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...just pick a random european country

As an European I disagree. Try to home school in Germany. Try to run a Church the government don't like (say a Baptist church) in France. Try to (legally) buy a gun in Romania. Try to run a political organization the government really hates in Spain. Banning a political party isn't an alien idea to The Council of Europe.

A pregnant asylum seeker I knew here in Norway asked the Norwegian Child Welfare Services (Barnevernet) for help. She foolishly assumed they at least would try to help her before taking her child. They came to the hospital when she gave birth and took it. Other cases have reached the international media.

I'm not claiming that the USA is Heaven. I'm not claiming Europe is Hell. Here in Norway I can (within some limits) home school, run an unpopular church, buy a gun and run an organization the government don't like. While crime speech is illegal our courts have usually chosen an interpretation that bans less speech then what is possible using other interpretations. Claiming that a random European country have more liberty than the USA is still horribly wrong.

'We the people' have spoken.. 'We' do not want more freedom.. In fact, too many (these are your kids, so this is your future) think we already have too much. If 'we' did, 'we' would vote for freedom regardless of the propaganda being spewed against it. 'We' want convenience and American Idol and will kill anybody who gets in the way of that... Big business is the government. It is delusional to expect 'reform'. Regime change will not be peaceful by any means.

FBI monitoring library records in terror probe (By The Associated Press)
But, of course, it hasn't been used, they say.Authority to obtain library records hasn't been used, Ashcroft says (By The Associated Press)

It's way worse than that. The state was New Hampshire and the slogan that was taped over was "LIVE FREE OR DIE".

http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=15440

Eventually, the case was heard by the Supreme Court of the Unites States. New Hampshire lost 6-3 on First Amendment -- Freedom of Speech grounds. The defendant was eventually awarded legal fees which New Hampshire refused to pay until a marshall walked into a state liquor store with a writ and demanded $21,000.

In free countries, it's recognized that you can't defame public officials.

The standard in the U.S. is based on malice. You were out to do damage.

You broadcast something you knew was a lie or demonstrated a reckless disregard for the truth.

Free societies do not remain free when their elected representatives can be slandered into political oblivion.

Defamation and the First Amendment

The identity of the journalist may possibly be considered protected if the journalist is anonymous, but I highly doubt it.

With regards to defamation, courts generally hold that anonymous people remain anonymous until the plaintiff can prove that defamation occurred, ie the identity of the messenger has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of the message (for a randomly selected example see this which itself cites other cases on page 8 (lol scanned pdf)).

In the general case, anonymity has existed since before Publius, who the Supreme Court is generally fond of referencing when upholding anonymity.

The information requested in the subpoena is the same data listed in the statute listed.

Going back to my other post, if the law said that you can subpoena for my unicorns, would you look any less stupid if you went to court to demand my unicorns? Absent mod_psychicpowers, unicorns are as likely as SSNs and bank account numbers to be in the webserver logs.

Please explain what part of the First Amendment is being violated.

The other half of the right to speak without government interference: the right to listen without government interference. Upheld multiple times.

Please explain how the gag order is unconstitutional, including the relevant sections of the Constitution and other law.

Generally speaking, issuing a gag order directly against a journalist is not permissible. This is why gag orders are generally restricted to parties involved, to keep them from talking to the press. Other cases cited at the EFF link above.

The subscriber, commenter, etc. has no standing under the Fourth Amendment because the property of the subscriber, commenter, etc. is not being searched.

Well, good thing IndyMedia was the one objecting to the search, making this line of argument pointless.

There is no law against me walking up to your mother and calling her a cunt

There was in Michigan, for over a hundred years. Fortunately, the Supreme Court struck it down.

Huh, I found this when I googled "cussing canoeist". Seems that the law was struck down due to his river adventure.

Michigan had an anti-profanity passed in 1897. It outlawed cursing in front of woment or children. In 1989 a canoeist was charged with violating the law after hitting a rock with his canoe and releasing a stream of profanities in front of a family.

