, and their perceived political beliefs.
Heidi Boghosian is the Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild, and has published numerous articles and reports dealing with policing, protest and the First Amendment. She received her JD from Temple Law School, has an MS from Boston University and a BA from Brown University. Ms. Boghosian is admitted to practice law in New York, Connecticut and the U.S. Supreme Court.
NOTHING TO HIDE: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security
Daniel J. Solove
Yale University Press, 2011, 978-0-300-17231-7, $25
In Daniel Solove’s introduction to his book, he describes his frustration when he hears arguments in favor of heightened security. He makes the point that protecting privacy need not be fatal to security measures; it merely involves adequate oversight and regulation. Using historical examples, he details our nation’s struggle to find a balance between defending security and protecting privacy. He assesses the implications of certain legislation on our first amendment rights and makes suggestions on how the law should deal with changing technology.
Daniel J. Solove is the John Marshall Harlan Research Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School.
THE SILENCE AND THE ROAR
Nihad Sirees
Other Press (2013) 978-1-59051-645-4, $13.95
This novel takes place in an unnamed Eastern Country (that resembles Syria.) It details a day in the life of Fathi Chin, an author banned from publishing because he refuses to write propaganda for the ruling government. On this day, as the nation has mobilized to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the reining leader, Fathi leaves his home to visit his mother. What ensues is a series of mishaps and misfortune that intimately leads him into an enormous bureaucratic labyrinth.
NIHAD SIREES is a civil engineer who was born in the ancient city of Aleppo in Syria. Exiled from his home land, he currently resides in Egypt. His other novels include: CANCER, THE NORTH WINDS, and A CASE OF PASSIONS.
HELL NO: YOUR RIGHT TO DISSENT IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY AMERICA
Michael Ratner & Margaret Ratner Kunstler
The New Press (2011) 978-1-59558-540-0, $17.95
HELL NO offers a timely report on government attacks on dissent and protest in the United States. These attacks include surveillance of activists, disruption of demonstrations, labeling protestors as 'terrorists' and jailing those the government claims are giving material support to its perceived enemies. This book was published in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal and educational organization dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center, provided a preface.
Michael Ratner is an attorney and the board chair of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He is highly respected as a human rights activist and has written several other books about the subject.
Margaret Ratner Kunstler originated the Movement Support Network as the education director at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She is an attorney and serves as president of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice.
JOSEPH ANTON
A Memoir by Salman Rushdie
Random House (September 2012) 97808129912786, $30.
On February 14, 1989, Salman Rushdie received word that he had been sentenced to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini. His crime was was that his novel, The Satanic Verses, was considered to be "against Islam,the Prophet and the Quran.'" He was forced to go underground, with an armed police protective team. That was stressful enough, but he was advised to choose an alias - which the police could use while addressing him or speaking of him to others. When he thought of two of his favorite authors, Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov, the name he chose came readily; he took their names and became Joseph Anton.
This memoir details the nine years he spent underground, with the threat of being murdered, the ultimate threat to freedom of speech, the personal and professional relationships that fractured under the incredible stress and the heroic efforts by some publishers and bookstores to support him - and to fight for him.
Salman Rushdie is the author of eleven novels. Between 2002 and 2006, he served as President of PEN American Center, and continues to work as Chairman of the PEN World Voices International Literary Festival, which he helped to create. In 2007, he receive a Knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honors, and in 2008, he became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters - and was named a Library Lion of the New York Public Library.
MANIA: The Story of the Outraged & Outrageous Lives that Launched a Cultural Revolutions
Ronald K.L. Collins & David M. Skover
Top Five Books (March 2013) 978-1-938938-02-3, $26
MANIA tells the story of an extraordinary group of counter-cultural writers who created some of the 20th century's most enduring literature. It details incidents in the lives of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and others who rebelled against the norms that the society then had to offer.
Ronald Collins and David Skover have been friends and collaborators for almost three decades. Ron is the Harold S. Shefelman Scholar at the University of Washington Law School. David is the Frederic C. Tausend Professor of Constitutional Law at Seattle University. They have written scholarly articles (often together) in journals such as the Harvard and Stanford Law Reviews and in the Supreme Court Review. In 2003, they successfully petitioned the Governor of New York to posthumously pardon the comedian and author, Lennie Bruce.
THE OATH: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court
Jeffrey Toobin
Doubleday (September 2012) 978-0-385-52720-0, $28.95
THE OATH is a gripping account of the ideological battle between the conservative majority of the Supreme Court and the Obama administration - and in one improbable case, when the chief justice, John Roberts, joined forces with the president. Jeffrey Toobin writes of several instances where justices, including Samuel Alito, Jr., Stephen Breyer, John Roberts and Antonin Scalia addressed the issues of free speech and the First Amendment.
