A Letter from the Director

The CBLDF is winning the fights that matter to your free speech. We need your support now to keep up this good and important work.

Recent weeks have seen a flurry of free speech victories in battles the Fund’s been fighting:

On June 29, the Supreme Court upheld the ban on COPA, effectively quashing a law that would chill protected speech on the Internet and make the government more intrusive in how adults can read and see the material they choose to view. The Fund was there, fighting COPA from the start.

Last week, Washington state’s violent video game law was struck down. The law would have made it illegal to sell or rent games depicting violence against uniformed law enforcement officers. The court recognized video games as protected speech and declared that violence is neither legally obscene nor harmful to minors. The VSDA led the fight, which the Fund and our free speech allies vigorously supported.

In the last season, we’ve also successfully held off the enforcement of unconstitutional display laws in Arkansas and Michigan that would effect how every retailer in those states does business. We are moving ahead towards killing those laws entirely.

This is the kind of advocacy work that comics needs in order to be legally safe and creatively vibrant in these turbulent times. To keep doing this work, the CBLDF urgently needs your continued support. We need to you to join, either online or at this week’s Comic-Con International: San Diego. At the Con there will be plenty of opportunities to support, from Saturday night’s gala auction, to signings at our booth (4504/4506), to cool new t-shirts and premiums, including the return of Frank Miller’s Band-Aid tee. However you choose to support the Fund, it will go a long way to helping us protect comics’ free speech rights.

There are new battles on the horizon, including John Ashcroft’s potentially unconstitutional recordkeeping requirements for adult material as part of the Protect Act, and potential increases to the DoJ’s obscenity unit. We’re keeping close watch on these and other threats, but we can’t fight them -- or even keep proper watch on them -- unless we have the money we need to do so.

Support the CBLDF this week. Whether it’s through membership, premiums, or any other donation, your dollars help us fight the important battles. Now is the time to support the fight.

Charles Brownstein,
Executive Director