FTRF Joins Court Battle in
Brooklyn Museum, Virginia Internet Cases
ALA’s Freedom to Read Foundation joined two court cases October 6. In Virginia, FRTF became a plaintiff in a lawsuit to stop the enforcement of a state law passed April 7 that criminalizes Internet content deemed “harmful to minors.” In the second case, the foundation has joined as amicus curiae in a suit filed by the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences against the City of New York and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who withdrew museum funding because of a controversial exhibition.
Among the other plaintiffs in the Virginia case, filed in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, are the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, Internet service providers such as PSINet, and the Virginia Internet Service Providers Alliance. They suit claims that the new law violates the First Amendment and should be struck down, as have two similar federal laws and three state laws.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the Brooklyn amicus brief argues that the punitive sanctions the city government has imposed on the institute threaten free expression everywhere.
Posted October 11, 1999.
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