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Edward Snowden is not entitled to the profits from his memoir Permanent Record, and any money made must go to the US government, a judge has ruled.

Permanent Record, in which Snowden recounts how he came to the decision to leak the top secret documents revealing government plans for mass surveillance, was published in September. Shortly afterwards, the US government filed a civil lawsuit contending that publication was in violation of the non-disclosure agreements he signed with both the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA), and that the release of the book without pre-publication review by the agencies was in violation of his express obligations. Snowdens lawyers had argued that if the author had believed that the government would review his book in good faith, he would have submitted it for review.

Earlier this week, district judge Liam OGrady ruled that the government is entitled to Snowdens proceeds from the book.

In response, Snowden wrote on Twitter: The government may steal a dollar, but it cannot erase the idea that earned it I wrote this book for you, and I hope the governments ruthless desperation to prevent its publication only inspires you read it and then gift it to another.

Asked by one fan if it was possible to buy the book and donate the same amount to Snowden, as an easy way to stick it to the US government, Snowden recommended that readers donate money to the families who had helped shelter him in Hong Kong after the story broke in 2013, providing a link to the charity that supports them.

Snowden said the book would continue to be sold. The courts ruling is a hack intended to circumvent first amendment limits on what the government can censor, he told his followers. They cant (yet) ban the book, so they ban profit to try and prevent such books from being written in the first place.

Snowdens lawyer, Brett Max Kaufman, told the New York Times that it was far-fetched to believe that the government would have reviewed Mr Snowdens book or anything else he submitted in good faith, and for that reason, Mr Snowden preferred to risk his future royalties than to subject his experiences to improper government censorship.

We disagree with the courts opinion and will review our options, he added.

Excerpt from:
Edward Snowdens profits from memoir must go to US government, judge rules - The Guardian

I dont know about you, dear reader, but I personally have a very long and storied relationship with the Banned Book List. Perhaps it was growing up in Austin, Texas, around well-educated hippies and cause heads who taught me to stand up to someone dictating what is deemed appropriate without asking. Maybe its just that I dont like people telling me what I can and cannot read, and I very strongly feel no one should have dominion over what another person reads. Weve seen it time and again throughout history, this unfathomable attempt to censor works because people deem the message dangerous, or it doesnt fit a comfortable narrative. Its especially damaging when ignorance is dressed up as concern for children.

I dont think I remember a time when someone wasnt talking about the banned book list. One might not think that public schools in Texas would take issue with such a list. One might even presume it would be the librarians bible given the geography, but I found the exact opposite to be true. From the time we were learning to read, the banned book list was a topic of discussion. In every school, with every passing grade it was something to be examined, discussed, and in later years protested. The high school I attended participated in Banned Book Week every year. I vividly remember the librarian, and her assistant picking through the shelves to fill the cart with with materials. Teachers and students alike waited anxiously for the sign-up sheet to be posted, wherein we would select a slot to read aloud. For an entire week from the time the building opened until it closed students, teachers, and staff would pluck a tome from the heaping cart, and read aloud for any passer by. Year after year I was left with one glaring question: Why would anyone want to ban a book?

First, whats the difference between banned and challenged? Challenged is when an individual or group petitions to have a work removed from libraries, school curriculum, or otherwise restrict access based on specific reasons, e.g. contains LGBTQ themes, strong language, etc. A ban is the outright removal of those works. Who are these people? It could be anyone really. Parents, religious groups, staff and faculty, or even the students themselves.

In many cases people or groups challenge a book with the best of intentions. They feel the book depicts negative stereotypes, strong language or sexual content not suitable for age groups, depict social, religious, or political views. Regardless of the reason, perhaps banned is the wrong word for this list. The ALA and various groups on both sides of the issue agree that none of these books are outright banned in the United States, as the legal silence and censorship of any work is a direct violation of the First Amendment. Instead, what these challenges and bans do is seek to limit access to what people deem harmful works. They seek to remove them from public and school library bookshelves, and curricula for grades K12. Lets take a closer look at what these lists show us about the books and their authors.

In researching reasons books are challenged I was most surprised to find that year after year the top books were consistently reported for two things; profanity and sexual references. Some years we see an uptick in reports related to homosexual content, promoting the homosexual agenda, and religious views. Primarily, however, those expressing concerns most often site foul language, and anything involving sexuality and the human body. I found myself further confused when those language reports involved young adult books whose target audience is primarily the 12-18 age group. One could imagine theyve heard more colorful language in popular television, or in school.

