Clinton Fein (born 1964 in South Africa) is an artist, writer and activist, noted for his company Apollomedia and its controversial website Annoy.com and its Supreme Court victory against Janet Reno, United States Attorney General, regarding the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act in 1997. This victory, a landmark for First Amendment rights, won Fein's right to disseminate his art. Fein won another federal First Amendment lawsuit to remove a government-imposed gag order. As recognition, Fein received a nomination for a PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award in 2001. Fein now presides the board of First Amendment Project, a nonprofit organization that protects and promotes freedom of information, expression, and petition. Early life and career Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, Fein graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in 1986, with a Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Psychology. After living in New York for a couple of years, Fein moved to Los Angeles, where he began reporting directly to the President of Orion Pictures, as part of the creative team for numerous films, among them Academy Award-winning Dances with Wolves and The Silence of the Lambs. From the outset, Fein's work has led him into some high-profile confrontations. In 1994, his CD-ROM Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military, based on the book by renowned investigative reporter Randy Shilts that examined the issue of gays in the military, used digital technology as an art form. When the US Navy unsuccessfully attempted to block its release, it became the first CD-ROM to triumph under First Amendment protections. Conduct Unbecoming won the Critic's Choice Award, was praised by Wired Magazine as "a tantalizing peek at the potential of CD-ROM publishing," and dubbed "evolutionary" by Rolling Stone Magazine. Art and law Fein was the first South African-born American to challenge government restrictions on technological communications when he filed a federal lawsuit 30 January 1997. Fein, represented by Michael Traynor of Cooley Godward LLP and by William Bennett Turner of Rogers, Joseph, O'Donell and Phillips, filed a lawsuit against Janet Reno, former United States Attorney General, challenging the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The CDA made the communication of anything "indecent with the intent to annoy", a felony punishable by a fine and up to two-year imprisonment. President Bill Clinton signed the CDA into law in February 1996. Fein filed the lawsuit, Apollomedia v. Reno, the same time