He was actually found guilty the first time around. The court of appeals though threw out his case and the law. Here though if he had been convicted it would only have been a $75 fine and community service.

http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=15992

No one is advocating bringing back the fairness doctrine. This is a right-wing/libertarian talking point. Let it go, ffs.

How about Schumer and Pelosi? Or Sen. Jeff Bingaman? Then there's the fact that it was included as part of the Democratic Party Platform in 2000. Oh, then there's this article quoting Nancy Pelosi's support of it. Illustrious leader Dick Durbin has also advocated its reinstatement.

Just because they're paranoid, doesn't mean there's nobody out to get them.

No. It's propaganda. Or rather, strategy. Modern China is largely a result of the great Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. For a concrete example (ha ha ha, please shoot me) he wrote a detailed plan in his book The International Development of China a plan for the building of the Three Gorges Dam (in 1929!)

Anyway, in his VERY popular book The Three Principles of the People the concept of nationalism is highly stressed. It was his opinion that nationalism was the most important element in destroying the Confucian family-clan loyalty that he believed had held China back. He also (correctly) believed that it built powerful societies (which WW2 Japan, Germany, America and Italy all proved correct.)

If there is anything which makes Americans look like jackasses, it's the idiots like Nancy Pelosi who go over there and lecture the Chinese about Tibet. For one thing, Tibet has been part of China in several periods of Chinese history. Secondly, America was a moderately imperialist nation (Hawaii Anyone?) For us to lecture Chinese about Tibet is like inviting George Bush to teach English or Bill Clinton to give a sober lecture on the moral purity of abstinence.

I think that's basically what you're saying, anyway.

I do have to take issue with your vague assertion that "the US has not exactly made friends throughout the world recently." We have one tenth of the number of sworn enemies we had just fifty years ago. Hell, China makes every damned thing you can buy at Wal-Mart. Fifty years ago they fully intended to kill us (the Vietnam war was largely a war between China and the United States.) Now, they simply intend to humiliate us by making so much money they buy us out. And I hope that they do.

It's important to remember that governments do not matter, people matter. The actual end results are what matters. This is the problem with nationalism. Liberty matters, governments do not. Liberty matters, nationality does not.

And those in the West to criticize China on this issue are often entirely ignorant of the gross infringements on our liberty here in the west.

I knew a guy who was charged for shouting an obscene comment to a buddy while they were kayaking near a swimming area...

You know, in some places that kind of language can get you arrested. So watch your language in front of the CCTV!

However, since most of the infringement taking place over P2P is of relatively new material that certainly would fall within a reasonable period of copyright rather than older works that would have become public domain by now without the extensions, there's not much practical connection between them.

. In the U.S. (U.S.C. 18 Sec. 2256), child pornography does not require visual depictions of actual children in actual or simulated sexual activity to be present. Child pornography also includes visual depictions of simulated children in sexual activity. You know, that web site you visit with the 18 year old dressed like a school girl? If the government want to press a case against you, that counts as possession of child pornography.

Relevant Case Law

42 U.S.C. Section 1983
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress...
http://www.peoples-law.org/individual-rts/civil-rights/1983_exactwords.htm

Dwyer v. Oceanport School District
School officials will pay a former student $117,500 to settle a lawsuit he filed claiming his First Amendment rights were violated after administrators punished him for material posted on his Web site.
http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1126

Beidler v. North Thurston Sch. Dist
A superior court judge ruled in July that the North Thurston County School District violated the constitutional rights of a student who was suspended for ridiculing a school administrator on his personal Web site. In late January 1999, the school principal placed Beidler on "emergency expulsion." According to Beidler, the principal told him some teachers said they felt uncomfortable about having Beidler in their classes due to the content of his website. The principal also testified that he found the website "personally appalling" and "real inappropriate. On July 18, 2000, a Washington trial court judge granted summary judgment to Beidler on his First Amendment claims. The judge first noted that the First Amendment rights of public school students remain constant even in the age of the Internet. "Today the first amendment protects student speech to the same extent as in 1979 or 1969, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Tinker."
http://www.splc.org/report_detail.asp?id=448&edition=4

