A riveting history of the Supreme Court decision that set the legal precedent for citizen challenges to government surveillance The tension between national security and civil rights is nowhere more evident than in the fight over government domestic surveillance. Governments must be able to collect information at some level, but surveillance has become increasingly controversial due to its more egregious uses and abuses, which tips the balance toward increased-and sometimes total-government control.This struggle came to forefront in the early 1970s, after decades of abuses by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies were revealed to the public, prompting both legislation and lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of these programs. As the plaintiffs in these lawsuits discovered, however, bringing legal challenges to secret government surveillance programs in federal courts faces a formidable obstacle in the principle that limits court access only to those who have standing, meaning they can show actual or imminent injury-a significant problem when evidence of the challenged program is secret. In Being Watched, Jeffrey L. Vagle draws on the legacy of the 1972 Supreme Court decision in Laird v. Tatum to tell the fascinating and disturbing story of jurisprudence related to the issue of standing in citizen challenges to government surveillance in the United States. It examines the facts of surveillance cases and the reasoning of the courts who heard them, and considers whether the obstacle of standing to surveillance challenges in U.S. courts can ever be overcome. Vagle journeys through a history of military domestic surveillance, tensions between the three branches of government, the powers of the presidency in times of war, and the power of individual citizens in the ongoing quest for the elusive freedom-organization balance. The history brings to light the remarkable number of similarities among the contexts in which government surveillance thrives, including overzealous military and intelligent agencies and an ideologically fractured Supreme Court. More broadly, Being Watched looks at our democratic system of government and its ability to remain healthy and intact during times of national crisis. A compelling history of a Supreme Court decision and its far-reaching consequences, Being Watched is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the legal justifications for-and objections to-surveillance.

Language is our key to imagining the world, others, and ourselves. Yet sometimes our ways of talking dehumanize others and trivialize human experience. In war other people are imagined as enemies to be killed. The language of race objectifies those it touches, and propaganda disables democracy. Advertising reduces us to consumers, and cliches destroy the life of the imagination.

How are we to assert our humanity and that of others against the forces in the culture and in our own minds that would deny it? What kind of speech should the First Amendment protect? How should judges and justices themselves speak? These questions animate James Boyd White's "Living Speech," a profound examination of the ethics of human expression--in the law and in the rest of life.

Drawing on examples from an unusual range of sources--judicial opinions, children's essays, literature, politics, and the speech-out-of-silence of Quaker worship--White offers a fascinating analysis of the force of our languages. Reminding us that every moment of speech is an occasion for gaining control of what we say and who we are, he shows us that we must practice the art of resisting the forces of inhumanity built into our habits of speech and thought if we are to become more capable of love and justice--in both law and life."

Academic freedom is under siege, as our universities become the sites of increasingly fraught battles over freedom of speech. While much of the public debate has focussed on 'no platforming' by students, this overlooks the far graver threat posed by concerted efforts to silence the critical voices of both academics and students, through the use of bureaucracy, legal threats and online harassment. Such tactics have conspicuously been used, with particularly virulent effect, in an attempt to silence academic criticism of Israel. This collection uses the controversies surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a means of exploring the limits placed on academic freedom in a variety of different national contexts. It looks at how the increased neoliberalisation of higher education has shaped the current climate, and considers how academics and their universities should respond to these new threats. Bringing together new and established scholars from Palestine and the wider Middle East as well as the US and Europe, Enforcing Silence shows us how we can and must defend our universities as places for critical thinking and free expression.

Judging Free Speech contains nine original essays by political scientists and law professors, each providing a comprehensive, yet concise and accessible overview of the free speech jurisprudence of a United States Supreme Court Justice.

A collaboration between an attorney and an animal protection advocate, this work utilises the extremely controversial and high-profile "crush video" case, US v. Stevens, to explore how American society attempts to balance the protection of free speech and the prevention of animal cruelty. Starting from the detailed case study of a single prominent ruling, the authors provide a masterful survey of important issues facing society in the area of animal welfare. The Stevens case included various "hot topic" elements connected to the role of government as arbiter of public morality, including judicial attitudes to sexual deviance and dogfighting.

In January 2012, millions participated in the now-infamous "Internet blackout" against the Stop Online Piracy Act, protesting the power it would have given intellectual property holders over the Internet. However, while SOPA's withdrawal was heralded as a victory for an open Internet, a small group of corporations, tacitly backed by the US and other governments, have implemented much of SOPA via a series of secret, handshake agreements. Drawing on extensive interviews, Natasha Tusikov details the emergence of a global regime in which large Internet firms act as regulators for powerful intellectual property owners, challenging fundamental notions of democratic accountability.