Jeffrey Toobin is a staff writer at the New Yorker, senior legal analyst at CNN, and a best-selling author of books including THE NINE, TOO CLOSE TO CALL and A VAST CONSPIRACY.
CENSORED 2013: THE TOP 25 CENSORED STORIES
Mickey S. Huff and Andy Lee Roth with Project Censored
Seven Stories Press (October 30, 2012) 9781609804220, $19.95
Seven Stores Press has been publishing this yearbook since 1994, featuring the top stories, listed democratically in order of importance according to students, faculty, and a national panel of judges. Each of these stories is presented at length, alongside updates from the investigative reporters who broke the stories.
Project Censored has, as its principal objective, the advocacy for and protection of First Amendment rights and freedom of information in the United States.
Mikey S. Huff is Director of Project Censored and sits on the Board of Directors of the Media Freedom Foundation.
Andy Lee Roth, Ph.D. is Associate Director of Project Censored.
THE FIRST AMENDMENT FREEDOM OF SPEECH
David L. Hudson, Jr.
Thomas Reuters, (October 29, 2012) 978-0-314-60648-8, $50.
This work, the latest volume in the Thomson Reuters Law for the Layperson Legal Almanac Series, provides both non-attorneys (law students, clients, academics) and attorneys a clear review of the evolution of free speech in the United States. In easy-to-read chapters, Mr. Hudson provides various categories on unprotected speech, the special rules related to commercial speech, pornographic speech, and a chapter on how the First Amendment impacts on tort law in the United States.
David L. Hudson, Jr. is a scholar at the First Amendment Center, where he writes for the Center's website, speaks to the media and lectures on a variety of First Amendment issues. He also teaches at Vanderbilt University and the Nashville School of Law - and is a contributing editor for the American Bar Association.
THE HARM IN HATE SPEECH
Jeremy Waldon
Harvard University Press (2012) 978-0674-0658-95, $26.95
Every liberal democracy has laws or codes against hate speech -- except the United States. For constitutionalists, regulation of hate speech violates the First Amendment and damages a free society. Against the absolutist view, Jeremy Waldron argues that hate speech should be regulated as part of our commitment to human dignity and to inclusion and respect for members of vulnerable minorities.
Free speech advocates boast of despising what racists say, but defend to death their right to say it. Waldron finds this emphasis on intellectual resilience misguided and points instead to the threat hate speech poses to the lives, dignity and reputations of minority members. Waldron asks us to move beyond knee-jerk American exceptionalism in our debates over the serious consequences of hateful speech.
Jeremy Waldon is University Professor, New York University School of Law, and Professor of Social and Political Theory, All Souls College, University of Oxford.
!DEJAME HABARI! (Let me Talk)
Marcos Vergara
MJVC, (September, 2012) 147933165
Mr. Vergara, a lawyer licensed to practice in Argentina and Spain, has been fascinated by how, in one country, a judge or parliament can determine what can be said or written, while it so differs in other nations. He offers amusing stories: erotic phone calls that become a multimillion dollar business, celebrities who curse on broadcasts, the safe harbors for indecent content, and censorship of videogames with violent content - all of which occur in the United States.
AMERICA'S UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTION: The Precedents and Principles We Live By
Akhil Reed Amar
Basic Books (2012) 978-0-465-02957-0, $29.99
On September 17, 2012, The Constitution of the United States celebrated its 225th anniversary. To commemorate the milestone, Akhil Reed Amar has written a companion piece to his earlier book, AMERICA'S CONSTITUTION: A Biography that looks beyond the constitution itself to reveal its 'unwritten' counterpart. He writes: "I want to appeal to the originalists who believe in the text and also to living constitutionalists. The way to do that is to understand that it is a constitution, with principles in it that are greater than the specific sentences." While he vividly recounts the genesis of the First Amendment, with strong supporters Jefferson and Madison at the helm, he also discusses the fact that the amendment speaks to restrictions on congressional but not executive or state power.
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University and occasionally serves as visiting professor at Harvard, Columbia and Pepperdine Law Schools. He is often sited by the Supreme Court and is a frequent expert witness in congressional hearings.
LEAVING HOME: A Hollywood Blacklisted Writer's Years Abroad
Anne Edwards
The Scarecrow Press (2012) 978-0-8108-8199-0, $29.99
Anne Edwards has written several biographies, including those of Judy Garland, Katherine Hepburn, Shirley Temple and Ronald Reagan, but now this past-president of the Authors Guild of America turns the spotlight on herself.
