"It's happening again— President Obama is using his imperial pen and telephone to curb your rights and bypass Congress through executive action.
Even as news reports have been highlighting the gun control provisions of the Administration's "Unified Agenda" of regulatory objectives (see accompanying story), the Obama State Department has been quietly moving ahead with a proposal that could censor online speech related to firearms. This latest regulatory assault, published in the June 3 issue of the Federal Register, is as much an affront to the First Amendment as it is to the Second. Your action is urgently needed to ensure that online blogs, videos, and web forums devoted to the technical aspects of firearms and ammunition do not become subject to prior review by State Department bureaucrats before they can be published.
To understand the proposal and why it's so serious, some background information is necessary.
For the past several years, the Administration has been pursuing a large-scale overhaul of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which implement the federal Arms Export Control Act (AECA). The Act regulates the movement of so-called "defense articles" and "defense services" in and out of the United States. These articles and services are enumerated in a multi-part "U.S. Munitions List," which covers everything from firearms and ammunition (and related accessories) to strategic bombers. The transnational movement of any defense article or service on the Munitions List presumptively requires a license from the State Department. Producers of such articles and services, moreover, must register with the U.S. Government and pay a hefty fee for doing so."
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