The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has announced they’re getting involved in the fight against an Alaskan law involving censorship.  They join a coalition of organizations and local booksellers against the law that “bans constitutionally protected speech on the Internet on topics including contraception and pregnancy, sexual health, literature, and art and also threatens retailers of books, magazines, movies and other media.”

The law was signed in May by Governor Parnell and went into affect July 1.  According to the CBLDF:

The law could make anyone who operates a website or communicates through a listserv criminally liable for nudity or sexually related material, if the material can be considered “harmful to minors” under the law’s definition.

Violators of this law face up to two years in prison, would have to register as a sex offender and could forfeit their business.  The CBLDF went on to call the legislation a “clear and present danger.”

Plaintiffs in the suit against state attorney general Daniel Sullivan are the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Alaska Library Association, the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, the Association of American Publishers, Bosco’s Inc. the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Don Douglas Photography, the Entertainment Merchants Association, Fireside Books, the Freedom To Read Foundation, and Title Wave Books.

The law was intended to protect children from online predators and if it is struck down the state would still be able to fight that heinous crime.