News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Bob Necci & Carol Hrdlicka, Andi Wolos
(POW-MIA FaxNetwork)

Re: When Free Speech Isn't Free

Date: June 08, 1997

After a protracted battle involving issues of free speech, Jan Scruggs and HIS Wall and Three Man Statue, a federal appeal court reinstated a ban on all T-Shirt sales on the National Mall.

The National Park Service has sought to ban all T-shirt sales in an effort to prevent the National Monument area from becoming what Mr. Scruggs has euphemised as the 'National T-Shirt Memorial.'

Scruggs set his sights on Ted Sampley and The Last Firebase, which has operated 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, as an information and Welcome Home station just south of The Wall.

After the initial ruling in favor of the Parks Service, a lower court ruled in favor of veterans using T-Shirts with the POW-MIA logo on them, as a means of free speech and public awareness.

At the present time, the ban only emcompasses T-Shirts. It does not prohibit the sale or distribution of books, newspapers, leaflets, pamphlets, buttons and bumper stickers... yet.