Ban Is Eased on Editing Foreign Work

[R. A. Hettinga]

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/politics/05PUBL.html?ei=1&en=b4429c6bc9f7b5c7&ex=1082148579&pagewanted=print&position=>

The New York Times

April 5, 2004

Ban Is Eased on Editing Foreign Work
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

ASHINGTON, April 4 - The federal government has eased a ban on editing
manuscripts from nations that are under United States trade embargoes, a
move that appears to leave publishers free once again to edit scholarly
works from Iran and other such countries.

 The Treasury Department sent a letter on Friday to a lawyer for the
Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers, an international group
representing more than 360,000 engineers and scientists, saying the
organization's peer review, editing and publishing was "not constrained" by
regulations from the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. The
group says its members produce 30 percent of the world's literature in
electrical and electronics engineering and computer science.

The letter from the Treasury Department referred specifically to publishing
by the institute, but Arthur Winston, the group's president, said he
believed the ruling would be "a relief for nearly everyone" in the
scholarly publishing community.

 "The ruling eliminates potentially disturbing U.S. government intrusions
on our scholarly publishing process," Mr. Winston said.

No one at the Treasury Department could be reached for comment Sunday night
on the ruling.

 The department and publishers have long quarreled over the exemption of
"information or informational materials" from the nation's trade embargoes.
Congress has generally allowed such exemptions.

 Nonetheless, the Treasury Department sent out advisory letters over the
past year telling publishers who were editing material from a country under
a trade embargo that they were forbidden to reorder paragraphs or
sentences, correct syntax or grammar, replace "inappropriate words" or add
illustrations.

 The advisories concerned Iran, but experts said the ruling seemed to
extend to Cuba, Libya, North Korea and other nations with which most trade
is banned without a government license.

 In theory, even routine editing on manuscripts from those countries could
have subjected publishers to fines of $500,000 and 10 years in jail.


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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
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