Professors at Idaho State University claim that the administration is blocking their e-mails to and from a professors union on the faculty e-mail listerv. The professors have taken their complaint to federal court to end the alleged censorship. -db From the Courthouse News Service, February 16, 2012, by Philip A. Janquart. Full story
Republican state lawmakers in Arizona are proposing legislation requiring teachers to limit their words to comply with the Federal Communications Commission standards for on-air speech. Under the law a teacher could be fired after a third offense. From The Republic , February 12, 2012, by Alia Beard Rau. Full story
A Colorado legislator introduced a measure to repeal the state’s criminal libel statute. As of now a person can go to jail for publishing libel. The legislator was inspired to introduce the law by the case of a former student at the University of Colorado who posted a photo of a professor on the Internet that made the professor look like a KISS guitarist. The student spent a week in jail but the charges were
Using the Internet can be dangerous in Iran and recently the government has increasingly blocked and filtered traffic. The measure are thought to be part of a process of moving to a national Halal Internet excluding the world-wide net, blocking all foreign sites and restricting users to state-approved content. -db From a commentary for the Electronic Freedom Foundation, February 11, 2012, by Eva Galperin. Full story
The Chicago Tribune pulled the DonorsChoose cartoon in the Doonesbury strip on the grounds that the cartoon promoted cartoonist Garry Trudeau’s self-interest in making an appeal for a particular charity contrary to Tribune policy. Trudeau disputed that the cartoon ws in his self interest since the appeal was for a charity that he was not connected with. -db From a commentary in The Washington Post, February 6, 2012, by Michael Cavna. Full story