Lynndie England Speech Canceled by Threats

A lecture by Lynndie England—the woman who became the public face of the Abu Ghraib scandal—had to be canceled at the Library of Congress yesterday after multiple threats led to concerns about staff safety. The former Army reservist had been scheduled to discuss her biography as part of a veterans forum.

An employees' group received "numerous expressions of protest" about the lecture from its members. More ominously, the Vietnam War vet who organized the event said he received several emails threatening violence. "We can't have an event here that's going to develop into a brawl like a town hall meeting," he said. "Free speech in America is pretty well dead."
(More Abu Ghraib stories.)