[Politech] James Lewis on current legal restrictions on publishers [fs]

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Wed Mar 03 2004 - 21:46:20 PST

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    -------- Original Message --------
    Subject: Re: [Politech] Fed pressure on publishers
    Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 11:09:29 -0500
    From: James Lewis <JALewis@private>
    To: <declan@private>
    
    Declan:
    
    A friend pointed me to the "Berman Amendment" to the 1988 Omnibus Trade and 
    Competitiveness Act..  It provides (it's still law) an exemption to sanctions 
    for "information or informational materials" and says that the government does 
    not have the "authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly  the 
    importation from any country, or the exportation to any country, whether 
    commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission, of any 
    information or informational materials, including but not limited to, 
    publications" I would consider a restriction on editing for publication the kind 
    of 'indirect' prohibition forbidden by the amendment.  That said, enforcement 
    agencies tend to automatically expand restrictions well beyond what was intended 
    or what is reasonable unless they are checked by political leadership or public 
    complaint.  Here's a link to an interesting January 2004 analysis from the 
    Association of American Publishers on OFAC's successful effort to narrow the 
    scope of the amendment:
      http://www.pspcentral.org/committees/executive/OFAC_background.doc
    
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