In the wake of the September Eleventh terrorist attacks, the mood of the general public and the political and legal climate has dramatically changed. This change is significantly affecting our freedom of speech, privacy rights and civil liberties. We have become so fearful of terrorism that we are willingly giving up our rights guaranteed by the Constitution and federal legislation, and our voices are silenced from uttering anything that can be perceived as offensive or critical of the Bush Administration.
Indicative of this change, Attorney General John Ashcroft discreetly issued a statement on the new policy that encourages federal agencies to resist Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests whenever a legal ground exists. This policy departs from the "foreseeable harm" standard that encouraged openness since 1993. The FOIA was established to allow ordinary citizens to review public records and allowed journalists, historians and advocacy groups to keep the government honest. Now, the right to know takes a back seat to the government’s need to safeguard our security.
Further, Congress passed broad anti-terrorism legislation that grants federal law enforcement officials sweeping authority to physically search suspected "agents of a foreign power" and monitor their electronic activities without the usual judiciary checks and balances. In practice, this new legislation extends beyond investigations of suspected terrorists and is encroaching on the rights of American citizens.
The new anti-terrorism law - the USA Patriot Act - may permit school officials to open student computer files without permission, report on the books checked out of the library, and collect data on who is sending e-mail to whom. One law permits FBI agents to intercept the communication of a suspected network trespasser, without a warrant, and another provision prohibits colleges from disclosing that federal agents have sought records in an investigation of persons potentially tied to hostile governments. Many colleges are having a difficult time interpreting the complex body of laws involving terrorism on the one hand and privacy rights on the other hand. Such sweeping legislation is engendering an atmosphere of worry and confusion and is hindering the channels of open discourse, debate and dissent. Moreover, schools are attempting to control speech that appears to be unpatriotic or offensive to survivors of the terrorist attacks. A sample of the climate on school campuses across the nation follows:
In late October, a high school student was suspended for wearing a T-shirt that said "Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, I’m So Proud of the People in the Land of the So-Called Free," after the principal denied her request to organize an anarchist group. The student brought legal action claiming a freedom of speech violation and lost in the West Virginia lower court and Supreme Court.
McCarter Elementary School in Topeka mandated students to wear patriotic Halloween costumes instead of traditional costumes, and seventeen out of 21 elementary schools in the same school district encouraged students to wear patriotic costumes.
Dormitory residents at Central Michigan University were asked to remove items that may be considered offensive after complaints were made to residence hall staff. Among the items were pictures of Osama bin Laden and a burning American flag amidst a burning Afghanistan town. At the University of Texas, students were ordered to remove red, white and blue ribbons because of the potential to offend survivors of the terrorist attacks, and at another school, a secretary was asked to remove a flag from her office, which hung in honor of a friend who died on one of the hijacked planes.
Secret service agents investigated a student’s apartment at Durham Tech for displaying potentially un-American material on her walls. The work in question was a poster of President Bush with a rope in his hand, accompanied by the words: " We Hang on Your Every Word. Bush, Wanted: 152 Dead." The poster refers to the number of prisoners put to death while Bush governed Texas.
The encroachment on our privacy rights extends beyond school campuses to bookstores. The new anti-terrorist law gives police more power to review booksellers’ records, and it prohibits sellers from telling anyone about the search request. It does not bar obtaining a lawyer, but the case may not reach a judge or may not be open to the public or even the bookstore owner. Booksellers nationwide are alarmed. For instance, the bookstore owner of the Tattered Cover, Joyce Meskis, is being sued in the Colorado Supreme Court for resisting disclosure of the store’s records. She is defending readers' privacy rights and fears the chilling effect on book buyers.
FBI and secret service agents are harassing activists and artists, and publishers are firing anti-war columnists and cartoonists. For example, FBI and secret service agents appeared at the Art Car Museum in Houston to investigate anti-American activity related to a show entitled "Secret Wars" which contains many anti-war statements. Of particular interest was a painting by artist Lynn Randolph of the Houston skyline burning and George Bush, Sr. dancing around in the belly of the devil. The federal agents inquired into the origin of the artists, the source of the museum’s funding and the number of museum visitors.
A Director of the Photography Museum at Daytona Beach Community College resigned when she was asked to cancel an exhibition on Afghanistan. After serving as an independent curator of the museum for 10 years, college officials told her that her exhibitions have a liberal bias and that she was elitist. Shortly thereafter, they formed a new advisory committee that would oversee future museum exhibits. The college officials deny that they requested her to cancel the show and concede that they asked her to reschedule the show so that it wasn’t displayed simultaneously with another exhibit celebrating patriotism in America. She was asked to quit or be reassigned to an administrative position.