Flaherty v. Keystone Oaks Sch. District
A local school district has agreed to pay $60,000 in partial settlement of lawsuit brought by a former student who was kicked off the volleyball team because he posted an Internet message criticizing an art teacher, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania announced today.
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/speech/15185prs20021118.html

O'Brien v. Westlake City Schools Board of Education
Sean O'Brien, while a sixteen-year-old junior at Westlake High School, created a website in March 1998 that lampooned his band teacher Raymond Walczuk. His web page "raymondsucks.org" contained several unflattering comments about Walczuk. School officials settled with O'Brien by agreeing to pay him $30,000, expunging the suspension from his record and writing a letter of apology
http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/censorshipinternetspeech/part3.htm

Beussink v. Woodland R-IV School District
Brandon Beussink, then a junior at Woodland High School, created his own homepage on his own computer at his own home. The homepage was "highly critical" of the school administration and included vulgar language in his opinions of teachers and the principal. The principal initially suspended Beussink for five days because he was offended by the content on the site, and he later extended the suspension to ten days. "Disliking or being upset by the content of a student's speech is not an acceptable justification for limiting student speech under Tinker," the judge wrote.
http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/censorshipinternetspeech/part3.htm

Mahaffey v. Aldrich
An unpublished decis

Relevant Case Law

42 U.S.C. Section 1983
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress...
http://www.peoples-law.org/individual-rts/civil-rights/1983_exactwords.htm

Dwyer v. Oceanport School District
School officials will pay a former student $117,500 to settle a lawsuit he filed claiming his First Amendment rights were violated after administrators punished him for material posted on his Web site.
http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1126

Beidler v. North Thurston Sch. Dist
A superior court judge ruled in July that the North Thurston County School District violated the constitutional rights of a student who was suspended for ridiculing a school administrator on his personal Web site. In late January 1999, the school principal placed Beidler on "emergency expulsion." According to Beidler, the principal told him some teachers said they felt uncomfortable about having Beidler in their classes due to the content of his website. The principal also testified that he found the website "personally appalling" and "real inappropriate. On July 18, 2000, a Washington trial court judge granted summary judgment to Beidler on his First Amendment claims. The judge first noted that the First Amendment rights of public school students remain constant even in the age of the Internet. "Today the first amendment protects student speech to the same extent as in 1979 or 1969, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Tinker."
http://www.splc.org/report_detail.asp?id=448&edition=4

Flaherty v. Keystone Oaks Sch. District
A local school district has agreed to pay $60,000 in partial settlement of lawsuit brought by a former student who was kicked off the volleyball team because he posted an Internet message criticizing an art teacher, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania announced today.
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/speech/15185prs20021118.html

O'Brien v. Westlake City Schools Board of Education
Sean O'Brien, while a sixteen-year-old junior at Westlake High School, created a website in March 1998 that lampooned his band teacher Raymond Walczuk. His web page "raymondsucks.org" contained several unflattering comments about Walczuk. School officials settled with O'Brien by agreeing to pay him $30,000, expunging the suspension from his record and writing a letter of apology
http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/censorshipinternetspeech/part3.htm

Beussink v. Woodland R-IV School District
Brandon Beussink, then a junior at Woodland High School, created his own homepage on his own computer at his own home. The homepage was "highly critical" of the school administration and included vulgar language in his opinions of teachers and the principal. The principal initially suspended Beussink for five days because he was offended by the content on the site, and he later extended the suspension to ten days. "Disliking or being upset by the content of a student's speech is not an acceptable justification for limiting student speech under Tinker," the judge wrote.
http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/censorshipinternetspeech/part3.htm

Mahaffey v. Aldrich
An unpublished decis

Relevant Case Law

42 U.S.C. Section 1983
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress...
http://www.peoples-law.org/individual-rts/civil-rights/1983_exactwords.htm