There is arguably no arena more contentious in the battle over intellectual freedom (IF) than the public library. When confronted with challenges like censorship and policy disputes, public librarians and paraprofessionals need reliable how-to guidance, and Pinnell-Stephens offers exactly that in this valuable resource. Chock-full of case studies, real-life examples, and hypothetical scenarios, this book provides An easy and thoroughly engaging way to introduce new employees to basic IF concepts Incisive analysis of how IF plays out in the world of public libraries Practical advice on how to effectively handle intellectual freedom challenges Numerous sidebars, written by IF expert Deborah Caldwell-Stone, detailing copyright laws, statutes, past court cases, and sample policies A concise summary of what s at stake and how to react, Protecting Intellectual Freedom in Your Public Library will prepare public library personnel to face the issues at hand.

In 2005, the Australian Federal Police referred eight Islamic books to the Australian Classification Board. The goal was to secure a ban of the books, all of which were alleged to advocate 'terrorist acts'. After nearly a year of review, and intense public debate, two of the books were refused classification and effectively banned in a move that would have severe repercussions for librarians, scholars, authors and the state of free speech in Australia. Banning Islamic Books in Australia examines the cultural and political contexts that led up to the ban, and the content of the books themselves in an attempt to determine what it was that made them seem so dangerous. It also documents the unintended consequences of the ban on library collections and academic freedom, and how this in turn affects free speech in contemporary Australia.

In an appearance on "The Dick Cavett Show" in 1980, the critic Mary McCarthy glibly remarked that every word author Lillian Hellman wrote was a lie, "including 'and' and 'the.'" Hellman immediately filed a libel suit, charging that McCarthy's comment was not a legitimate conversation on public issues but an attack on her reputation. This intriguing book offers a many-faceted examination of Hellman's infamous suit and explores what it tells us about tensions between privacy and self-expression, freedom and restraint in public language, and what can and cannot be said in public in America.

Few virtues are as celebrated in contemporary culture as openness. Rooted in software culture and carrying more than a whiff of Silicon Valley technical utopianism, openness--of decision-making, data, and organizational structure--is seen as the cure for many problems in politics and business.
But what does openness mean, and what would a political theory of openness look like? With "Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness," Nathaniel Tkacz uses Wikipedia, the most prominent product of open organization, to analyze the theory and politics of openness in practice--and to break its spell. Through discussions of edit wars, article deletion policies, user access levels, and more, Tkacz enables us to see how the key concepts of openness--including collaboration, ad-hocracy, and the splitting of contested projects through "forking"--play out in reality.
The resulting book is the richest critical analysis of openness to date, one that roots media theory in messy reality and thereby helps us move beyond the vaporware promises of digital utopians and take the first steps toward truly understanding what openness does, and does not, have to offer.

"You have the right to remain silent." These words, drawn from the Supreme Court's famous decision in Miranda v. Arizona, have had a tremendous impact on the public imagination. But what a strange right this is. Of all the activities that are especially worthy of protection, that define us as human beings, foster human potential, and symbolize human ambition, why privilege silence? This thoughtful and iconoclastic book argues that silence can be an expression of freedom. A defiant silence demonstrates determination, courage, and will. Martyrs from a variety of faith traditions have given up their lives rather than renounce their god. During the Vietnam era, thousands of anonymous draft resisters refused to take the military oath that was a prelude to participating in what they believed was an immoral war. These silences speak to us. They are a manifestation of connection, commitment, and meaning. This link between silence and freedom is apparent in a variety of different contexts, which Seidman examines individually, including silence and apology, silence and self-incrimination, silence and interrogation, silence and torture, and silence and death. In discussing the problem of apology, for example, the author argues that although apology plays a crucial role in maintaining the illusion of human connection, the right to not apologize is equally crucial. Similarly, prohibition against torture-so prominent in national debate since the events of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib-is best understood as a right to silence, essential in preserving the distinction between mind and body on which human freedom depends.

This volume explores the state of academic freedom in the United States and abroad. What impact have the attacks of September 11th and the ensuing war on terrorism had on free speech, access to information, government funding of the sciences, and other cornerstones of freedom of inquiry at American universities? How has the renewed emphasis on patriotism affected the "culture wars" that aroused so much controversy on American campuses? And how does academic freedom in the United States compare to that of other nations? To engage these crucial questions, the editors have assembled some of the nation's leading experts on academic freedom, from a broad range of disciplines including law, political science, and the history of science.

