This is an old struggle.

From: "Michael E. Marotta" <MERCURY@LCC.EDU>
Subject: Book Review--Exporting the First Amendment
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 91 09:11 EST

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*** CuD #3.05: File 7 of 8: Review--Exporting the First Amndmnt ***
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BOOK REVIEW: Exporting the First Amendment: The Press-Government Crusade
1945-1952 by Margaret A. Blanchard, Longman Publishers, New York, 1986.

This book was reviewed in the same issue (Vol. 39, No. 3. Oct 1987) of the
Federal Communication Law Journal that contains the article "An Electronic
Soapbox: Computer Bulletin Boards and the First Amendment." "Soapboax" was
cited by The Electronic Frontier Foundation in the amicus curiae brief on
behalf of Len Rose. EXPORTING THE FIRST AMENDMENT is the more telling
tale.

Time and again, Eleanor Roosevelt and her team mates from the United States
were overpowered by compromisers who viewed "freedom of the press" as a
necessary evil. To most of the delegates to the press conventions in
Geneva and New York, RESTRICTING the press by adopting "principles of
responsibility" was more important.

Freedom of the press was for everyone EXCEPT... Except for issues of
national security (all nations agreed with that). Except for when the
press in one place insults the politicians in another place (Egypt's King
Farouk enjoyed the Riveria and Monte Carlo). Except when materials are
injurious to youth (Scandanavia and France feared American comic books and
the communists hated the daily comics because in the background was all
this luxury). Except when opinions are injurious to the reputation of
natural and legal individuals (a "legal individual" is a corporation). And
indeed, while Eleanor Roosevelt was insisting that the press should be
free, the United States was chasing "communist" writers at home and abroad.

Sadly, the author actually shares the views of the totalitarians. To
Blanchard, the press is like religion or politics, it is an institution
than cannot be superimposed on a culture. However, freedom of the press is
merely a logical extension of the freedom to speak which comes from the
freedom to think. Why it is that Islam and Christianity and atheism,
socialism and communism and capitalism, hot dogs and tofu and tacos can be
exported and imported but freedom of the press cannot?