Dwyer v. Oceanport School District
School officials will pay a former student $117,500 to settle a lawsuit he filed claiming his First Amendment rights were violated after administrators punished him for material posted on his Web site.
http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1126

Beidler v. North Thurston Sch. Dist
A superior court judge ruled in July that the North Thurston County School District violated the constitutional rights of a student who was suspended for ridiculing a school administrator on his personal Web site. In late January 1999, the school principal placed Beidler on "emergency expulsion." According to Beidler, the principal told him some teachers said they felt uncomfortable about having Beidler in their classes due to the content of his website. The principal also testified that he found the website "personally appalling" and "real inappropriate. On July 18, 2000, a Washington trial court judge granted summary judgment to Beidler on his First Amendment claims. The judge first noted that the First Amendment rights of public school students remain constant even in the age of the Internet. "Today the first amendment protects student speech to the same extent as in 1979 or 1969, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Tinker."
http://www.splc.org/report_detail.asp?id=448&edition=4

Flaherty v. Keystone Oaks Sch. District
A local school district has agreed to pay $60,000 in partial settlement of lawsuit brought by a former student who was kicked off the volleyball team because he posted an Internet message criticizing an art teacher, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania announced today.
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/speech/15185prs20021118.html

O'Brien v. Westlake City Schools Board of Education
Sean O'Brien, while a sixteen-year-old junior at Westlake High School, created a website in March 1998 that lampooned his band teacher Raymond Walczuk. His web page "raymondsucks.org" contained several unflattering comments about Walczuk. School officials settled with O'Brien by agreeing to pay him $30,000, expunging the suspension from his record and writing a letter of apology
http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/censorshipinternetspeech/part3.htm

Beussink v. Woodland R-IV School District
Brandon Beussink, then a junior at Woodland High School, created his own homepage on his own computer at his own home. The homepage was "highly critical" of the school administration and included vulgar language in his opinions of teachers and the principal. The principal initially suspended Beussink for five days because he was offended by the content on the site, and he later extended the suspension to ten days. "Disliking or being upset by the content of a student's speech is not an acceptable justification for limiting student speech under Tinker," the judge wrote.
http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/censorshipinternetspeech/part3.htm

Mahaffey v. Aldrich
An unpublished decis

Relevant Case Law

42 U.S.C. Section 1983
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress...
http://www.peoples-law.org/individual-rts/civil-rights/1983_exactwords.htm

Dwyer v. Oceanport School District
School officials will pay a former student $117,500 to settle a lawsuit he filed claiming his First Amendment rights were violated after administrators punished him for material posted on his Web site.
http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1126

Beidler v. North Thurston Sch. Dist
A superior court judge ruled in July that the North Thurston County School District violated the constitutional rights of a student who was suspended for ridiculing a school administrator on his personal Web site. In late January 1999, the school principal placed Beidler on "emergency expulsion." According to Beidler, the principal told him some teachers said they felt uncomfortable about having Beidler in their classes due to the content of his website. The principal also testified that he found the website "personally appalling" and "real inappropriate. On July 18, 2000, a Washington trial court judge granted summary judgment to Beidler on his First Amendment claims. The judge first noted that the First Amendment rights of public school students remain constant even in the age of the Internet. "Today the first amendment protects student speech to the same extent as in 1979 or 1969, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Tinker."
http://www.splc.org/report_detail.asp?id=448&edition=4

Flaherty v. Keystone Oaks Sch. District
A local school district has agreed to pay $60,000 in partial settlement of lawsuit brought by a former student who was kicked off the volleyball team because he posted an Internet message criticizing an art teacher, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania announced today.
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/speech/15185prs20021118.html

O'Brien v. Westlake City Schools Board of Education
Sean O'Brien, while a sixteen-year-old junior at Westlake High School, created a website in March 1998 that lampooned his band teacher Raymond Walczuk. His web page "raymondsucks.org" contained several unflattering comments about Walczuk. School officials settled with O'Brien by agreeing to pay him $30,000, expunging the suspension from his record and writing a letter of apology
http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/censorshipinternetspeech/part3.htm