When a B-29 bomber exploded over Georgia in 1948, the victims' families were denied access to crucial information relating to the accident because the federal government claimed such access would endanger national security. When the Supreme Court upheld that claim in "United States v. Reynolds" (1953), a new precedent was established, allowing the executive branch to assert an all-encompassing "state secret privilege" as a basis for withholding information from public scrutiny.

For more than fifty years that decision has been viewed with apprehension by a great many scholars and citizens, who feel it has fostered a dangerous cult of secrecy and undermined accountability by declaring that only the executive branch can be trusted with sensitive material. Now Louis Fisher, America's leading authority on separation of powers, recounts the story of Reynolds to reassess its lasting impact on our society.

Taking us back to a time when Americans were preoccupied with protecting military secrets from the Red Menace, Fisher shows how this case produced fundamental distortions in the judicial process that have increased with each passing year. He critiques the government's arguments in Reynolds from district court to Supreme Court and dissects the landmark opinion authored by Chief Justice Fred Vinson. He also explains how Reynolds affected subsequent battles over executive-held information both within the courts-the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate tapes-and between Congress and the president, as exemplified by the Freedom of Information Act and the much-debated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Drawing upon declassified documents and interviews with surviving family members, he weaves a compelling story-one that took a new twist when it was finally discovered that the information originally withheld was not sensitive at all but rather revealed Air Force negligence.

Especially in light of the Bush administration's continued use of Reynolds to justify its post-9/11 claims to unilateral authority, Fisher's work could not be more timely. His book is essential reading for all who question presidential authority-and should be required reading for all who don't.

At the turn of the twentieth century, American journalists transmitted news across the country by telegraph. But what happened when these stories weren't true? In Bad News Travels Fast, Patrick C. File examines a series of libel cases by a handful of plaintiffs - including socialites, businessmen, and Annie Oakley - who sued newspapers across the country for republishing false newswire reports. Through these cases, File demonstrates how law and technology intertwined to influence debates about reputation, privacy, and the acceptable limits of journalism. This largely forgotten era in the development of American libel law provides crucial historical context for contemporary debates about the news media, public discourse, and the role of a free press. File argues that the legal thinking surrounding these cases laid the groundwork for the more friendly libel standards the press now enjoys and helped to establish today's regulations of press freedom amid the promise and peril of high-speed communication technology.

Transparency in Global Change examines the quest for information exchange in an increasingly international, open society. Recent transformations in governments and cultures have brought about a surge in the pursuit of knowledge in areas of law, trade, professions, investment, education, and medical practice--among others. Technological advancements in communications, led by the United States, and public access to information fuel the phenomenon of transparency. This rise in transparency parallels a diminution of secrecy--though, as Burkart and Leslie Holzner point out, secrecy continues to exist on many levels. Based on current events and historical references in literature and the social sciences, "Transparency in Global Change" focuses on the turning points of information cultures, such as scandals, that lead to pressure for transparency. Moreover, the Holzners illuminate byproducts of transparency--debate, insight, and impetus for change, as transparency exposes the moral corruptions of dictatorship, empire, and inequity.

Two weeks after the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, the town of Lewistown, Montana, held a patriotic parade. Less than a year later, a mob of 500 Lewistown residents burned German textbooks in Main Street while singing "The Star Spangled Banner." In Lewistowns nationalistic fervor, a man was accused of being pro-German because he didnt buy Liberty Bonds; he was subsequently found guilty of sedition. Montanas former congressman Tom Stout was quoted in the towns newspaper, "The Democrat-News, "With our sacred honor and our liberties at stake, there can be but two classes of American citizens, patriots and traitors!

"Darkest Before Dawn" takes to task Montanas 1918 sedition law that shut down freedom of speech. The sedition law carried fines of up to $20,000 and imprisonment for as many as twenty years. It became a model for the federal sedition act passed in 1918. Clemens Work explores the assault on civil rights during times of war when dissent is perceived as unpatriotic. The themes of this cautionary tale clearly resonate in the events of the early twenty-first century.

