Religious Books Removed From U.S. Prisons

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The newspaper said that in some cases, thousands of religious books had been removed from libraries where they had been accumulating for years. The Bureau of Prisons has ordered the chaplains to remove "any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources." (Prayer books and other worship materials are not affected by the purge.)

Federal officials said the purge stemmed from a Justice Department report that recommended that prisons not become recruitment centers for militant Islamic and other religious groups.

Prison chaplains and groups that minister to prisoners have mobilized to oppose the policy, which was implemented in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"It's swatting a fly with a sledgehammer," Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship, a Christian group, told the Times. "There's no need to get rid of literally hundreds of thousands of books that are fine simply because you have a problem with an isolated book or piece of literature that presents extremism."

The bureau has prepared a list of approved religious materials, but because "the bureau has not provided additional money to prisons to buy the books on the lists, so in some prisons, after the shelves were cleared of books not on the lists, few remained."

An unidentified prison chaplain interviewed by the Times said the policy was pointless since chaplains routinely reject material that incites violence.

Is 9/11 Already Fading From Memory?

USA Today wonders whether Sept. 11 is becoming just another date on the calendar. The newspaper noted that WABC-TV in New York had, for the first time, not planned to televise the entire memorial ceremony from Ground Zero. (The station reversed its decision after receiving protests from some of the families of victims.)

And Morris County, New Jersey, which lost about 100 residents on 9/11, has had to postpone improvements in its 9/11 memorial because fundraising has fallen short.

Nevertheless, 71 percent of Americans called Sept. 11 the most memorable news event of their lives. But only 6 percent plan to mark the anniversary in any formal way.

"Like any event, even Pearl Harbor, the more time goes by, the less central it becomes to our experience," Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor who studies U.S. popular culture, told the newspaper. "That's healthy. It becomes more a part of history, less a raw wound."

China Steps Up Internet Censorship

The Washington Post reports that China is energetically censoring the Internet and other forms of electronic communication.

The Public Security Ministry, which monitors the Internet, has recruited "an estimated 30,000 people to snoop on electronic communications. The ministry recently introduced two cartoon characters -- a male and female in police uniforms -- that it said would pop up on computer screens occasionally to remind people that their activity is being tracked."

Even apparently non-political postings can bring punishment.

Flooding this summer in the northeastern province of Shandong caused 34 deaths, according to China's tightly controlled media. Not so, said a woman who posted an Internet piece that said at least 100 people had been killed in the provincial capital alone, where an underground supermarket was flooded.

The 23-year-old author was arrested and charged with creating public disorder by spreading rumors. But censorship has its limits. The Post noted that many residents readily believed the anonymous Internet posting over official pronouncements by the government.

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