Censorship

B

Government Censorship

In England religious conflict bred general intolerance, which resulted in censorship that embraced political as well as religious expression. At a time when religion dominated society, every aspect of life was necessarily subject to official control. In 1662, for instance, a licensing act created a surveyor of the press who had power to investigate and suppress unauthorized publications. The Toleration Act and the Bill of Rights in 1689 dealt with important personal liberties but said nothing about freedom from censorship. To publish an unfavorable opinion of the government was still a “seditious libel.” As the 18th century began, however, English newspapers became more numerous, books on a greater variety of subjects were published, and arbitrary censorship was slowly reduced. Freedom of the press came about gradually as a result of judicial decisions and popular opposition to political oppression.

Except for a brief period in France after the Revolution of 1789, political censorship continued to flourish in continental Europe until the rise of republican governments in the mid-19th century. In the 1930s a new wave of political censorship swept Europe, especially in the totalitarian regimes of Germany, Italy, and Spain. Since the end of World War II, however, political censorship has diminished in Western nations.

State censorship remained severe in the Soviet Union and other countries where political opposition is suppressed by permitting the existence of only one party. One-party nations determine directly the ideas and information to be published, circulated, and taught. When publishers, authors, or broadcasters are adjudged to have trespassed the political or moral boundaries set by law or administrative edict, they may be arbitrarily punished by fines, imprisonment, confiscation of their publication, prohibition of future publications, or closing of the medium of communication.

Rating countries on a scale ranging from 1 (most free) to 15 (least free), a survey published by Freedom House in the late 1980s disclosed that 60 countries comprising about 2 billion people enjoyed the highest degrees of freedom (1-5). In these countries—which were concentrated in North America and Western Europe but which also included Japan, Australia, and New Zealand—individuals generally had the right to bring about peaceful changes in government, enjoyed freedom of speech and press, and had free access to other mass communications. Another 39 countries with about 1 billion people received rankings of between 6 and 10, while 68 countries with 2.1 billion people had forms of government that denied citizens most political and civil rights.

---

---

Much attention was focused on censorship in the USSR and other Communist countries. Exiles from the former Soviet Union have disclosed the severe persecution to which they were subjected. Among such exiles were literary personalities and scientists, such as Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, and Andrey D. Sakharov, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. Their world recognition and acclaim did not prevent the Soviet government from attempting to suppress their work and persecute them.

By the late 1980s, however, the Soviet Union under President Mikhail Gorbachev had relaxed government censorship of the media as part of a more general reform movement, and other Eastern-bloc countries were also affected. The increase in freedom soon led to the overthrow of the Soviet Union and several other Communist governments by long-suppressed dissident forces.

The Communist countries have not been the only ones to impose control over thought and expression in modern times. In the mid-1970s India imposed strict censorship as part of an alleged state of emergency, while Argentina virtually suspended the importation of all foreign publications. Even in democratic France, the government started criminal proceedings in 1980 against the newspaper Le Monde for publishing five articles in the preceding three years that allegedly cast discredit on French courts. These are only a few examples of the censorship that has been imposed on people in nations around the world.

V

Censorship in the United States

When the American colonists drafted laws before 1776, they borrowed from English precedents regarding personal rights and liberties but went far beyond Great Britain in the fields of freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly. After the American Revolution and the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, these freedoms were guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

A

Protection from Censorship

The 1st Amendment, in broad terms, forbids Congress from enacting laws that would regulate speech or press before publication or punish after publication. At various times many states passed laws in contradiction to the freedoms guaranteed in the 1st Amendment. For example, in the pre-American Civil War period abolitionist literature against slavery was outlawed in the South. In the 1920s, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the guarantee of liberty in the due process clause of the 14th Amendment (adopted in 1868) makes the 1st Amendment applicable also to the states. The Supreme Court has held that although all previous restraint on publication is unconstitutional, exceptional circumstances may justify such restraint—in wartime, for instance, publication of the number, location, or sailing dates of troops may be prohibited.