This is history at its exciting, human best. Clemens Work tells the little-known story of how Americans were punished for what they said during World War I: imprisoned, brutalized, lynched. It is a crucial part of the American struggle for freedom of speech.Anthony Lewis, columnist for the "New York Times" and author of "Gideons Trumpet" and "Make No Law"

Clem Work has written a colorful and engaging account of a rough-and-tumble era when exercising your right of free speech could get you tossed into jail, or worse. Works description of the frenzied and often irrational reaction to dissent duringwartime is truly timeless, disturbingly reminiscent of our own world, post-9/11/01. This book reminds us just how fragile Americans allegiance to the First Amendment can be.Jane E. Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law, University of Minnesota

Work offers a new way of thinking about a broader topicseditionand one in which new insights are provided. That, in my mind, is the essence of scholarship.--Charles N. Davis, executive director of The National Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and associate professor of journalism

""Darkest Before Dawn" makes an important contribution to the literature of the history of free speech in America. No future study of sedition laws could hope to be complete without drawing on this well researched and well written work. Clem Work has made his mark--and what a marvelous mark it is!"--Ronald K. L. Collins, scholar, The First Amendment Center

Book Details Montana's Attack on Dissent in World War I Era (article by Charles S. Johnson, chief of the Lee Newspapers State Bureau in Helena, Montana):

"As U.S. troops fight in Iraq, Montanans heatedly debate whether we should be engaged in that war. This robust discussion is exactly as it should be in a country that has enshrined the right to free speech in its Constitution's Bill of Rights.

"But the ability to comment candidly, in speech and writing, on this country's policies should never be taken for granted. Clemens P. Work's excellent new book, "Darkest before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West," describes in absorbing detail one of the darkest eras in Montana history in which dissenting voices were stifled.

"During World War I, some Montanans opposing U.S. involvement in the war and those immigrants expressing pro-German, anti-American sentiments in beer halls found themselves arrested. Seventy-four Montanans all but one of them men-were convicted of sedition. Forty of these men and the one lone woman served sentences of up to 20 years at Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge and faced fines of up to $20,000.

"Montana's frightening Sedition Act, enacted by a special legislative session and becoming law Feb. 22, 1918, became a model for the Federal Sedition Act, which was enacted May 16, 1918. The language defining sedition in the federal law is identical to the Montana law except for three words.

"It is a shameful, frightening yet fascinating story. Yet it's one many Montanans know nothing about. It should be taught in our schools at all levels so we dont repeat the mistakes of our past.

"The book, published this fall, is a well-written, fully documented history of the period. It sets the stage for what happened here, describes the terrifying events and puts the Montana era in a national context. Work, director of graduate studies at the University of Montana School of Journalism, weaves a compelling story about what led to the dissenting voices.

"Western Montana's two major industries then were mining and timber, which faced an insurgent labor movement upset over unsafe working conditions and low wages. The radical labor group, the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, helped stir the pot. Miners walked off the job at the Anaconda Copper Mining Co.'s Speculator Mine in 1917 after a fire killed 168 workers and exposed dangerous, illegal working conditions.

"The powerful Anaconda Copper MiningCo. dominated Montana economically and politically as few corporations ever have nationally. Its copper was a critical product in the war effort. The Company had the ears, if not the souls, of most of the state's leading politicians. It also either owned, or had in its pocket, most of Montana's major daily newspapers.

"The United States entered the war in 1917. By no means did all Montanans embrace the idea. Many German immigrants saw no reason for the United States to fight against their homeland, nor did all Irish immigrants support this country bailing out Great Britain.

"Dissent was not tolerated in Montana as a wave of super-patriotism spread. Besides passing the Sedition Act, a special legislative session emboldened the Montana Council of Defense, previously a minor group urging people to grow gardens and buy bonds. The Legislature granted the council the extraordinary power to pass virtual statewide laws.

"The council soon banned German books and forbade the use of the German language here, even in the pulpit, driving Mennonites into Canada. The council encouraged neighbor spying on neighbor, with the full encouragement of spineless politicians, with a few exceptions such as U.S. Attorney and later Sen. Burton K. Wheeler and U.S. District Judge George M. Bourquin.

"The Montana press followed the council in lockstep, with a few courageous exceptions such as William F. Dunn, fiery editor of the "Butte Bulletin," a labor paper.

Work said most sedition convictions in Montana were based on "offhand outburst, often in saloons," usually by blue-collar workers, many of them immigrants, often using foul language.

"As part of his research, Work created the Montana SeditionProject (Web site: http: //www.seditionproject.net/), and, with students' help, has tracked down relatives of some of those convicted and seeks to learn more about others. As Work wrote on the Web site, 'Those caught in Montana's sedition net were hardly heroes, but they should not have been scapegoats either.'

