Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Reporters without Borders

Another Russian journalist killed and bad news on the electronic free speech front. Check out the RWB link.


Decrees target Vietnamese bloggers
January 19, 2009

BANGKOK - Vietnam's government has issued several decrees in recent months to curtail blogging, as the number of Internet users soars in the communist country.
The campaign started in August, when the government published an edict giving police broad authority to move against online critics, including those who oppose "the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam" and undermine national security and social order.
The law also bans "obscenity and debauchery . . . and destroying national fine customs and traditions," according to the official gazette published - online - by the Ministry of Information and Communications.



Ruling backs school in free speech case

Discipline upheld for Conn. student on Internet post
By Associated Press | January 19, 2009
BURLINGTON, Conn. - Burlington school officials acted within their rights to discipline a student for an Internet posting she wrote off school grounds, a federal judge has ruled.
US District Court Judge Mark Kravitz rejected Avery Doninger's claim that administrators at Lewis B. Mills High School violated her rights of free speech and equal protection.
She also alleged they inflicted emotional distress when they barred her from serving as class secretary because of the 2007 posting, which criticized the administrators for canceling a popular school activity.
Kravitz's ruling relied partly on the ambiguity over whether schools can regulate students' expression on the Internet. He noted in his ruling that times have changed since 1979, when a landmark student speech case set boundaries for schools regulating off-campus speech.

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