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ACLU v. Goddard
A "mini-CDA case," formerly ACLU v. Hull and ACLU v. Napolitano. In conjunction with other plaintiffs, FTRF filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona challenging the Arizona "harmful to minors" Internet statute. In February 2001, the judge issued an order, consented to by the plaintiffs and the Attorney General of Arizona, staying enforcement of the law pending the judge's ruling on plaintiffs' application for a permanent injunction. The order also stayed further proceedings in the case pending either the end of the Arizona legislative session or a final vote on a bill that would amend this law. Governor Hull then signed an amended law. In response, the complaint and motion for injunctive relief were amended. In September 2001, the court granted a temporary restraining order and, following a hearing, held the statute unconstitutional. The state appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Arizona legislature again amended the statute, and the parties filed a joint motion to remand to district court, which the Ninth Circuit granted in July 2003. In April 2004, the district court judge found the amended statute unconstitutional.

Tattered Cover Bookstore, Inc. v. City and County of Denver
Executive Director Judith Krug testified, and FTRF joined an amicus brief arguing in favor of the Tattered Cover, which sued to stop enforcement of a search warrant for customer records in an illegal drug making case. The Foundation also made a grant to the Tattered Cover to aid its litigative efforts. In October 2000, the court issued an opinion agreeing with Tattered Cover and amici that the burden was on the government to establish a compelling need and holding, moreover, that the request for all purchasing records of an individual-even for a one month period-constituted a fishing expedition for which the government had failed to establish a compelling need. However, the court also held that Tattered Cover was required to produce information related to the specific invoice in question in the case. On appeal, however, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Tattered Cover, quashing the search warrant. See Tattered Cover Bookstore v. Tooley, 1982.

American Amusement Machine Association v. Kendrick
The Freedom to Read Foundation joined an amicus brief supporting an appeal of the decision to uphold an Indianapolis city ordinance restricting minors' access to arcade games, particularly video games, that include "graphic violence" or "strong sexual content." A complaint was filed in an Indiana district court challenging the ordinance as a violation of the First Amendment. The court denied the request for a preliminary injunction, holding that while it could conclude that "at least some video games are expression entitled to First Amendment protection," the ordinance did not violate the First Amendment. The case was appealed to the Seventh Circuit, which reversed and remanded the trial court's decision, with instructions to grant a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the ordinance.

Borders Books v. United States Department of Justice
FTRF joined an amicus urging the court to quash on First Amendment grounds a subpoena to a bookstore for information related to the book purchases of a particular customer. After reviewing in camera the evidence submitted by the government, the district court issued a one-paragraph ruling, holding that the government had not met its burden and quashed the subpoena.

City News and Novelty v. City of Waukesha
FTRF joined an amicus brief in support of City News, which was challenging a city ordinance pertaining to the licensing of adult-oriented establishments. Such establishments must annually renew their license to operate. Principally, the complaint alleged that the ordinance is unconstitutional because it fails to guarantee prompt judicial review of a license denial and does not permit maintenance of the status quo during the judicial review process. The Court of Appeals of Wisconsin held that one portion of the ordinance was unconstitutional, but disagreed that the ordinance failed to provide for prompt judicial review or that it was facially unconstitutional for failing to mention that the status quo must be maintained during the judicial process. City News petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, which was granted, then dismissed. The decision of the lower court was thus upheld.

2001

American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression v. Dean
FTRF was a plaintiff in this "mini-CDA" case, challenging Vermont's "harmful to minors" Internet statute. The state Attorney General requested that the legislature amend the bill in light of the suit, and an amended bill was passed on June 2, 2001. On June 5, the judge denied plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, stating that the substance of the statute was changed enough that "a ruling on the law as previously promulgated would serve no purpose." Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint and the state filed a motion to dismiss the case as moot; plaintiffs' motion was granted. After a hearing, the judge granted a permanent injunction in April 2002. The state filed an appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which in August 2003 affirmed the district court's decision.

