How much does NRA membership cost? Are you sure you’re getting value for money?
I’ve been looking on their website, and found this. LOL Gotta love how it was posted in the “FactSheets” section.
http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=78"The British government frequently bans books on national security grounds. In addition, England`s libel laws tend to favor those who bring suit against a free press. Prior restraint of speech in the United States is allowed only in the most urgent of circumstances. In England, the government may apply for a prior restraint of speech ex parte, asking a court to censor a newspaper without the newspaper even having notice or the opportunity to present an argument. . . . Free speech in Great Britain is also constrained by the Official Secrets Act, which outlaws the unauthorized receipt of information from any government agency, and allows the government to forbid publication of any `secret` it pleases. . . . The act was expanded in 1920 and again in 1989 -- times when gun controls were also expanded." (Kopel, 1991, pp. 99-102.)
This is all lies. “frequently bans books”??? WTF!!! The only book I’m aware of that was banned was a book called “Spycatcher” by former MI5 agent Peter Wright in the 1980s. But of course it wasn’t banned in other countries. I got my copy on a visit to America, but there were guys importing copies and selling them overtly at railway stations, or at the roadside on busy routes into London. It must have been “unbanned” because you can buy it on Amazon. The temporary ban ensured that the case made the headlines, and it is estimated that three times as many copies were sold than would have been sold if the govt. had done nothing. The govt. must have realised its folly, and no books have been banned since. I read my Spycatcher openly, while travelling by train and while sitting at a café for lunch, and I was not arrested.
Notice the completely false and misleading link made between out Official Secrets Act, and gun legislation. I once had to sign a secrecy agreement as a condition of my employment at Rank Xerox UK, but this was to protect their commercial interests from their competitors, and not as an "infringement of my right to free speech". I also had to have background checks, and may have been required to sign the OSA when I applied for a position at Plessey – developing “underwater systems”, ie. missiles/torpedoes for the military. I didn’t take that job, but the point is that the OSA is designed to protect national security. It would have been no good at all to have someone working on a secret government project to exercise “free speech” and stand at Speaker’s Corner blabbing all the confidential material through a loud hailer for the benefit of the Russians.
That is what the OSA is about. But yet again, the NRA wants to con you guys into believing we live under some sort of KGB jackboot. I wonder how long an employee of Lockheed Martin would have lasted, if he’d gone to Baghdad to talk to Saddam about details of LM products. Would that be considered “free speech”?
There was another book banned a long time ago (long since unbanned), and that was
Lady Chatterley's Lover, which was considered too erotic for the times! Kinda reminds me of the debacle about the multiracial kiss between James T. Kirk and Lt. Uhura in Star Trek, and the way that an episode of The Avengers was banned in America because of a whipping scene - Diana Rigg trussed up in an exotic outfit while some guy brandished a whip.
