Criminal Editing of the Enemy

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/national/28PUBL.html>
(registration required, only available a week normally)

NY Times
Treasury Department Is Warning Publishers of the Perils of Criminal Editing
of the Enemy
By ADAM LIPTAK

Published: February 28, 2004

Writers often grumble about the criminal things editors do to their prose.
The federal government has recently weighed in on the same issue -
literally.

It has warned publishers they may face grave legal consequences for
editing manuscripts from Iran and other disfavored nations, on the ground
that such tinkering amounts to trading with the enemy. Anyone who
publishes material from a country under a trade embargo is forbidden to
reorder paragraphs or sentences, correct syntax or grammar, or replace
"inappropriate words," according to several advisory letters from the
Treasury Department in recent months.

Adding illustrations is prohibited, too. To the baffled dismay of
publishers, editors and translators who have been briefed about the
policy, only publication of "camera-ready copies of manuscripts" is
allowed ... "It is against the principles of scholarship and freedom of
expression, as well as the interests of science, to require publishers to
get U.S. government permission to publish the works of scholars and
researchers who happen to live in countries with oppressive regimes," said
Eric A. Swanson, a senior vice president at John Wiley & Sons, which
publishes scientific, technical and medical books and journals.

...

Nahid Mozaffari, a scholar and editor specializing in literature from
Iran, called the implications staggering. "A story, a poem, an article on
history, archaeology, linguistics, engineering, physics, mathematics, or
any other area of knowledge cannot be translated, and even if submitted in
English, cannot be edited in the U.S.," she said. "This means that the
publication of the PEN Anthology of Contemporary Persian Literature that I
have been editing for the last three years," she said, "would constitute
aiding and abetting the enemy."

..

Tara Bradshaw, a Treasury Department spokeswoman, confirmed the
restrictions on manuscripts from Iran in a statement. Banned activities
include, she wrote, "collaboration on and editing of the manuscripts, the
selection of reviewers, and facilitation of a review resulting in
substantive enhancements or alterations to the manuscripts."

...

Congress has tried to exempt "information or informational materials" from
the nation's trade embargoes. Since 1988, it has prohibited the executive
branch from interfering "directly or indirectly" with such trade. That
exception is known as the Berman Amendment, after its sponsor,
Representative Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat. Critics said the
Treasury Department had long interpreted the amendment narrowly and
grudgingly. Even so, Mr. Berman said, the recent letters were "a very
bizarre interpretation." "It is directly contrary to the amendment and to
the intent of the amendment," he said. "I also don't understand why it's
not in our interest to get information into Iran."

...

Kenneth R. Foster, a professor of bioengineering at the University of
Pennsylvania, said the government had grown insistent on the editing ban.
"Since 9/11 and since the Bush administration took office," he said, "the
Treasury Department has been ramping up enforcement."

..

Publishers may still seek licenses from the government that would allow
editing, but many First Amendment specialists said that was an
unacceptable alternative. "That's censorship," said Leon Friedman, a
Hofstra law professor who sometimes represents PEN. "That's a prior
restraint."

Chuck