Beussink v. Woodland R-IV School District
Brandon Beussink, then a junior at Woodland High School, created his own homepage on his own computer at his own home. The homepage was "highly critical" of the school administration and included vulgar language in his opinions of teachers and the principal. The principal initially suspended Beussink for five days because he was offended by the content on the site, and he later extended the suspension to ten days. "Disliking or being upset by the content of a student's speech is not an acceptable justification for limiting student speech under Tinker," the judge wrote.
http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/censorshipinternetspeech/part3.htm

Mahaffey v. Aldrich
An unpublished decis

Talk about a myopic view of what's happened over the last seven years. Given the Real ID Act, all the RICO laws, all the drug enforcement laws, and tack on all the post 9/11 legislation and you have yourself a bona fide police state. I am no longer protected from illegal searches and seizures, I can be stripped of my citizenship and shipped off to remote place with little to no hope of ever getting a lawyer, let alone a trial.

The fact of the matter is that Congress has forgotten what the constitution means and the Executive branch became two branches of government without any referendum to approve this change. The constitution applies to the government, it's irrelavent where I am, where you are, where anybody is, the U.S. government is bound by the constitution.

Of course over the last seven years what remained of the constitution and more specifically the bill of rights is gone. Last I checked the only right that remained was that we were still free from the burden of having to house soldiers. Habeas Corpus has been suspended indefinitely, the rights of the press have been trampled to high hell on numerous occasions. Link one, link two, and link three, are all just a couple of examples of hundreds of instances of censorship. Combined that with National Security letters forcing some U.S. citizens to give up their customers and thus their livelihood without any compensation or recourse.

We have definitely lost significant freedoms, you notice them when you open a bank account, you'll notice them in hospitals and fingerprints are now required all over the place.

You can use all the racial slurs you like, people will hate you but you won't be thrown in jail because of it. It's the fact that the majority don't notice the loss of protections that scares me. The people that can't put all the pieces together because they are either too lazy or too absorbed with their own lives to realize what's going on around them. We are most definitely not safer now than we were and there are strong arguments out there that we are even worse off for a creative criminal. Do you really think a terrorist would target a plane again? They would target something new where we don't have high security because we don't have high security on it. The only thing the security is doing for airlines is bankrupting them because people hate to go to airports. Then of course the airlines try to cut back on costs by reducing services making the flights even more unpleasant and then the government has to bail them out because so much business relies on flight transportation.

An investor for the company I work for actually rented and flew his own plane because U.S. Air was so incompetent they overbooked his flight twice so he couldn't fly down here for a time sensitive meeting. Combine that with my boss wanting to go to the lake for the weekend so he was going to fly there, it was about a 45 minute flight. After three engine failures resulting in delays he hopped in one of his cars and just drove the two hours or less.

In short, the constitution including the Bill of Rights is being used as TP by the administration and congress and no one is willing to do anything about it. I'd like to say election time will correct the misgivings of the past but given that both democrats and republicans share the blame for the erosion of our liberties there is very little hope we will get any of it back anytime soon. Perhaps when the baby boomers are out of office the next generation will have the good sense to improve things. We'll see, awareness of the problems is where it all begins.

I sincerely hope more realize what's going on in the world around them. Religion has been driven out of the federal level, it is resurgent at the local level, that is perfectly legal so as long as I get to vote on it I

Also keep in mind that you're not likely to get an unbiased view of the legal landscape from the Attorney General of Utah's web site. Major court decisions since the 1970s (where their cites all come from) have gone the other direction entirely, e.g. http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp ?documentID=13519. And gee, not a Commerce Clause citation in sight. The Indianapolis case, and the Supreme Court's refusal to grant cert to it, is the one that really makes it impractical to dictate content restrictions to retail game publishers.

