The Wild West of Free Speech

From Boing Boing comes this result of a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. government for FBI files on Loompanics, a U.S.-based distributor of books about smuggling, explosives, drug production, political activism, and other spicy subjects. The West German police were not amused to find out that someone in West Germany had ordered the books "Total Resistance", "Psychedelic Chemistry" and "CIA Improvised Sabotage Devices" to be sent to Germany, and suspected that the materials would be used to foment 'dissension'.

The files, acquired by Government Attic, a website that specializes in obtaining access to U.S. government documents, show (.pdf) that the FBI dutifully followed up on the request by their German cousins, but were unable to help them, since it's legal to publish books describing and advocating illegal activity in the U.S. I'm sure the Germans were disappointed.

Comments

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[Cuneiform]

It is a bit complicated here. Publishing instructions for illegal activities per se is legal in Germany too. Advocating crimes is legal for most individual types of delict too, but there is a list of crimes for which it is not.