Aaron McGruder’s comic strip, "The Boondocks," was removed from many newspapers after September 11th for its anti-war commentary, and lesser-known cartoonists may be even more vulnerable to censorship. Other examples are:
In mid-November, the Utah newspaper, The Spectrum, issued an apology for a cartoon it published from Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Benson. The cartoon depicted President Bush dropping bombs that carried messages, such as "Starving millions of Afghans" and "Killing innocent civilians." Many subscribers threatened to cancel their subscriptions if the paper refused to apologize.
Cartoonist Todd Persche was fired after publishing a couple of cartoons in the Baraboo News Republican in Wisconsin. One said, "When the media keeps pounding on the war drum…it’s hard to hear other points of view," and another comic strip was about Big Brother "turning our civil rights upside down."
In early February, cartoonist Mike Marland drew a cartoon for the Concord Monitor that depicted President Bush flying an airplane into the two towers, one labeled "Social," and the other labeled "Security." After receiving a plethora of complaints, the editor issued a formal apology. Shortly after the controversy, Tim McCarthy, a prize-winning journalist for the Courier, was fired, partly for defending Marland’s cartoon. (Another contributing factor to McCarthy’s demise was his repeated criticisms of Bush’s policy on the war and violations of civil liberties.)
The music and film industries have changed their programming in the midst of this new climate. In September, Clear Channel Communications, one of the nations largest radio networks, distributed to its program directors across the country a list of potentially inappropriate songs that they should avoid playing. Among the list of over 100 songs are: John Lennon’s Imagine, the Bangles’ Walk Like an Egyptian, Elvis’ (You’re the) Devil in Disguise, and Pat Benetar’s Love is a Battlefield.
The film industry has been canceling or postponing the release of certain films and rewriting scripts since September 11th to avoid the display of offensive content. In October, Universal Studios deleted a throwaway line containing the word "terrorism" from the twentieth anniversary edition of ET before it was released in 2002. Other film studios eliminated the production of violent movies and removed references to the World Trade Center. Paramount Pictures altered shots of the World Trade Center in Zoolander to exclude the image of the towers. On TV, an episode of Friends was edited to avoid scenes of Monica and Chandler waiting in an airport for a long time, and some advertisers and local TV stations dropped ABC’s Politically Incorrect after host Bill Maher referred to past US military actions as "cowardly."
Have we become hypersensitive to references to terrorism? Or is the sensitivity to offensive speech and scrutiny of potentially un-American expression or criticism of the Bush Administration justified during this crisis? We are all saddened by the tragic events of September 11th and fearful of the reoccurrence of terrorism. No doubt, our concern for public safety is a serious one, and our collective feeling of patriotism is commendable. However, it is time to question this new landscape that limits our freedom of speech, privacy rights and civil liberties. Isn’t it ironic that while we are fighting a war to defend democracy around the globe, our Constitutional rights are being threatened at home?
About the Author:
Donna M. Hart practiced corporate law in New York for six years, until she decided to make a change from mergers and acquisitions, public offerings and private placements to arts management. She is currently studying arts administration at NYU School of Continuing Education and Professional Studies and hopes to find her place as a collection manager or manager of a gallery, museum or performing arts organization. This is her first article for the Newsletter.
Resources:
Attorney General John Ashcroft’s Freedom of Information Act Memorandum can be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/foiapost/2001foiapost19.htm
Read the full text of the USA PATRIOT Act at http://www.law.cornell.edu/background/warpower/3162.html
See the following publications for examples of censorship:
The Progressive, "McCarthyism Watch" (comics) at http://progressive.org/webex/wxmc030902.html and
"The New McCarthyism" (Art Car Museum, poster at Durham Tech, high school student’s T-shirt, cartoons) at http://progressive.org/0901/roth0102.html
Washington Post, “Dissenters Find Colleges Less Tolerant of Discord Following Attacks” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/archives/
[n.b. availiable at The Washington Post Website through an archive search and submission of web form for a return email of the article.]
The Chronicle of Higher Education: Information Technology, "Colleges Fear Anti-Terrorism Law Could Turn Them Into Big Brother," March 1, 2002 issue (invasion of student computer files, guidelines established by universities) at http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i25/25a03101.htm
CJOnline, "School Nixes Traditional Costumes" (Halloween costumes) at http://www.cjonline.com/stories/102401/com_schoolcostumes.shtml
Central Michigan Life on the Web, "No policies change after flag incident" (materials in dormitory) at http://www.cm-life.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2001/10/24/3bd64f07b5998
Rocky Mountain News, "Bookstore’s privacy fight revs up" at http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_1061730,00.html
Daytona Beach News Journal, “Photography Museum Director Resigns Over Afghanistan Exhibit” http://www.news-journalonline.com/2001/Dec/13/AREA3.htm
Slate, "It’s the End of the World as Clear Channel Knows It" at http://slate.msn.com/?id=1008314
Eonline, " 'Imagine' All the Inappropriate Songs"at http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,8842,00.html