You are mistaken. The case you cite is very different. This case involves coin operated machines that were in public where a child could see the screen as an adult played. In such cases the court has to balance the right of an adult to play with the right of a child to be in the establishment and incidentally see the game. That is an entirely different set of facts compared to a clerk selling a mature rated video game to a child over the counter. Your citation is irrelevant.

Also keep in mind that you're not likely to get an unbiased view of the legal landscape from the Attorney General of Utah's web site. Major court decisions since the 1970s (where their cites all come from) have gone the other direction entirely, e.g. http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp ?documentID=13519. And gee, not a Commerce Clause citation in sight.

The Indianapolis case, and the Supreme Court's refusal to grant cert to it, is the one that really makes it impractical to dictate content restrictions to retail game publishers.

The decisions referenced on the Utah site are aberrations. Go back a bit farther than 30 years, and you'll see stuff like the Comstock Laws being cheerfully upheld by the Supreme Court. Want to see that happen again? By all means, write your Congressman and ask for more anti-video game legislation.

My whole point being, don't give the Tipper Gores of the world any legal ground that they haven't actually taken.

You must be new to Free Speech issues. What you described above is not protected speech. For instance [emphasis mine]:

There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words -- those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.

There you go. Not all speech is protected. That said, it is ridiculous to claim ownership of any sort over a fracking prime number.

I'm sorry, I have a problem with much of you comment, specifically, this part:
Republicans used to be the ones who were for... fewer Constitutional rights and lower taxes are only for large corporations.

Funny, it's Democrats who keep telling me I can't smoke in a restaurant... work... within 50 feet of a door... in a bar... soon to be in my car... on the sidewalk... and finally, in my own home. It's funny how when there is an anti-war protest, it's a contest to see who can be the most radical, but when there is a pro-life protest, it's a contest to see who can offend or violently prevent the protest from taking place. Why is it that the Democrats, champions of civil rights as they are, has elevated a former KKK leader to be third in line for the Presidency (here, last paragraph)?

Also, I'm not a large corporation, but I got a tax cut in 2001 because I have a job. If you didn't get your's, I suggest you stop posting here and start looking for work!

Back ON Topic:
Limiting liberties during wartime is nothing new. See this page for a few examples. By the way, Roosevelt was a Democrat.

So, please, don't act like this is a Republican issue and don't be so ignorant as to assume that any of these limitations are going to be permanent. We got rights back after the Revolutionary war, the civil war, WWI, WWII, we'll get whatever is lost after this war as well.

Here is a link to an artical about "Fighting Words", in case anyone is interested: Fighting Words

"The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized there is a constitutional right to travel internationally. Indeed, it has declared that the right to travel is "a virtually unconditional personal right." The United States has also signed treaties guaranteeing "freedom of travel." So if these regulations do go into effect, you can expect a lengthy court battle, both nationally and internationally."

That is, of course, unless the SCOTUS http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp ?documentID=17065 refuses to hear a case...

And with the current makeup of the current Court, I find that VERY likely...

No it isn't. This came up in Michigan (my home state) a few years ago and the courts struck it down hard (Hi-rez Proof). You simply can't regulate language in the US. This argument kind of reminds me of the argument people get in over kids being able to see rated R movies. There's no law against it anywhere in the US; it's just a policy decision of theatres, but people seem to think such a law exists because the policy is so widespread. It's the same thing with swearing in public; there's no law against it but so few people do it that it seems like it must be illegal.

John Romero: The Escapist Interview

by Russ Pitts

Romero.

Perhaps it's something about the name itself that brings to mind great things. Some combination of etymological triggers, perhaps; a heady mental mixture that's part romance, part Camaro - sex in a Z28.

The man himself evokes a similarly visceral response. Meeting him, speaking with him and tracking his movements across nearly three decades of life in the game game, one can hardly imagine John Romero as anything other than a smashing success. Which is why, perhaps, so many take such pleasure in pointing out his one great failure.

Romero has developed, or been involved in developing nearly 100 games, at least half a dozen of which have sold more than 100,000 copies. Having cut his teeth in the game industry coding games for the Apple II, Romero worked for Origin and Softdisk (founding a few of his own companies along the way) before co-founding id Software in 1991 with John Carmack, Adrian Carmack (no relation) and Tom Hall.

