July 5, 2019 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Editors

Highlights

• Censorship Beyond Books: ALA Annual 2019; “At the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Washington, DC, sessions relating to censorship and the First Amendment, hosted by ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), drew librarians seeking advice on challenges to books, programs, and more.” | Library Journal
• ALA Statement on SCOTUS census ruling | American Libraries
  

Censorship

• Drury Lane Theater removes controversial image after public outcry |Daily Herald (IL)
• The Walking Dead: Idaho high school bans Image comic series |CBR.com
  • WHS examining library books content policy | Shoshone News-Press (ID); ‘The Walking Dead’ graphic novels
• Jacksonville library was wrong to cancel the LGBT prom | Washington Examiner
• Arizona prisons lifts book ban | The Voice; ‘Chokehold: Policing Black Men’
• Prisons are banning books that teach prisoners how to code | Vice
• Lawmakers to question officials about removing hundreds of books from a prison library | NPR Illinois
• San Francisco school board votes to destroy controversial Washington High mural | San Francisco Chronicle
  • Opinion: San Francisco will spend $600,000 to erase history | New York Times
• Fresco fiasco: An artwork in jeopardy and a history redressed | OIF Blog
• Brunswick News Inc. cancels Michael de Adder | The Daily Cartoonist
• Canadian political cartoonist Micheal de Adder let got for too on-the-nose cartoon | The Daily Kos
• Protester who disrupted library event charged with five misdemeanors | The Enterprise (MD)
• Second childrens’ book reading at downtown Spokane library by drag queens draws similar protest numbers | The Spokesman-Review (WA)
• Threat toward Lawrence Public Library event posted on 4chan | KCTV News
• Drag Queen Story Hour spurs dueling protests in Crown Heights | Patch (NY)
• Pittsburgh library cancels `Drag Queen Story Hour` after threats made against similar programs | Inquisitor
• All hail the (drag) queen of story time | The Baltimore Sun
• Tensions run high at Renton Drag Queen Story Hour | Snoqualmie Valley Register
• Raleigh’s first Drag Queen Story Hour faces online backlash | Eyewitness 11 News (NC)
• A vandal disrupted a drag queen book reading for kids at a Denver bookstore. A community rallied in response. | Denver Post (CO)
• Anti-drag queen protestor drowned out by supporters in Crown Heights | Brooklyn Paper
• Despite plans for ‘nationwide’ movement, anti-drag queen protests draw scant support |Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Privacy

• Grand jury looks at library patron privacy |  Register-Pajaronian
• Grand jury: Santa Cruz libraries should better protect patron privacy | Santa Cruz Sentinel
• Facing the Privacy Costs of Biometric Identification | GovTech
• The best apps for secure, private messaging | TechEngage
• Repeated mistakes in phone record collection led NSA to shutter controversial program | The Washington Post
• The strange politics of facial recognition | The Atlantic
• As privacy concerns grow, states create bold policies | GovTech
• Trump officials weigh encryption crackdown | Politico
• I opted out of facial recognition at the airport: It wasn’t easy | Wired
• Soon, satellites will be able to watch you everywhere all the time. Can privacy survive? | MIT Technology Review
• CCPA: What health care, biotech and life sciences companies should know now | IAPP
• Facebook again fails to block DC attorney general’s lawsuit | CNet

Additional privacy news updates are available at the Choose Privacy Everyday blog.

Access

• Arkansas librarians launch summer book bus, inspire community | School Library Journal
• Visible or not: Library access for LGBTQ youth | OIF Blog
• On the horizon for accessibility | American Libraries
• Small wonders: Rural and small libraries provide vital infrastructure for communities | School Library Journal
• PD Editorial: Library without fines? One more reason to read | Presse-Democrat (CA)
• Anne Arundel library board confirms first openly trans member, approves revised programs policy | Capital Gazette
• How can libraries support children and immigrant families? By doing what we do best. | School Library Journal

Net Neutrality & Broadband Access

• Maine governor signs net neutrality bill into law | The Daily Dot
• Reflecting on one year without net neutrality | Forbes
• Net Neutrality and the Dormant Commerce Clause | American Enterprise Institute
• Ajit Pai is working to make broadband users dumb again | Gizmodo
• House votes to block Ajit Pai’s plan to kill San Francisco broadband law | Ars Technica

Fake News, Free Press, Social Media

• The fact-checker’s guide to manipulated video | The Washington Post
• Sharing deepfake revenge porn is now a crime in Virginia | CNet
• This is your brain on Facebook | OIF Blog
• Twitter clarifies special rules for tweets by world leaders like Trump | Ars Technica
• Inside the secret Border Patrol Facebook group where agents joke about migrant deaths and post sexist memes | ProPublica
• Investigation of secret Border Patrol group launched as new degrading Facebook posts surface | ProPublica
• Is fear making us better news consumers? | Freedom Forum Institute

First Amendment & Free Speech

• School board faces mural dilemma: Free speech or racial justice? | San Francisco Chronicle
• First Amendment constraints do not apply to private platforms, Supreme Court affirms | The Verge
• Supreme Court’s decision in vulgar trademark case affirms core principles | Freedom Forum Institute

Around the Web

• An interview with Snowden Becker. “Keeping the Pieces:” Police work and documentation | OIF Blog
• The American Library Association is renaming its Melvil Dewey Award for an important reason | Bustle
• Supreme Court sets Oct. 8 to hear whether workers can be fired for being LGBT | Washington Blade
• Why local news outlets are embracing book clubs | Forbes
• Toni Morrison doc filmmaker on her banned books: “People are afraid … of powerful black women” | Salon
• American Library Assn. strips name of Dewey Decimal System creator from annual award | Los Angeles Times
• Why LGBTQ bookstores, such as Philadelphia’s Giovanni’s Room, are a lifeline for queer teens | The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Fear, misinformation, and measles spread in Brooklyn | Wired

International Issues

• Somaliland: Escalating censorship, harassment and prosecution of government critics | Amnesty International
• A library thrives, quietly, in one of Pakistan’s gun markets | The New York Times
• The numbing experience of living through Africa’s growing internet shutdowns | Quartz Africa
• Tanzania’s proposed legislative amendments threaten to censor media | The Citizen
• Ethiopia restores the internet but digital censorship worries remain | YahooNews
• UK may have finally ditched its absurd porn filter plan | TechDirt
• Qatar mega-library defies boycott and woos youth | The Jarkarta Post
• UBC prof helps create an online database of banned books | CBC News (Canada)
• China border guards put secret suveillance app on tourists’ phones | The Guardian
• Prison book ban lifted in Northern Ireland | The Guardian
• Canadian public library refuses to screen police brutality documentaries after author won’t include cop on discussion panel |Atlanta Black Star
• Mob rule is crushing free speech on campus | The Times (UK)
• Banned book revisits ‘bloodhead’ scandal in China | The Korea Times

ALA News

• Accepting Applications for 2020 Class of ALA Emerging Leaders
• July PLA webinar explores access issues related to unreturned library materials
• ALA ‘concerned’ about Hachette Book Group ebook and audio book lending model changes
• ALA uneasy about Simon & Schuster digital lending model changes
• Nominate a superstar librarian for the I Love My Librarian award
• 2020 ALA Annual Conference Program Proposals are Now Open

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