"Among those reading Work's book with keen interest is Gov. Brian Schweitzer, whose grandparents were German-Russian farmers who immigrated to Montana nearly a century ago.

"'What made this country great is the melting pot because we accept a lot of different nationalities, ' Schweitzer said. 'They came here because they wanted to be here. Most were like my grandparents. They came here because they had nowhere else to go.'"Asked if he might issue posthumous pardons to some Montanans convicted of sedition nearly 90 years ago, Schweitzer said he hadn't thought of it. Then he said, 'Why not? I will look into pardons. This was a time of some pretty mass hysteria. Why not clear the names of some of the people?'"

For more information go to www.seditionproject.net/

Like other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Moroccans were inspired by the events in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011. Nine days after the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, thousands of Moroccans began protesting in the capital of Rabat on February 20. However, unlike other countries, Moroccans did not call for the overthrow of the king or the regime. Instead, Moroccan protesters initially demanded reforms to the constitution, and, specifically, a transition from an executive monarchy to a democratic parliamentary monarchy. Drawing upon narratives from the primary activists involved in the protest, Badran examines the Moroccan movement to understand why it failed to escalate in the same way that others in the region did. He finds that the state's strategy of offering a series of reforms along with limited repression eventually ended the protest movement. Badran develops a framework to analyze how internal social movement dynamics along with regime strategies and regional events led to successful, and relatively peaceful, demobilization. Based on nine months of fieldwork, Killing Contention deepens our understanding of modern political movements and the complicated factors that lead to their demise.

This volume offers a historical, philosophical, and practical critique of public and civic journalism--a movement that gained momentum in the final decade of the 20th century. During that period, proponents of the movement have published nearly a dozen books expanding upon and expounding the virtues of journalism, seeking to repair what is thought to be the torn social, political, and moral fabric in America. Although previous works have established a strong practical underpinning for public and civic journalism, none has examined its philosophical roots or challenged its methodology and grounding in neoliberal constructs. This volume does just that, tracing its origins in early philosophy to the current newsroom policies and practices that conflict with traditional constructs in libertarian press theory.
"Twilight of Press Freedom" postulates that institutionalized journalism is fading away and world journalism--prompted by the people--is veering toward more order and social harmony, and away from the traditional idea of the great value of press freedom. The volume provides a critical examination of the trend toward public journalism and considers how press freedom will be impacted by this trend in coming years. Scholars and students in journalism, public opinion, and media studies will find this book insightful and invaluable.

The government is hiding information from its citizens-or so most Americans believe. While even some members of Congress now call for greater access to classified documents, federal agencies continue to withhold a massive amount of information in the name of national security, maintaining a culture of secrecy rooted in the Cold War.

This new book examines who in government is hiding what from the rest of us, how they're doing it, and why it should matter to all of us. Contributing scholars, journalists, and attorneys survey the policies of federal intelligence agencies and presidents-notably Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton-to keep information secret. They show how these agencies have gone far beyond legitimate security needs to withhold information, and they describe the frustrations and costs encountered in their own efforts to obtain classified information.

The authors review important cases exemplifying State Department, agency, and presidential efforts to withhold, destroy, or delay release of these records. In chapters centering on the Kennedy assassination, the Nixon tapes, and the FBI's files on John Lennon and the Supreme Court justices, readers will find an abundance of startling and disturbing revelations. By citing some of the methods used by agencies like the CIA, NSA, NSC, and FBI to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act-often with the cooperation of the judicial system-these essays clearly show that abuses of secrecy aren't limited to the withholding of information but extend to the absurd lengths taken to avoid disclosure.

With the Cold War over and in the wake of challenges to the status quo from the Moynihan Commission, A Culture of Secrecy is particularly timely reading for a concerned public. Its cases will instruct others seeking access to classified material, and its exposure of government practices may lead to greater openness that will facilitate historical research and guarantee the public's right to know.

"A thoughtful book that offers significant insights on the potential perils of imposing restraints in the traditional First Amendment rights."
--A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr.

