Unabomber bids for control of his writings

NEW YORK, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Theodore Kaczynski, who terrorized the United States from 1978-95 as the Unabomber, is fighting a government plan to publish edited versions of his writings.

Kaczynski, who began serving a life sentence nine years ago, is suing to regain control of more than 40,000 pages of his writings and correspondence so the public can read the material in its rawest form, The New York Times reported.

The federal government plans to auction off the material in sanitized form to help raise money for four victims of Kaczynski's bombing attacks. Kaczynski cites his First Amendment rights in arguing that the government has no right to alter his writings.

Kaczynski's brother, David Kaczynski, told the newspaper he is for "anything that would help the victims," but he does not want private family letters sold to collectors.

The writings in question include journals, diaries and drafts of the anti-technology manifesto that formed the basis of Kaczynski's rationale for 16 mail bombings that killed three people and injured 28. The material was confiscated when Kaczynski was arrested at his remote cabin in Montana in April 1996.