As if you needed any more documentation that the United States is being ruled by a claque of nutters, the Bush Administration has now put commas, periods and the insidious quotation marks on the list of "trading with the enemy" prohibited goods. I kid you not.Treasury Department Is Warning Publishers of the Perils of Criminal Editing of 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.
The Treasury letters concerned Iran. But the logic, experts said, would seem to extend to Cuba, Libya, North Korea and other nations with which most trade is banned without a government license.
Funny, my copy of the First Amendment -- admittedly an unshredded copy -- says nothing about restricting publishing to "camera ready copy."
All of this would be funny if it weren't so ominous.
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