Tuesday Telegraph Room

• Health protection of the tourist the main task which the committee on health in relation to the countries of the third world should solve WBR LeoP

• The article ?Humane Society Sues Amazon? (July 24, 2006) contains several inaccuracies, starting with the headline. The Humane Society of the United States has not yet sued Amazon. It has asked Amazon to stop promoting and selling the cockfighting magazines because the advertisement and sale of those magazines violates the Federal Animal Welfare Act, which prohibits any use of the mail service that ?promot[es] or in any other manner further[s]? unlawful animal fighting. Each violation is punishable by up to a $15,000 and a year in federal prison. Anyone who had actually seen the magazines would agree that their advertisement and sale ?promotes? or ?furthers? unlawful animal fighting. The magazines are predominantly advertisements, including ads for upcoming animal fights which list directions to the fights, fight entry fees, telephone numbers for the fighting ?pits,? and the weapons classifications (such as the ?long knife?). The magazines also advertise animals marketed for their fighting aptitude, as well as the knives affixed to their legs, and injectable drugs designed to thicken the birds? blood and prolong the effects of shock so that critically wounded birds can fight longer. In passing the Animal Welfare Act, Congress decried cockfighting as ?dehumanizing, abhorrent, and utterly without redeeming social value.? Even a rudimentary understanding of First Amendment law reveals that printed material such as the magazines, which is not only illegal in and of itself, but which also advertises criminal transactions, has never enjoyed any First Amendment protection. Indeed, the publisher of a similar animal fighting magazine was recently convicted of animal cruelty in New York, and also charged in Pennsylvania based on his publication and distribution of the magazine, and is currently in prison. Amazon sells many books that portray the historical aspects of cockfighting, but The Humane Society of the United States\' narrowly tailored, reasonable request is only that Amazon remove the listings for the two magazines, because the magazines serve as the real-time informational infrastructure without which illegal cockfighting enterprises would not function. Ann Chynoweth Director Animal Cruelty and Fighting Campaign The Humane Society of the United States Washington, DC

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