American Library Association v. United States
The Freedom to Read Foundation, in conjunction with the American Library Association and other plaintiffs, filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). The law required a public library to install blocking technology on all of its computers for all adult and child patrons if the library received federal funding for Internet service and/or computer equipment. On May 31, 2002, in a unanimous decision by a special three-judge panel, CIPA was found facially unconstitutional, and enforcement was blocked. The Court ruled that filters both overblock (by blocking access to protected speech) and underblock (by allowing access to illegal materials). It also found that less restrictive alternatives exist to allow public libraries to protect children from material that was illegal for them to access. The government appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on June 20, 2002. On March 5, 2003, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments. On June 23, 2003, the Court reversed the District Court ruling and held CIPA constitutional. The Court, in a plurality decision, said that, to the extent filters could be disabled for adults, they did not pose a burden on the First Amendment rights of library users. The Court left open the possibility that an "as applied" challenge could be brought against CIPA if an adult library user was denied a request that a Web site be unblocked.

City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc.
The Foundation joined an amicus brief in this case, which examined whether the LA City Council required evidence to demonstrate that a combination adult bookstore/arcade standing alone produced harmful secondary effects, or whether the council could rely on a prior ruling by the Fourth Circuit upholding a state law almost identical to the city ordinance. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ordinance.

Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Company
The Freedom to Read Foundation joined an amicus brief in support of Alice Randall and Houghton Mifflin, who were being sued by the Margaret Mitchell estate over publication of The Wind Done Gone, a parody of Gone with the Wind that retells some of the events of that novel from a slave's perspective. The Mitchell estate alleged copyright infringement and asked the court for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction preventing sale or distribution of the book. Amici argued that without regard to the copyright issues, an injunction would be an unlawful prior restraint of speech under the First Amendment. The District Court ruled in favor of the Mitchell estate, and defendants appealed. Once again, FTRF joined in an amicus brief in support of the defendants' right to publish. A three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit, in a rare oral decision from the bench, unanimously ruled that the preliminary injunction was an abuse of discretion and an unlawful prior restraint. It ordered that the injunction be vacated and that publication of The Wind Done Gone be allowed to proceed. On May 10, 2001, the parties settled the suit. Under the terms of the settlement, Houghton Mifflin, publisher of The Wind Done Gone, agreed to make an unspecified contribution to Morehouse College, a historically black school in Atlanta to which members of the Mitchell family have long been benefactors.

Yahoo! v. La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et L'Antisemitisme
After a French court fined Yahoo! for hosting customer pages advertising Nazi and racist memorabilia, the company filed suit in U.S. District Court in San Jose, seeking a declaratory judgment that the French court's orders were neither cognizable nor enforceable under United States law. The court ruled that no other nation's law could serve as a basis for suppressing free speech in the United States. The defendants appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. FTRF joined amicus briefs in support of Yahoo! in both the original case and in the appeal. Oral argument was held in December 2000, and a decision is pending.

2002

ACLU v. Department of Justice
In October 2002, the Freedom to Read Foundation joined the ACLU, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression in filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Justice (DOJ), seeking more information about the implementation of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Upon being denied the requested the information, the organizations filed suit in federal court. The DOJ released some heavily redacted documents in response. In May 2003, a federal judge held that the aggregate information being sought by the plaintiffs could be withheld on national security grounds. In October 2003, the organizations filed another FOIA request seeking information on Section 215 orders. The organizations filed a legal action in December seeking the release of the requested records, but the FBI claimed they could not be produced before June 2005. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ultimately overturned the FBI's decision and ordered the agency to release the documents over a period of six weeks. In June 2004, the FBI released some documents, including a memorandum from October 2003 indicating the agency had submitted an application for an order under Section 215 less than a month after Attorney General Ashcroft stated that the section had not been invoked. More documents are expected to be released in July.