I will admit that when I myself was in that age bracket I was particularly foul mouthed. When I hear of a book being reported for sexual content my first instinct is that they would be reporting The Pearl, printed for the Society of Vice in the late 1800s, or perhaps The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, by A.N. Roquelaure. In both cases I can see why someone may not be particularly keen on young children thumbing through illicit pages of sexual exploration and erotica at an age where Pokemon and Yo Gabba Gabba are still topics of regular conversation. What I did not expect to find is books like The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas or The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, wherein anything related to sex is minimal and by no means the central point of these books.

Even Its Perfectly Normal by Robi Harris is a shock as its a book about what happens to the human body aimed at kids. In one report it was actually sited as being child pornography. My Moms Having A Baby! A Kids Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancyby Dori Hillestad Butler was similarly hit as being sexually explicit when its intended purpose is to explain the process of pregnancy and birth to children and speak on their level. Nudity, sexually explicit context, or sexual education remains a popular reason to keep books out of the hands of youths, and out of popular media.

You may notice I did not cite inappropriate for age group in my statistics. There is a very specific reason for leaving it out. This applies either via direct citation as a reason, or in the spirit of the report topic to each and every report on the Banned Book list. On the topic of age appropriate content, reported books run the spectrum of available literature. From classic to sci-fi, books are reported right and left because they are perceived inappropriate for an age group on some level.

The most surprising to me on this front are books that are specifically written for an age group. The Captain Underpants Series, by Dav Pilkey is regularly criticized by reports to the list for being anti-family, and unsuited for the age group (711 year olds) for which it was written. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, while once was required reading in schools, is now deemed inappropriate for children according to The Banned Book List. I would then pose the question: What is appropriate for an age group if not works specifically written towards a target demographic?

So what do we take away from lists of the most challenged works, and the Banned Books list itself? In this day and age has it outlived its usefulness?

Constitutionally speaking, no book or piece of art can be banned. Based on the numbers, the reports, and that it seems as if just about anything is going to be challenged, including the Christian Bible, should the list be done away with all together? Should it serve as more of a rating capacity like the MPAA film rating system, or the ESRB for video games? Or should it serve as a platform for broader discussions? When we look at challenged books across the board, not just the top ten lists it reflects an unwillingness to have a conversation. Would it be possible to use the banned book list to see oppositional sides, and examine values we may not share in order to better understand another persons perspective? While we all take a look at those questions individuals, schools, and even stores will continue to celebrate Banned Book Week by finding ways to oppose those lists and challenges.

Please note the challenge reasons can vary from year to year. This is only a snapshot of over all challenge reasons.

8 times on the ALA Top Ten Challenged List

Synopsis: This childrens book tells the story of Ray and Silo, two male penguins at the zoo. The zookeeper, Mr. Gramsay, gives the pair an egg to hatch and care for. The female chick hatches and is subsequently named Tango by the zookeepers. Thus their family is complete with the addition of the couples baby girl. This is based on the true story of the authors falling in love at the Central Park Zoo in New York City.

Challenge reasons: anti-family, homosexuality, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, additionally promotes the homosexual agenda

7 times on on the ALA Top Ten Challenged List

Synopsis: This story is presented in diary format. Were presented with the story of Junior; a 14-year-old young man growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation through the course of a year. Junior is a hydrocephalic, small for his age, has a lisp, poor eyesight, and is prone to seizures, which makes him a target for regular bullying on the reservation. In a moment of anger regarding the poverty experienced both by his family and the reservation at large, he throws a book at his teacher. To address his frustrations the teacher suggests he attend a more affluent high school near by. Junior accepts and we follow him for a year as he adjusts to life in a predominantly white school, struggles to maintain his native heritage, faces tragedies on the reservation, and ultimately reconciles with friends on the reservation who felt left behind by his decision to transfer schools.

Challenge reasons: sexual references, profanity, violence, gambling, and underage drinking, and for its religious viewpoint

Note: Sherman Alexie has admitted to allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct against female authors.

