LA Times: U.S. Embargos Extended to Editing Articles

[La_Serpiente]

U.S. Embargos Extended to Editing Articles

WASHINGTON — For U.S. publishers, changing so much as a comma in an author's work can be more than a delicate process. It can be criminal — punishable by fines of up to a half-million dollars or jail terms as long as 10 years.

In a move that pits national security concerns against academic freedom and the international flow of information, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control recently declared that American publishers cannot edit works authored in nations under trade embargoes. Although publishing the articles is legal, editing is a "service" and it is illegal to perform services for embargoed nations, the agency has ruled.

This week, one publisher decided to challenge the government and risk criminal prosecution by editing articles submitted from the five embargoed nations: Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and Cuba.

"I decided that the risks of damaging our publishing program now outweighed the risks of being in violation of the law," said Robert Bovenschulte, president of the American Chemical Society's publications division. The society publishes more than 24,000 articles each year in its scientific journals, and 60% are submitted from foreign nations, Bovenschulte said. It received 195 articles from Iranian scholars last year and published 60 of them.

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U.S. Embargos Extended to Editing Articles

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Another case of anti-intellectualism. Us (America) against them (Cuba, Libya, etc.) mentality. Not only can scholars not translate literature of commercial value, but also of societal, cultural, and religious importance.
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