Edwards always knew that writing was her gift -- a gift she needed after a horrendous marriage and an attack of polio left her physically, emotionally and financially weakened. Anne was using her writing abilities in California for film and television projects, until she -- among others -- received invitations to appear before the House Un-American Activities Commission (HUAC). She did not know where to turn; so many of her fellow writers were jailed or sent into exile. But Edwards found the latter to be a fortuitous option, when she received an offer to write a film in London. She immediately relocated herself and her children, before she had to appear before HUAC. There she met other expatriates, with whom she could share her story: she had written numerous articles, petitions and letters to members of Congress about controversial issues and was friendly with even more suspicious individuals at a time when, as she writes, "guilty by association had become the committee's mantra." But in 1971, Edwards wrote SHADOW OF A LION, a novel recounting the experiences of exiles such as herself -- and, once it was published, she could come home. In LEAVING HOME, she gives a factual account of her own experiences as a target of censorship in the Cold War era.
NAKED TRUTH: Strip Clubs, Democracy, and a Christian Right
Judith Lynne Hanna
University of Texas Press (2012) 978-0-292-72911-7, $55.
Throughout our nation, strip clubs have come under vicious attack by a particularly aggressive segment of the Christian Right. With the intent to dismantle the entire exotic dance industry, they have stoked public outrage -- compelling local and state governments to impose onerous restrictions on the clubs. Judith Lynne Hanna believes that there is an even larger agenda at work. She maintains that the Christian Right's objective is to supplant constitutional democracy in America with a biblical theocracy. She argues that "the naked truth is that the separation of church and state is under siege, and our civil liberties -- free speech, women's rights, and free enterprise -- are at stake."
Judith Lynn Hanna is a leading dance scholar and critic who has served as an expert witness in more than 100 exotic dance cases nationwide. She is Affiliate Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland.
LETTERS TO A YOUNG ACTIVIST
Todd Gitlin
Basic Books (2012) 978-0-465-03306-5, $14.95
In the eleven letters that make up this book, Todd Gitlin urges activists to enter into some of the dilemmas -- moral and practical -- that face the contemporary citizen. Recalling his own days as the president of Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960's, he stresses that these dilemmas impact not only the problems of what to think but of what to do and how to live. In his final letter, he discusses the reactions to September 11, 2001, including those of people who felt the bookstores should not stock certain books.
Todd Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the PhD program in communications at Columbia University.
RATHER UNSPOKEN: My Life in the News
Dan Rather and Digby Diehl
Grand Central Publishing (2012) 13-455-50241-7, $27.99
Dan Rather has reported major stories for more than half a century - 44 years at CBS News and 24 as anchor and managing director of CBS Evening News. Mr. Rather has always believed that free speech, inherent in the First Amendment, is vital to journalists - and to the public who expects the truth from their stories. Unfortunately, at the end of his tenure at CBS, he become the story - not the storyteller. In RATHER UNSPOKEN: My Life in the News, he details the events that cost him his job.
Digby Diehl is founding editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review. He has written, co-written or rewritten more than three dozen books.
FROM DICTATORSHIP TO DEMOCRACY: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation
Gene Sharp
The Free Press (2012) 978-1-59558-850-0, $13.95
Twenty-one years ago, at a friend's request, Gene Sharp created a blueprint for nonviolent resistance to repressive regimes. This book which contains 198 methods of consideration, stresses the need for free speech. Sharp writes:
"Nonviolent struggle can be used to assert the practice of democratic freedoms, such as free speech, free press, independent organizations, and free assembly, in face of repressive controls."
Gene Sharp is Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He advises governments and resistance movements around the world, and is an influential promoter of nonviolent resistance to autocratic governments. He is the founder of the Albert Einstein Institution.
CONSENT OF THE NETWORKS: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom
Rebecca MacKinnon
Basic Books (2012) 987-0-465-02442-1, $26.99
This book, by one of the leading media commentators, takes on new concerns about the Internet and personal freedom. "It is time," she says, "to stop arguing over whether the Internet empowers individuals and societies, and addresses the more fundamental and urgent question of how technology should be structured and governed to support the rights and liberties of all the world's Internet users."
MacKinnon further writes: "The Internet is a human creation and power struggles are an inevitable feature of human society. Democracy is about constraining power and holding it accountable. The Internet can be a powerful tool in the hands of citizens seeking to hold governments and corporations to account - but only if we keep the internet itself free."
Rebecca MacKinnon is co-founder of Global Voices, a citizen's media network, and a former fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. She currently works on global Internet policy as a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New American Foundation.
