Signed Books, Big Lots, Services, & Rare Tix: ABFFE Launches Online Auction!

On Wednesday June 20, the American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression is opening up its auction vaults for the 2007 Summer Online Auction!  Featuring over eighty lots, including a bookstore appearance by Naomi Wolf, Mets tickets, trade show packages, and rare, autographed books, the ABFFE auction brings the best of the book business to you, to raise money for the defense of free expression in the book industry!

This year, to reach a broader community of readers and book lovers, ABFFE will be conducting the auction on eBay from June 20 to June 29.  To bid, click here.  If you're an author, publisher, or collector and would like to contribute a rare book, big lot, or service, please email us at auction@abffe.com.

"We rely on the generosity of our community to protect free expression in our business," explains ABFFE president Chris Finan.  "With their support we are fighting to restore protections of reader privacy that were eliminated by the USA Patriot Act, fighting challenges to books in schools and libraries around the country, and educating the public about the need for a reporter’s shield law to protect confidential news sources.  We hope we can count on generous bids to support our work."

ABFFE Releases FREADOM Gift Cards

ABFFE is pleased to announce a new and easy way to support free speech in bookstores.  Sell the FREADOM Book Sense Gift Card!  The gift card and matching presenter feature a wonderful illustration by Roger Roth from the book, The American Story: 100 True Tales from American History. Last year, in the first test run of the FREADOM card, booksellers sold 3,210 cards, raising $8,550 for ABFFE.

Here's how it works. ABFFE will provide the cards for free--covering the cost of the card, the matching presenter, and the 50 cents per card transaction fee—in return for a donation of 10 per cent of the gift card sale.  The FREADOM gift card will be a popular item all year long, but it is particularly timely during the weeks leading up to Banned Books Week (September 29 - October 6). The FREADOM cards make great gifts for students, teachers, librarians, and anyone concerned about censorship and threats to reader privacy like the Patriot Act. In order to deliver your cards in time for Banned Books Week, we need to take reservations now to insure that we will have enough stock on hand.  If you want to reserve FREADOM cards, we must hear from you by the close of business on Wednesday, June 27.  To download the order form, click here.

ABFFE Charges Madison, WI, Ordinance Threatens Reader Privacy

On June 13, ABFFE urged the repeal of a new Madison, WI, ordinance that requires bookstores that purchase used textbooks to give police the names of the sellers and the titles purchased.  “This ordinance forces bookstores to turn over confidential customer information without a court order, undermining the privacy that protects our right to read whatever we want,” ABFFE President Chris Finan said.  “The police have no business monitoring the purchase or sale of books in a bookstore.”

In a letter to Madison City Attorney Michael P. May, Finan said that the ordinance conflicts with recent court decisions that have declared that the confidentiality of bookstore records is protected by the First Amendment.   Finan urged the city attorney to recommend that the city council repeal the textbook ordinance as both a violation of the First Amendment and a contradiction of its own strong support for reader privacy.  In 2002, it passed a resolution that condemned the USA Patriot Act for invading a citizen’s right of privacy in their bookstore and library records.  To read the letter, click here.  To read the complete press release, click here. 

FCC Loss a Huge Victory for Free Expression Groups

On June 4, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the Federal Communications Commission's new rule that bans "fleeting expletives" that occur occasionally on broadcast television. The FCC had contended that all expletives implied sexual or excretory acts and therefore could be banned, but the court declared that these words are often used to express frustration and excitement -- meaning a blanket ban on the words violated the First Amendment.  "This is an important decision at a time when the FCC is trying to aggressively expand its power to censor both broadcast and cable TV," said Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE). "It should see the ruling as a warning shot, but we are not optimistic. The FCC has just asked Congress to give it the authority to regulate violence in TV programming."  Last November, ABFFE joined a coalition of 20 free expression groups, community broadcasters, filmmakers, performers, and authors to file a brief arguing that new standards adopted by the commission to censor "indecency" on the airwaves are overly vague and unconstitutional.  To read more, click here.