7 times on the ALA Top Ten Challenged List

Synopsis: This coming-of-age novel follows Charlie in a series of letters to an unknown party. Through the letters we witness Charlie experience changing friendships, a shift in family dynamics, and the pitfalls of being socially awkward in high school. Charlie examines very serious relationship dynamics in his sisters abusive relationship and her unwillingness to leave her abuser, and in the decline of his friends relationship with a closeted homosexual football player. Through the course of the book Charlie must come to terms with his own trauma and relationships.

Challenge reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

6 times on the ALA Top Ten Challenged List

Synopsis: Captain Underpants is the accidental, but really kind of on purpose, alter ego of the ill-tempered principal Mr. Krupp. The series primarily revolves around the misadventures of two 4th graders, George Beard and Harold Hutchins. The boys cause Captain Underpants to go from comic book character they have created to real life by hypnotizing Mr. Krupp.

Challenge reasons: anti-family content, unsuited to age group, violence

5 times on the ALA Top Ten Challenged List

Synopsis: Jerry is a new student at an elite Catholic school, where he must face the hazing practices of the student body. When the teacher Brother Leon commits the school to selling twice as much chocolate, Jerry is coerced by the head of the schools secret society to abstain from selling for ten days. When Jerry decides not to sell past the ten days, he finds himself further pitted against.

Challenge reasons: nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

4 times on the ALA Top Ten Challenged List

Synopsis: In this coming of age story, Callie is a middle school student and theater lover. She works as part of the production crew rather than on stage. Callie struggles with confusing crushes, tween frustrations, and budding friendships.

Challenge reasons: challenged because it includes LGBT characters, was deemed sexually explicit, and was considered to have an offensive political viewpoint

4 times on the ALA Top Ten Challenged List

Synopsis: This father and son story revolves around Amir, the son of a wealthy merchant, and his friend Hazara, the son of his fathers servant. The boys spend their days kite fighting to escape their situation in Kabul. The boys bond is strained as the city falls around them, and ultimately broken. Amir must journey back home to right past wrongs when he learns of tragedies that have befallen his oldest friend.

Challenge reasons: offensive language, unsuited to age group, violence

4 times on the ALA Top Ten Challenged List

Synopsis: Miles Halter transfers in his junior year from his regular high school in Florida to Culver Creek Preparatory High School in Alabama. There, he meets a colorful cast of characters including Chip The Colonel Martin, hip-hop emcee Takumi Hikohito, and the titular Alaska Young. Alaska is a beautiful and emotionally unstable young woman. She is distant and insists she and Miles maintain a platonic relationship. Tragic and beautiful, the book navigates a complex coming-of-age story for our main character Miles.

Challenge reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

4 times on the ALA Top Ten Challenged List

Synopsis: Based on true events, Craig and Harry, two 17-year-olds, are taking part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing for the Guinness Book of World Records. While the story revolves around these two young men, it is told by a Greek Chorus of gay men who have died of AIDS.

Challenge reasons: challenged and burned for including LGBTQIA+ content

4 times on the ALA Top Ten Challenged List

Synopsis: Written as a series of IMs complete with send and cancel buttons at the bottom of each page, Angela (SnowAngel), Maddie (mad maddie), and Zoe (zoegirl) take us on an adolescent roller coaster ride beginning in their Sophomore year of high school. Boys, driving lessons, school woes, and other more complicated things life has to offer the girls weather the storm via text based conversation.

Challenge reasons: offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

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The Statistics of Censorship - Book Riot

In late June, the San Francisco Board of Education gathered to resolve a problem that had recently been brought its attention. An 83-year-old, Depression-era mural on the walls of one San Francisco high school had started to bother some people. Painted by left-leaning artist Victor Arnautoff, the 13-panel artwork in George Washington High School had been created through a New Deal art program. Arnautoff had the task of painting Life of Washington, which spanned a whopping 1,600 square feet.

So as not to lionize the first president excessively, Arnautoff painted Washington standing near the body of a dead Native American man, and he also depicts enslaved African Americans. Today, after almost a century, the mural is not as liberal as it once was in the eyes of the public.

Its always an issue when anyone wants to remove or cover or displace art, Board Vice President Mark Sanchez said. But there are countervailing issues we had to look at as well. We believe students shouldnt be exposed to violent imagery that its degrading.

The school board voted unanimously to destroy the mural, though not everyone agreed with its post-woke interpretation. When one teacher asked her freshman English class to write either in favor of or against the mural, 45 out of 49 students supported it. The fresco shows us exactly how brutal colonization and genocide really were and are," one student wrote. "The fresco is a warning and reminder of the fallibility of our hallowed leaders.