American Historical Association v. National Archives and Records Administration
President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13233, which permits both former and sitting presidents, and their relatives, to restrict access to presidential records eligible for release under the Presidential Records Act of 1978. The Freedom to Read Foundation joined an amicus brief in support of the American Historical Association, which filed suit in federal court to overturn the order. On March 28, 2004, the judge dismissed the case as moot because the National Archives and Records Administration had released the sought-after records. She did not rule on whether the executive order was within the president's authority.

American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression v. Petro
Formerly Bookfriends, Inc. v. Taft. The Freedom to Read Foundation and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in the federal court in Dayton, Ohio, challenging an Ohio statute. Part of the statute defines "harmful to juveniles" to include violence, cruelty, foul words, and glorification of crimes, while another part is an Internet provision similar to those successfully fought by FTRF previously. On August 2, 2002, the court issued a temporary restraining order, ruling that the new "harmful to juveniles" definition was overbroad. The state then appealed the decision to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. While the appeal was pending, the Ohio legislature adopted an amendment to the law eliminating most of the overbreadth problems, in an attempt to moot the litigation. Subsequently, in June 2003, the Sixth Circuit remanded the case back to the trial court for further action. In August 2003, plaintiffs filed an amended complaint focusing on the Internet provision, and in September, plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment.

IDSA v. St. Louis County
The Freedom to Read Foundation joined an amicus in the appeal of this case challenging a St. Louis County ordinance making it unlawful to knowingly sell, rent, make available, or permit the "free play of" video games with violent content to or by minors without the consent of a parent or guardian. A federal judge had upheld the ordinance, holding that video games were not First Amendment-protected and, in any event, that violent material could be regulated. The judge then dismissed the case. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court judge in 2003, and ordered him to issue and injunction against enforcement of the statute. The county's appeal was denied.

2003

Center for Democracy and Technology v. Fisher
In September 2003, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) challenged a Pennsylvania law that allows the state Attorney General or any county district attorney to unilaterally apply to a local judge for an order declaring that certain Internet content may be child pornography and requiring the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to block the site. Neither the targeted ISP nor the owner of the web site is permitted to participate in the proceedings. The CDT lawsuit argues that the statute violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, as well as the Commerce Clause. The parties agreed to a temporary restraining order pending final disposition of the matter. A hearing was held in January 2004. FTRF gave a grant to CDT in support of the case.

Counts v. Cedarville
A student and her parents initiated a lawsuit after the Cedarville, Arkansas, school board voted to remove the Harry Potter books from the school library's open stacks and to require students to obtain a parent's written permission before borrowing the books. The school board acted following a parent's complaint that the series encourages children to disrespect adults and to believe in witchcraft. FTRF and other organizations filed an amicus brief in March 2003 in support of the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment. On April 23, 2003, Judge Jimm L. Hendren granted the motion, ordering the school board to return the books to the school library's open shelves. The school board voted not to appeal the decision.

Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor v. Ashcroft
The Freedom to Read Foundation joined the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and many other free expression and civil liberties organizations in submitting an amicus brief in this case, a facial legal challenge to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Section 215 amends the business records provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to permit FBI agents to obtain all types of records, including library records, without a showing of probable cause. Additionally, the statute provides for a gag order in every request by the government for an indefinite time and without any particular showing by the FBI that a gag order is necessary. FTRF's brief argued that both the gag order and the lack of any requirement that the government show relevance to a terror-related investigation pose severe threats to the rights to transmit and receive information as guaranteed by the First Amendment. The government moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that plaintiffs have no standing to challenge the statute, because they have not suffered any "actual harm" in that Section 215 has never been used. The government also claimed that the Fourth Amendment and due process rights claimed by the plaintiffs don't apply in this case. Oral arguments were heard in early December 2003, and the case is pending before the district court in Michigan.

