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Show World Briefs WASHINGTON-AP-The Supreme Sup-reme Court unanimously stripped Post Office officials Thursday of the power to block or detain mail to dealers in "obscene" materials. The court's opinion, by Justice William J. Brennan Jr., said the authority, dating back to 1890, is a form of censorship forbidden by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Agreeing with federal district courts in California and Georgia the high court invalidated two laws. Under one, dating back to 1890, the postmaster general could have letters stamped "unlawful" "un-lawful" and returned to the senders if an administrative officer decided the intended recipient was obtaining money through the mail for obscene or indecent articles or devices. Under the second law, enacted in 1960, the postmaster general had the power to obtain a court order permitting him to detain mail to a dealer the government decided traffics in obscenity. Quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes, the late justice who was one of the most eloquent civil libertarians in the nation's history, Brennan wrote: "The United States may give up the Post Office when it sees fit, but while it carries on,i the use of the mails is almost as much a part of free speech as the right to use our tongues..." PARIS-AP-The United States attempted Thursday to hand the Communist side at the Vietnam peace talks a list of 1,534 Americans missing or held prisoners in Southeast Asia. The Communists refused to accept the list, so U.S. Ambassador Ambassa-dor David K.E. Bruce read the names of the latest missing and taken prisoners into the conference con-ference record. The list he read included 156 names. American officials claimed the Communist attitude in not accepting the list "shocking and cynical." Mrs. Nguyen Thi Binh, head of the Viet Cong delegation, accused Ambassador Bruce of attempting a maneuver in presenting the list, and said he should get back to issues holding on peace. RIO DE JANEIRO-AP-The ransom was paid with the freeing of 70 Brazilian prisoners, but the welcome banquet remained un-tasted un-tasted Thursday, awaiting arrival of Swiss Ambassador Giovanni Bucher,kidnappedby terrorists 39 days ago. Newsmen stood vigil outside Bucher's hillside residence and members of the household staff peered anxiously out windows for a sign of the 57-year-old envoy whose release had been promised in return for asylum in Chile for the 70 prisoners. He was the fourth diplomat kidnapped in Brazil in two years. |