Two months later, the opposing sides reached a compromise: The mural would be covered up but not painted over. Still, it will no longer be seen.

But why stop there? Art censors of the world, why not also hide Francisco Goya's The Third of May 1808 or Picasso's Guernica, both startling images of conflict? In fact, a reproduction of Guernica was briefly covered up at the United Nations more than 15 years ago during a speech about the war in Iraq. It used to be that if you censored art, you had something to hide. Now, it means you're not ready to face reality.

After decades of railing against censorship in the arts, some liberals have now fully embraced it. Statues of Southern generals and Christopher Columbus are already pass. Theres a disturbing new development in art criticism among the elites, and it has nothing to do with whether Renoir was sexist in his personal life. Now, its not enough to critique unethical artists or their "problematic" subjects. You must also stand against depictions of bad things because we are supposedly unprepared to see them.

Comedian and actress Sarah Silverman learned this earlier this year. She appeared in blackface during a comedy sketch in 2007 to make fun of overly woke liberals. This year, Silverman said it came back to bite her.

I recently was going to do a movie, two days on a movie, a really sweet part, she said on a podcast this summer. Then, at 11 p.m. the night before, they fired me because they saw a picture of me in blackface from that episode.

It didn't matter that her whole act was meant to make fun of people who might use blackface. Her means were simply too transgressive.

This fashionable frontier in art censorship is also plaguing academia, and not just high schools. At Marylands Washington College, an antiracist play was recently canceled because it depicted some characters dressed in KKK robes. Because the bad guys were Ku Klux Klan members, The Foreigner, a pro-immigrant comedy, was canceled an hour before its last dress rehearsal. Heaven forbid a work of art depict anything actually evil.

Author Joyce Carol Oates recently regretted that Flannery O'Connor's antiracist short story The Artificial N----- was excluded from an anthology because publishers refused it on the grounds of an offensive title. Oates explained that it was futile to explain that O'Connor was excoriating racism, not promoting it.

Art censors may argue, as Sanchez did about the Washington mural, that viewing violent or disturbing imagery is "degrading." But there's another problem that art viewers face, one that is possibly the most degrading of all: ignorance. When you're so afraid of offending people, you lose your ability to make art, and when you refuse to address evil, you lose your ability to stop it.

Visit link:
The year art censorship came back in style - Washington Examiner

A new study shows that artists across the world are facing greater threats to their free speechand safety. Photo: PA Images

Scottish playwright Jo Clifford is no stranger to controversy. Her play,The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven, casts Jesus as a trans woman, andfirst aired at Glasgows Tron in 2009 to a reception of applauseand protest.But there is controversy, and then there is outright danger. The same play was on tour in Brazil until recently, when asmoke bombwas thrown into the performance space and armed police invaded the theatre. Brazil hasbecome a country where it is dangerous to perform, especially if your show does not tick the boxes set out by the new right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, who haspushedfor local art to focus on Brazilian heroes.

The incident warns of a new threat sweeping the world right now: the censorship of the arts. Aspecial reportin the latestIndex on Censorshipmagazine published this week shows a rising hostile climate towards the arts, even in robust democracies. Artists from around the world, including Germany, Poland, Brazil, and the UK spoke of the increasing threats to their artistic freedom as a result of an emboldened right. Perhaps most startling was the frequencyof attacks in the field.Indexwent out expecting to find just a few examples. Instead, the list was endless.

A threat from the right

While the spotlightin recent years has been on censorship from the student left, with concerns about the rise of safe spaces, trigger warnings and no-platforming, real and increasing threats are coming from the right. They are taking away our libertiesand liberal arts.

We are on the front line of a culture war that will only deepen and strengthen as the ecological and financial crisis worsens and the right feel more fearfully they are losing their grip on power, saidThe Gospel According to Jesus playwright Clifford.She added that even in Scotland, her play can ruffle feathers.Last Christmas there was a run at Edinburghs Traverse Theatre. An online petition demanding the play be banned, she tells me, attracted a whopping 24,674 signatures.