"A powerful collection of essays challenging the advocates of curbing speech in order to promote equality. Most impressively, these writers make their case not through name-calling, but by taking them seriously, and dissecting, opposing arguments and acknowledging complexities, and by invoking informed common sense in bracing prose."
--Gerald Gunther, author of "The Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge,"

At the University of Pennsylvania, a student is reprimanded for calling a group of African-American students water buffalo. Several prominent American law schools now request that professors abstain from discussing the legal aspects of rape for fear of offending students. As debates over multiculturalism and political correctness crisscross the land, no single issue has been more of a flash point in the ongoing culture wars than hate speech codes, which seek to restrict bigoted or offensive speech and punish those who engage in it. In this provocative anthology, a range of prominent voices argue that hate speech restrictions are not only dangerous, but counterproductive. The lessons of history indicate that speech regulation designed to protect minorities is destined to be used against them. Acknowledging the legitimacy of the concerns that prompt speech codes and combining support for civil liberties with an acute concern for civil tights issues, "Speaking of Race, Speaking of Sex" demonstrates that it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw the line between unprotected insults and protected ideas.Decrying such speech regulation as overly concerned with the symbols of racism rather than its realities, Speaking of Race, Speaking of Sex offers a balanced and well-reasoned perspective on one of the most controversial issues of our time.

Power was at the heart of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's relationship with the media: the power of the nation's chief executive to control his public messages versus the power of the free press to act as an independent watchdog over the president and the government. This compelling study of Roosevelt points to his consummate news management as a key to his political artistry and leadership legacy. Winfield explores FDR's handling of the media as a study in the conflict between confidentiality and openness in a democratic society. During the Depression FDR's leadership mode was flexible and open, seeking new answers for problems that had not responded to conventional solutions. Correspondingly, his dealings with the media were frank and freewheeling. But, during the war years, when invasion was a legitimate fear and information could be used as a weapon, FDR was forced to be more secretive and less candid. Winfield includes anecdotes and assessments culled from FDR's personal communications with journalists and from diaries and accounts of those who worked closely with FDR. She also gleans insights from the 1933-1945 press conferences and radio transcripts, journalists' responses, news articles, memoirs, letters to the White House, and the era's newspapers.

The First Amendment protects even the most offensive forms of expression: racial slurs, hateful religious propaganda, and cross-burning. No other county in the world offers the same kind of protection to offensive speech.

How did this free speech tradition develop? "Hate Speech" provides the first comprehensive account of the history of the hate speech controversy in the United States. Samuel Walker examines the issue, from the conflicts over the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and American Nazi groups in the 1930s, tot he famous Skokie episode in 1977-78, and the campus culture wars of the 1990s.

The author argues that the civil rights movement played a central role in developing this country's strong free speech tradition. The courts were very concerned about protecting the provocative and even offensive forms of expression by civil rights forces. Civil rights groups, therefore, preferred to protect rather than restrict offensive speech--even if it meant protecting racist speech.

When FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover reported to the Nixon White House in 1972 about the Bureau's surveillance of John Lennon, he began by explaining that Lennon was a "former member of the Beatles singing group." When a copy of this letter arrived in response to Jon Wiener's 1981 Freedom of Information request, the entire text was withheld--along with almost 200 other pages--on the grounds that releasing it would endanger national security. This book tells the story of the author's remarkable fourteen-year court battle to win release of the Lennon files under the Freedom of Information Act in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. With the publication of "Gimme Some Truth," 100 key pages of the Lennon FBI file are available--complete and unexpurgated, fully annotated and presented in a "before and after" format.
Lennon's file was compiled in 1972, when the war in Vietnam was at its peak, when Nixon was facing reelection, and when the "clever Beatle" was living in New York and joining up with the New Left and the anti-war movement. The Nixon administration's efforts to "neutralize" Lennon are the subject of Lennon's file. The documents are reproduced in facsimile so that readers can see all the classification stamps, marginal notes, blacked out passages and--in some cases--the initials of J. Edgar Hoover. The file includes lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges.
Fascinating, engrossing, at points hilarious and absurd, "Gimme Some Truth "documents an era when rock music seemed to have real political force and when youth culture challenged the status quo in Washington. It also delineates the ways the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations fought to preserve government secrecy, and highlights the legal strategies adopted by those who have challenged it.

This book offers a new theoretical framework for free speech by critically analyzing the major justifications for free speech. Unlike most theories that justify free speech on single grounds, this book argues for a justification; namely the double grounded principled approach; that combines and revises the arguments of equal autonomy and democratic participation at the same time. It claims that a revised and critical blending of these two justifications can serve free speech to be grounded on strong principled arguments. The book has both a theoretical and practical focus: first, it discusses the conceptual circumstances of free speech and major theoretical justifications for free speech and then, it applies the developed theoretical framework to the cases of academic freedom, media freedom and hate speech separately. This volume will appeal to readers who are interested in general free speech theories as well as readers who look for an alternative view on specific topics such as academic freedom, media freedom and hate speech.