CENSORED 2012
Mickey Huff (ed.), Project Censored
Seven Stories Press (2012) 978-1-60980-347-6, $19.95
Too frequently, the mass media deluges us with salacious gossip, while major stories are ignored or under-reported. Journalists in the United States insist that the press here is protected and free, but this remarkable book shows how very wrong these journalists are. Project Censored is one of the rare organizations that focuses on the stories the press ignores, downplays and/or distorts, and this book details several of the most censored stories, including reports that more U.S. soldiers have committed suicide than died in combat; there is rampant trafficking of Iraqi women; and that Google's technology is funded in part by the CIA.
Mickey Huff is the new director of Project Censored and sits on the Board of the Media Freedom Foundation. He is an associate professor of history at Diablo Valley College, and has been a professional musician and composer for over 20 years.
THE TORTURE REPORT
Larry Siems
OR Books (2012) 978-935928-55-3, $22.00
In THE TORTURE REPORT, Larry Siems reviews more than 140,000 government documents relating to abuse of prisoners by U.S. forces during the war on terror. He offers quotes from victims, perpetrators, dissenters and investigators who reveal what can happen when commitments to law, common sense and human dignity are cast aside.
Larry Siems is the director of PEN American Center's Freedom to Write and International Programs. He is also editor of Between the Lines: Letters Between Undocumented Mexican and Central American Immigrants and Their Family and Friends.
ENEMIES: A History of the F.B.I.
Tim Weiner
Random House (2012) 978-1-4000-6748-0, $30.00
For more than a century, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has worn two hats: law enforcement and intelligence. In ENEMIES, Tim Weiner concentrates on the intelligence portion of their operations, astutely tracking investigations of individuals from Emma Goldman to Osama Bin Laden. The F.B.I.'s key tools have included illegal wiretaps and burglaries. With J. Edgar Hoover at the helm from 1924 to 1972, the F.B.I. even created dossiers on our American presidents.
Tim Weiner has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his writing on vital issues of American national security. As a correspondent for The New York Times, he covered the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon in Washington, and reported on war and terrorism from Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Sudan, and many other nations over the course of 15 years. He has lectured at the C.I.A., universities, political think tanks, and at Presidential libraries.
ARTICLE 5: Compliance is Mandatory
Kristen Simmons
Tor Teen (January 2012) 978-0-7653-2958, $17.99
This novel is set in the United States in a future year when many of the rights we have fought for since the beginning of our nation has changed. The Bill of Rights is no more; it has been revoked and replaced by the Moral Statutes. There are no longer police forces; there are only soldiers. And when bad behavior is discovered, there are no longer fines; there are arrests, trials and worse - and those arrested seldom come back. And, too often, that behavior includes reading the wrong books!
The novel's protagonist, Ember Miller, is the 17-year old daughter of a single mother who has learned to survive in this difficult time - including the home inspections by the military. But when Ember's mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 in the Moral Statutes, Ember's life must change.
This is Kristin Simmons' first novel. She has a master's degree in social work and is an advocate for mental health issues.
I KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND I SAW WHAT YOU DID: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy
Lori Andrews
Free Press (January 2012) 978-1-4516-50518, $26.00
In this extraordinary text, Lori Andrews discusses the misuse of personal on-line information, without our knowledge - that can affect us in innumerable aspects of our lives. How many things do we reveal about ourselves as we go online? We give our credit cards, our mother's maiden name - and even where we've lived, gone to school and when and where we plan to vacation. This information can well cost us our jobs, marriages and finances, and it can affect our futures as it can topple governments.
Andrews gives concrete examples of misuse of personal information gleaned from the internet, and provides the information we need to protect ourselves from these abuses, including how to remove personal date from aggregator site. She also offers a new Social Network Constitution that contains ten truths, including the rights to free speech, freedom of expression, privacy of thoughts, emotions and sentiments and the right to a fair trial.
Lori Andrews is a law professor and director of the Institute for Science, Law and Technology at Illinois Institute of Technology. Her pro bono litigation caused the National Law Journal to list her as one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America and, in 2008, the American Bar Association listed her as a 'Newsmaker of the Year.'
THE OFFENSIVE INTERNET: Speech, Privacy and Reputation
Edited by Saul Levmore and Martha G. Nussbaum
Harvard University Press (2010) 978-0-674-05089-1, $27.95
This book focuses on abuses made possible by anonymity, freedom from liability and lack of oversight in the world of the internet. The several authors detail incidents of harassment in Internet chat rooms, detailing some of the 'vile and hateful speech' that the current combination of laws and technology breed.
