“I’ve had to spend a vast amount of time on legal work. And I’ve lost.”

Dear [CENSORED],

Thanks for the card you sent me last December. I certainly have not been prompt to answer, but I have a good excuse for being so slow: I’ve had to spend a vast amount of time on legal work. And I’ve lost. To state the case very briefly, the U.S. government wants to round up and confiscate every copy of everything I’ve ever written, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit has more or less given them a green light to do that. This should be a matter of grave concern to everyone, because it shows that the federal courts will allow the government to ignore the guarantees of the First Amendment (freedom of expression, etc.) whenever the courts have a sufficiently strong political motive for doing so.

I don’t know what else to tell you, because you didn’t indicate your reason for writing to me. Do you have anything in particular to say to me?