Germany is particularly feeling the heat.The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has gone from newcomer on the political scene in 2013 to being the largest opposition party in the Bundestag today. They are eyeing up seats in parliamentand in the theatre. Marc Jongen, commonly regarded tobe

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There's a new free speech crisis gripping the worldand governments aren't helping - Prospect

SportFootballPremier LeagueEvasion of questions about alleged rights abuses in Qatar was weirdly off-colour from the usually erudite and right-on Liverpool manager

Wednesday, 18th December 2019, 3:01 pm

Sometimes, no matter how vexing or obtuse a problem first seems, a working solution can be distilled simply by dent of the time, resources and willing that are available to be poured into solving it.

Ever since the oppressive Gulf state was revealed as the host for the 2022 World Cup, football leaders and officials in the liberal West have known they will have questions to answer on behalf of their clubs and national associations regarding the ethics of participation.

i's fantasy football tipsnewsletter: get ahead

In Liverpool's case, these games in Qatar have been in the diary since they lifted the Champions League trophy in June. They were not dropped on them suddenly, nor did the public discussion surrounding alleged abuses of rights by the regime in Doha crystallise overnight. On the question of time and brain-power, the club had sufficient whack with which to prepare a considered response to the predictable questions that greeted Jurgen Klopp when the team arrived in Qatar.

Yet facing the press on Tuesday the manager, who has previously shared so freely and carefully his views on matters relating to social justice, spoke like he had been deprogrammed, the evasive twaddle of one who is disengaged from the question and is herding the conversation back onto company-approved ground.

"I have an opinion on football, but this is a real serious thing to talk about, I think, and the answers should come from people who know more about it," Klopp said. "Organisers have to think about these things, not the athletes. I like that you ask the question, but I think I am the wrong person."

The club's position had, in part, already been made formal in the content of a letter sent by Anfield chief executive Peter Moore earlier in December to the London-based human rights group Fair/Square who campaign on behalf of the families of migrant workers killed during construction projects for the 2022 showpiece. In it, Moore wrote that the club had sought background detail assurances from the supreme committee of the World Cup organisers regarding progress on workers' rights, and backed the group's assertion that "all unexplained deaths should be investigated thoroughly".

The letter stopped short of proffering a condemnation of Doha's record on safeguarding workers' rights, what the group that called for it had euphemistically termed "a public statement of concern", a reminder that football has installed itself behind a kind of flood barrier to protect against the need for taking a meaningful position on the wider implications of the game's continued global growth. You expect it from the suits at the very top echelons. But from the erudite and usually shoot-from-the-hip Klopp, the dreary on-the-fence neutrality felt weirdly off-colour.

It's telling that this has come in the same week as Mesut Ozil's public criticism of the rights of Muslim minorities in China, and the various responses - or lack of - that his words have drawn from different quarters. His employers Arsenal broke their silence only to confirm that they intended to remain silently "apolitical" on the matter, whilst the ex-Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure condemned Ozil's temerity in speaking out. Footballers have to stay with football and politicians to politics," said Toure. "Because you cannot be involved with this kind of thing, because it's going to attract a lot of problems." It's more sensible not to upset the apple cart when the apple cart is doling out your wage slips. Maybe the price of a conscience has simply become too high.

It isn't necessarily about placing income directly in jeopardy - though the fallout in China from NBA executive Daryl Morey's support for public protesters against the Chinese government in Hong Kong suggests that broadcasters, merchandisers and publicists will be prepared to pull their support for a sporting product over politics (several Chinese companies and brands have suspended or cut ties with the NBA following Morey's remarks in October.) China's state broadcaster was also quick to shelve plans to broadcast Arsenal's game against Man City on Sunday in the wake of Ozil's remarks.

This is really more a matter of culture, of the football establishment - of which Arsenal, Liverpool and Toure are intrinsically a part - showing public respect for those newest stakeholders in the global game who are paying astronomical sums for their seat at the table. They expect to be treated with the respect that their investments warrant. After all, what is the point in ploughing billions into campaigns to align rotten regimes with the world's most popular sport if organically likeable actors like Klopp are going to spit on you?

It's worth noting that the issues raised by Ozil and by Fair/Square don't come from conspiracy theories peddled by outliers and cranks. The causes of workers and LGBT rights in Qatar and of the situation of Muslim minorities in northern China are the concern of the United Nations and international NGO Human Rights Watch. There has been no moving of the moral goalposts, only a re-positioning of where football sits between them.

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Football is sliding into a bubble of self-censorship and even Jurgen Klopp has gone quiet - inews