Saul Levmore is the William B. Graham Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School.
Martha G. Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, and a founding President of the Human Development and Capability Association.
WARTIME DISSENT IN AMERICA: A History and Anthology
Robert Mann
Palgrave Macmillan (August 2010) 978-0-230-1084-6, $27.95
Robert Mann has eloquently traced wartime dissent in our country from the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War through World War One, Two, Korean and Vietnamese Wars to the current war on terrorism. Combining historical narrative and speeches and writings of the times, he reveals the opposition of those dissenters and the risks they took. In this book, Mann demonstrates that 'dissent, even during war and national crisis, has never threatened our democracy, but has strengthened it by raising issues of national debate.'
Robert Mann holds the Manship Chair at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. He is former aide to three U.S. Senators, and has written several political histories of the civil rights movement.
FIRST AMENDMENT STORIES
Richard W. Garnett and Andrew Koppelman, editors
Foundation Press (2012), 9781599417752, $37.83
The collection of articles by leading law professors contained in FIRST AMENDMENT STORIES offers the real stories behind the cases that have provided heated debates throughout the free-speech and religious-liberty and free-press traditions. Considered together, these stories illuminate the leading themes and questions that have animated our legal doctrines and public conversations – as well as the conflicts that arise between the power and goals of government and the liberty and conscience of the individual. Professor Richard Garnett is the founding director of Notre Dame Law School’s new Program in Church, State, and Society. Professor Andrew Koppelman is the John Paul Stevens Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University.
TAKING LIBERTY: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy
Susan N. Herman
Oxford University Press (2011), 9780199782543, $24.95
Beginning in late 2001, the Bush Administration undertook a series of measures to expand federal surveillance authority. Many thought these actions were warranted given the nightmare that was 9/11. But Susan H. Herman, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, recognizes the dangers that evolved with these measures. In TAKING LIBERTY, she details the erosion of liberty that has arisen, affecting not only immigrants, Americans of Middle Eastern descent and other nationalities, but any American who appears to be engaged in provocative political activity. She details incidents where ‘ordinary people’ can be caught in the government’s dragnet. Herman is a constitutional scholar, a professor at Brooklyn College Law School, co-editor of Terrorism, Government and Law, and the author of The Right to a Speedy and Public Trial.
SMOKING TYPEWRITERS
The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America
John McMillian
Oxford University Press (2011), 978-0195319927, $27.95
SMOKING TYPEWRITERS recounts the adventures and misadventures of the New Left and their publications, during the decade between 1960 and 1970. It explores the reasons why hoards of young people, many well educated and affluent, decided that the society of their time was seriously flawed and needed radical changes. Most newspapers and magazines of that period did not address their issues, so they created new ones. Following the lead of more relevant publications like the Los Angeles Free Press, East Village Other and Berkeley Barb, they created underground newspapers, small press magazines, flyers and pamphlets. McMillian shows how these publications and local communities were mutually dependant. John McMillian is Assistant Professor of History at Georgia State University. He is a founding editor of The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture.
THE NET DELUSION: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom
Evgeny Morozov
Public Affairs (2011), paperback, 9781610391061, $27.95
THE NET DELUSION examines how the Internet is used by dictators, their opponents and others and wonders whether this relatively new method of communication may be following radio and television as a tool for propaganda and brainwashing. He cites many individuals, including President Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton, who were strongly supportive of Internet freedom (of speech) but later spoke of the dangers of Internet ‘misuse.’ Morozov provides numerous case studies to show how we must stop thinking of the Internet and social media as instant cures for repression and how – in some cases – they can even threaten democracy.
Evgeny Morozov is the contributing editor to Foreign Policy and a regular contributor to Newsweek, The Economist, The International Herald Tribune, Prospect, Boston Review and other publications.
HEAVEN’S BRIDE: The Unprintable Life of Ida C. Craddock, American Mystic, Scholar, Sexologist, Martyr, and Madwoman
Leigh Eric Schmidt
Basic Books (2010), 0465002986, $28.95
HEAVEN'S BRIDE is the biography of Ida C. Craddock, who was hailed as a martyr for civil liberty. Between 1893 and 1902, Ms. Craddock produced six pamphlets offering frank advice to married couples. These were never published because they were considered obscene literature, not only by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, but also by her own mother, who threatened to destroy her writings. Her ‘career’ began with a defense of belly dancing; Ms. Craddock labored on behalf of marriage reform, but was arrested several times for ‘obscenity’ – becoming a martyr for civil liberty and a favorite of free-speech defenders and women’s rights activists. Leigh Eric Schmidt is professor of American Religious History at Harvard University.
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