Last month I reported that the Office of Foreign Asset Control of the US Treasury Department had abandoned its position that journals published in the United States could not edit papers submitted by residents of countries with which the United States embargoes trade, currently Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. I spoke too soon.
Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required), Peter J. Givler, Executive Director of the Association of American University Presses, reveals that OFAC has not really changed its mind. The letter that OFAC sent to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers relented only in the sense that it stated that OFAC consider minor editing permissible.
To be precise, OFAC's position is that the following (quoted by Givler from the letter) are acceptable:
As I argued in a
previous post,
not only is the OFAC position bad policy, it is contrary to legislative intent,
unconstitutional, and in violation of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. OFAC's current position, which is based on the claim that
the exemption for "...information or informational materials, including but not limited to,
publications, films, posters..."
is limited to materials already fully in existence, has no basis either in the
law or in the legislative history. The Treasury Department seems to be
infested by petty little fascists.
Posted by Bill Poser at May 18, 2004 01:06 AM