Center for Free Expression Releases Annual 'Muzzle' Awards

Good news for people who love bad news
Attacks on free speech continue on everything from global warming research to evil teddy bear movies ...

Like so many paths you don’t want to travel, the road to censorship is
paved with good intentions. The desire to protect turns into an act of
suppression.

“I think it’s the magnitude, the scope, the extent of the control of climate change and global warming information that’s been most troubling,” Robert O’Neil says of the Bush Administration’s attempts to doctor science.

  It’s always a message that Robert O’Neil, founding director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, finds in the annual Jefferson Muzzle awards. His Charlottesville-based
organization has been giving out Muzzles to free speech offenders
nationwide since 1992, and recipients have ranged from the Clinton
Administration to hecklers of Ann Coulter.

The 14 Muzzles awarded in 2007 are no exception to a persistent trend that Robert
O’Neil sees of laudable intentions underlying two-thirds of the Muzzles
given out in any given year. This year, Muzzles go to the Philly human
relations commission looking out for immigrants, the NCAA looking out
for Native Americans, a legislature trying to keep away terrorists, a
school board backing up an allegedly threatened teacher, and several
high school principals trying to avoid school fights.