FireInATheater.com

Richard Dawkins's Turkish publisher, Kuzey Publications, may face prosecution for its publication and distribution of his best-seller “The God Delusion”. One reader has complained that the book is "hurtful to members of religions living in Turkey, and wanted the book banned and the publishers punished," according to publisher Erol Karaaslan. The government has not yet decided whether to file charges. If it does so, such a prosecution would be the latest in a string of actions attempted against authors and publishers and brought under Penal Code article 301 which prohibits "insulting Turkishness."

A North Carolina law prohibiting “profane” or “indecent” language on public highways does not violate the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled recently in the case of an intoxicated individual who yelled at police officers.

The statute in question provides: “If any person shall, on any public road or highway and in the hearing of two or more persons, in a loud and boisterous manner, use indecent or profane language, he shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.”

Q: What if I named this blog post Muhammad?

A: If I were in the Sudan, I would be threatened with a legally sanctioned beating, imprisonment, deportation and, yes, execution by the crowds of sword-waving maniacs protesting my ill-advised choice.

Such was the fate of one unassuming-looking British teacher working in Sudan who unwittingly allowed her students to name a teddy bear Mohammed in violation of the draconian, misogynist and backward Islamic law. She currently is serving a 15-day prison sentence and awaiting deportation from the wretched African nation. She will spend that time in an overcrowded and mosquito-infested Sudanese hellpit. Meanwhile, throngs of violent, Koran-thumping ignoramuses continue chant for her death. Charming.

How about some blessings and peace upon free speech for once?
[Daily Mail]

Federal prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena that asked online retailer Amazon.com Inc. to identify thousands of buyers of used books, newly unsealed court records show.

The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits from the government.

“The chilling effect on expressive e-commerce would frost keyboards across America” when news of the subpoena spread, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker wrote in a June ruling. “Well-founded or not, rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon’s customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases.”

The executive privilege and state secrets doctrines are under attack.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy's (D-Vt.) ruled that “White House claims of executive privilege ‘are not legally valid to excuse current and former White House employees from appearing, testifying and producing documents related to [the U.S. Attorney firing] investigation,’" Sidebar reports.

In related news, “challenges are brewing to a key legal strategy President Bush is using to protect a secret surveillance program that monitors phone calls and e-mails inside the United States,” the so-called state secrets doctrine, AP reports.

According to Sidebar,

The [state secrets] principle was established a half-century ago when, ruling in a wrongful-death case brought by the widows of civilians killed in a military plane crash, the Supreme Court upheld the Air Force's refusal to provide an accident report to the plaintiffs. The government contended releasing the document would compromise information about a secret mission and intelligence equipment. The Bush administration has used the privilege in unprecedented numbers, and Congress and the courts are finally addressing this trend, which the Reporters Committee has been criticizing for several years.