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July 24, 2006

Contact: Claire Safran, csafran(@)optonline.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Leading Journalism Organization Protests FEMA Restrictions on Free Speech, Says Policy Against Allowing Evacuees to Speak to Reporters Violates First Amendment

The First Amendment Committee of the American Society of Journalists and Authors today called on the Federal Emergency Management Agency to stop violating the civil rights of residents of FEMA trailer parks in Morgan City and Davant, Louisiana. FEMA officials have been prohibiting Hurricane Katrina evacuees living in those trailer parks from speaking with reporters trying to do stories, according to a recent report in the Baton Rouge newspaper The Advocate. ASJA, a leading organization of nonfiction writers in America, urged FEMA Director R. David Paulison to instruct all FEMA employees, staff and consultants to immediately end this obviously illegal restriction on the civil rights of U.S. citizens. "The First Amendment prohibits government restrictions on free speech and the free press, and this policy of ordering evacuees residing in FEMA-established trailer parks is a violation of both," said Timothy Harper of the ASJA s First Amendment Committee in a letter to Paulison.

In addition, ASJA encouraged its more than 1,000 members, and all citizens concerned about this policy restricting free speech, to protest in an e-mail to the Department of Homeland Securities computer hotline for reporting fraud, waste and violations of civil rights: dhsoighotline@dhs.gov.

The American Society of Journalists and Authors (www.asja.org) is a trade association of freelance writers founded in 1948 with more than 1,100 members who have met the ASJA s exacting standards of professional achievement.