New Times, Inc. v. Isaacks
In November 2003, FTRF partnered with the Association of American Publishers and thirteen other groups in submitting an amicus brief to the Texas Supreme Court in support of a newspaper's right to engage in political satire as a means of commenting on government officials' actions. In the case, a judge and district attorney claimed they were libeled by the Dallas Observer, after the paper (an alternative weekly) published a fictitious article criticizing the officials' role in jailing a 13-year-old boy for writing a school-assigned essay for Halloween, which discussed the shooting of a teacher and two students. The article recounted the jailing of a six-year-old girl for "suspicion of making a terrorist threat" in a book report on Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. The trial court denied the Observer's motion for summary judgment, an appeals court affirmed, and the case is currently pending before the Supreme Court of Texas.

Shipley v. Long
In June 2003, the Freedom to Read Foundation challenged an Arkansas statutory amendment that would require retailers and libraries to prevent all minors from accessing constitutionally protected materials that may be considered harmful to minors through the use of blinders and physical segregation of such materials. In February 2004, the federal district court judge certified four questions to the Arkansas Supreme Court. He also issued an interim temporary injunction, so that none of the challenged portions of the law can be enforced at this time. Plaintiffs submitted their brief to the Arkansas Supreme Court on March 18, 2004. The case was formerly Shipley v. Huckabee.

United States v. Irwin Schiff, et al.
On March 19, 2003, a U.S. District Court judge in Nevada temporarily enjoined sales of Irwin Schiff's book The Federal Mafia: How Government Illegally Imposes and Unlawfully Collects Income Taxes. FTRF filed an amicus brief opposing the court's prior restraint of the book. In June 2003, the court issued a preliminary injunction, ruling that the book was "commercial speech" and therefore entitled to reduced First Amendment protection. Mr. Schiff and the ACLU of Nevada appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard oral argument on February 9, 2004.

2004

Athenaco v. Cox
The Michigan legislature amended its "harmful to minors" statute in 2003, making it illegal to allow a minor to see or examine a work deemed "harmful to minors." The Freedom to Read Foundation joined other plaintiffs in challenging the amendment in January 2004. Oral argument took place in May.

City of Littleton, Colorado, v. Z.J. Gifts
Z.J. Gifts brought a facial challenge to Littleton's adult business licensing ordinance when it opened a retail store deemed by the city to be an adult-oriented business. The company claimed the law was unconstitutional because the licensing provision, which operates as a prior restraint on protected speech, fails to assure a prompt and final judicial decision following a refusal to issue a license. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the plaintiff, and the city appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In January 2004, the Freedom to Read Foundation joined with the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and four other organizations to file an amicus brief in support of Z.J. Gifts. On June 7, 2004, the Supreme Court overturned the initial decision and found the ordinance constitutional.

FCC Petition for Reconsideration
The Freedom to Read Foundation joined a group of individuals, other free speech organizations, and broadcast corporations in filing a petition urging the FCC to reverse a decision it made in punishing NBC, the broadcaster of the 2003 Golden Globes award ceremony, for a comment made by Bono upon receiving an award. The brief argued that the new rules the FCC used to impose punishment violated the First Amendment.

John Doe and ACLU v. Ashcroft
In May 2004, the Freedom to Read Foundation, American Library Association, and American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression filed an amicus brief in support of the ACLU's challenge to Section 505 of the USA PATRIOT Act, which concerns "National Security Letters." The brief argued that the lack of judicial overview and gag order provision of Section 2709 of the Act threaten the First Amendment rights of libraries, bookstores, and their patrons, as well as Internet communication in general. The case was filed under seal, which means information about it, including the identity of the ACLU's client, an Internet Service Provider, is not public.

Video Software Dealers Association v. Maleng
In January 2004, the Freedom to Read Foundation joined an amicus brief in support of this challenge to a Washington State law barring the sale or rental to minors of any video game containing depictions of violence directed against law enforcement officers. Previously, the district court judge issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the law pending a hearing, which was held in April 2004.

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