The Heritage Foundation Oversight Project is suing the Department of Defense to find out why two planned film screenings of “Sound of Freedom” were abruptly canceled by the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).
Based on a true story, “Sound of Freedom” follows the efforts of Tim Ballard, a real-life former Department of Homeland Security agent, to rescue children from the sex trafficking industry.
The movie, released on July 4, rose to acclaim for its candid depiction of the horrors of child sex slavery, overcoming numerous hurdles to become a box office smash.
“As SOUTHCOM routinely works with partners in Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean, it has a vested interest in ensuring that its personnel are well aware of issues surrounding human trafficking in the region,” notes the lawsuit filed on Dec. 22.
Yet SOUTHCOM canceled two scheduled screenings of “Sound of Freedom” that were planned for August and October at SOUTHCOM headquarters.
Copyright and intellectual property laws were the provided excuse for the cancellations. But the film’s producer, Eduardo Verástegui, said no such conflict existed.
“Because SOUTHCOM’s brave soldiers work to break up the transnational criminal organizations responsible for drug and sex trafficking into the U.S., we wanted to inspire and thank them for their service by offering a private screening on base,” he explained in a statement.
“We made it 100 percent clear that there are no copyright concerns with SOUTHCOM hosting the movie while it was in theaters, and additionally offered to send the filmmakers to meet the troops at the screening.”
The filmmaker added that he and Mr. Ballard were willing to personally deliver a copy of the film to the troops to encourage them in their efforts to combat child sex trafficking.
“To our bewilderment, SOUTHCOM leadership has rejected our offer for three different, shifting, and unconvincing reasons, and we appreciate the Oversight Project’s efforts to get to the bottom of it,” he said.
“We are hopeful this matter will be resolved soon so that the troops can gather together and be touched like the tens of millions of other Americans and people around the world who have seen this film and are saying with one voice that God’s children are not for sale.”
The Oversight Project had attempted to learn more about what factors played into the cancellation by filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in September. That request, however, was “never substantively responded to,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit asks the court to order the Defense Department to conduct a search for and produce all records responsive to the FOIA request.
A spokesperson for the Defense Department declined to comment on the pending litigation.
