James Lewis on current legal restrictions on publishers [fs]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Politech] Fed pressure on publishers
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 11:09:29 -0500
From: James Lewis <JALewis () csis org>
To: <declan () well com>

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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