Public officials and all official acts, including the existence of government itself, may be openly criticized and attacked by speech or publication, provided only that the words used are not of such a nature and are not used in such circumstances “as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress [or the state] has a right to prevent.” The classic example is that a person has no right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater when there is no fire. Thus, a person addressing an angry mob has no right to urge them on to riot, which would be a clear and present danger to the peace and security of the community. Cases in which a court was persuaded that such a danger had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, however, have been extremely rare.

In 1971 the Supreme Court considered the sensational Pentagon Papers case. A 47-volume official classified report on U.S. policy in Vietnam came into the possession of Daniel Ellsberg, a former federal official. The New York Times and several other leading newspapers began publishing parts of the report. The government asked for an injunction to stop publication. In considering the case, the Court said that any prior restraint on publication comes before the courts with a heavy presumption that it is unconstitutional, and that the government must prove that the restraint is justified. The Court, by a 6-3 vote, refused to bar the newspapers from reprinting the report.

Less dramatic expressions of a spirit of censorship have tended to persist. In some state or local communities textbook commissions or school boards have exerted pressure on authors and publishers to omit from or include in school texts certain materials relating to various sensitive areas such as evolution, the biblical account of creation, discussions of religious or racial groups, and expressions that are allegedly sexist. Some groups have attempted to pressure public and school libraries to prevent circulation of books and periodicals they consider morally or otherwise offensive. In the past, serious censorship problems were presented by the operations of the U.S. Post Office and the Customs Bureau, which refused to allow certain books and other materials to be brought into the country or sent through the mails. Since the early 1970s, however, court decisions, congressional legislation, and administrative regulations have resolved most of these problems, at least for the present.

B

Censorship of Obscenity

Until about the mid-20th century government policies provided for the strict suppression of obscene publications. The test, as developed in Britain and substantially followed in the U.S., was whether the publication “tended ... to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences.” The law was invoked against works of recognized merit as well as against pornographic publications. Successful prosecutions were common, as were seizures of books by post office, customs, and police officials.

The beginning of a new legal approach may be traced to the action of the federal courts in the 1930s, when they held that the Irish author James Joyce's Ulysses was not obscene and could be freely passed through customs. The courts ruled that the use of “dirty words” in “a sincere and honest book” did not make the book “dirty.” Since the 1950s many obscenity cases—involving books, magazines, and films—have been brought before the Supreme Court. In the cases during the 1970s the Court ruled that laws against obscenity must be limited “to works which, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest in sex; which portray sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and which, taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” The Court has further held that obscenity should be determined by applying “contemporary community standards” rather than national standards.

C

Private Action

One U.S. industry, the film industry, has for many years practiced a form of self-censorship. In the 1920s, responding to public demands for strong controls, the Motion Picture Association of America imposed on its constituents a Production Act; compliance with its standards gave a movie a seal of approval. A system of film classification was begun in 1968 and has been revised several times since then. Films are given ratings, as follows: G (general audiences), PG (parental guidance advised), PG-13 (may not be suitable for preteens), R (persons under age 17 not admitted unless accompanied by parent or adult guardian), and NC-17 (persons under age 17 not admitted; replaced the X rating in 1990).

For the television and radio industries the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has generally promulgated vague rules about program content containing an implied threat that a license can be revoked for repeated poor judgment involving program content. In 1987, however, the FCC responded to public complaints by adopting measures to restrict the use of explicit language about sex and bodily functions from the broadcasting media. Another code, designed by the National Association of Broadcasters, is voluntarily adhered to by station operators. The major networks also have their own self-regulating system. The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), for example, has a staff of people who review scripts and watch everything that is aired on CBS-TV, including commercials; every contract with a producer provides that the project is subject to approval under this system.

In the U.S. many different private groups attempt to influence government agencies, businesses, libraries, radio and television broadcasters, newspapers, and other communications media to suppress material that they consider objectionable. Religious, ethnic, and racial groups have tried to prevent plays, movies, and television programs from being presented because of elements they deem offensive.

One private group, the American Civil Liberties Union, promotes the open flow of all types of information in the belief that individuals should have free access and opportunities for the exercise of their personal discretion and that no group should limit the availability of the resources from which such choices are made.