Free Expression

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) is seeking bookstores to host reporters who want to speak to the public about growing efforts to force journalists to reveal their confidential sources.

ABFFE Chooses You Have No Rights as Book of the Month

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression recently named its Book of the Month for December: You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression by Matthew Rothschild (New Press).

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) have condemned a decision to remove two books from the ninth grade optional reading list at Westhampton Beach High School in Westhampton Beach, New York. On Tuesday, December 4, the Westhampton Beach Board of Education voted 4 - 3 to remove The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult and Cradle and All by James Patterson from a list of 300 books that students can use to select reading assignments.

High school reading selections and the teachers who assign them are under fire in Texas, suburban New York, and West Virginia. Local booksellers, bestselling authors, as well as parents and school administrators, have become involved in controversies in which advocates of free speech and intellectual openness are battling charges of child endangerment and promoting pornography.

In a stand against censorship, approximately 80 Young Adult authors are members of As If! (Authors Supporting Intellectual Freedom), a blog chronicling challenges to YA books around the country. Author members include M.T. Anderson, Meg Cabot, Cynthia Kadohata, Gregory McGuire, and Lisa Yee.

On Tuesday, September 25, the sponsors of the Campaign for Reader Privacy (CRP) -- the American Booksellers Association, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, and PEN American Center -- lauded the introduction in the U.S. Senate of the National Security Letter Reform Act of 2007, a bipartisan bill to safeguard citizens' privacy.

Banned Books Week begins on Saturday, September 29, and the American Booksellers Association and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) have collaborated to produce "The Freadom List," a selection of titles for children and adults that have been most frequently challenged or banned.

On Thursday, September 6, a federal judge struck down parts of the revised USA Patriot Act relating to the FBI's power to use National Security Letters (NSLs) to obtain customer records. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero declared the Patriot Act provision to be unconstitutional because it allows the FBI to issue gag orders without adequate judicial review.

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) has chosen Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War Over Anonymous Sources (FSG) by Norman Pearlstine as its Boo

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a lower court decision striking down a provision of a federal child pornography law that bans "pandering" advertisements for books, magazines, and other works protected by the First Amendment.

For this year's celebration of Banned Books Week, September 29 - October 6, many independent booksellers are planning special events and displays that celebrate free speech and emphasize the importance of protecting customers' First Amendment rights. Plans include the tried and true, and others, such as King's Books' "Banned Books Slut Social," are a first.

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) has announced the appointment of two new members to its Board of Directors: Mitchell Kaplan of Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida, and Will Peters of Annie Bloom's Books in Portland, Oregon. Kaplan and Peters will serve three-year terms.

In late July, U.K. publisher Cambridge University Press announced that it had agreed to destroy all unsold copies of Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World by J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins after Saudi billionaire Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz threatened a libel lawsuit against the publisher.

As stated in the Acknowledgements of Poems From Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak (Marc Falkoff, Ed., University of Iowa Press) collecting the poems for this volume was "no easy task." It took many human rights lawyers, as well as other Constitutional and human rights advocate

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) announced that it is offering two new products incorporating a redesigned version of its popular FREADOM logo -- a small circular button and a T-shirt.