In the five years he worked with id Software, John Romero contributed heavily to developing a number of innovative PC games, including id's breakout hit Wolfenstein 3D and one of the most widely recognized and controversial games of all time, Doom; the game that has been accused of inspiring the Columbine High School shootings, made its designers multi-millionaires and ushered in the era of the "rockstar game developer." Yet inside the game industry, Romero is even better known for the one that got away.

In 1996, following a widely-publicized feud with John Carmack - centered around the belief among key id staffers that Romero talked too much to the press and worked too little on the games - Romero founded his own company, Ion Storm, with fellow designers Tom Hall and Todd Porter and artist Jerry O'Flaherty. The men leased the penthouse of a prestigious Dallas, Texas office building, deep in the heart of oil country, for the company's headquarters. A monument to excess, the Ion Storm offices featured a movie screening room (complete with leather furniture), arcade machines, a bank of computers devoted to Doom and Quake "deathmatches," 60-foot glass ceilings (which prompted the company's programmers to erect felt tents over their workspaces to reduce the glare of the daytime sun), oak furniture, steel cubicles, and a pool table. It was an office fit for the man who had once referred to himself as "God," and it would be within this 54th floor glass cage that John Romero's Icarian flight would come (at least temporarily) to an end.

Ion Storm, backed by publisher Eidos, planned initially to ship three games, each designed by one of the company's three co-founders. Romero's long-time friend (and Softdisk and id Software colleague), Tom Hall, planned to develop a science-fiction roleplaying game called Anachronox , which was eventually released in 2001 to poor reviews and lackluster sales. Todd Porter, former ministry student, exotic dancer and Origin employee, was to develop a game called Doppleganger, which was eventually cancelled. Romero's game was Daikatana . It was intended to be larger and grander in scale than any videogame ever made, and was heavily advertised as the game that would make you, the player, John Romero's "bitch."

That Daikatana eventually sold 200,000 copies - a smashing success by some standards - is irrelevant. Cost

There are people in this country that do still believe in the constitution. They simply need to be awakened.

1. Kiddie-porn can be manufactured without children and it is legal to do it. The SCOTUS ruled that virtual kiddie porn is legal. http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp ?documentID=16075
2. Images are non-rivalarous - you can make as many copies as you want. Thus if a kiddie-porn-pervert is, on average, satisified with 1000 photos and videos, then all it takes is the SAME 1000 photos and videos to satisfy 1 or 1,000,000 kiddie-porn-perverts. No new demand is created.

Nice, but your points do nothing to disprove mine.
1) ok, virtual porn. Well, we have virtual kiddie porn and it is legal. Guess what? The real kiddie porn is still being manufactured.
2) That is a ridiculous example. You know that the internet thrives on new content. Just look at the outcry here when a dupe article is posted. A lifelong pedophile won't be happy with the same thousand pictures, and you know it.

You misspelled fascist.

Tell me, please, where is the breaking point? What is the happy medium? Are the laws from pre 9/11 good enough for you, even though they really don't address anything in the virtual world?
Realize that in the US, you need a photo driver's license to drive, and that the license is used for a ton of things. If we did not previously have that until now, would you be screaming about it, or would you like it? Do you want photo ids abolished? If so, then how far back do we go? How many laws do we undo?
Note that my arguments here are not to support the data retention law of the main article. My point is about pedophilia, and that another poster suggested that the problem be ignored. My point is that you cannot have lawlessness, that some things are important enough to go after. Do be lazy and toss out "facism" everytime someone makes a point that some laws are necessary.

The problems with your little analysis are that:

1. Kiddie-porn can be manufactured without children and it is legal to do it. The SCOTUS ruled that virtual kiddie porn is legal. http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp ?documentID=16075
2. Images are non-rivalarous - you can make as many copies as you want. Thus if a kiddie-porn-pervert is, on average, satisified with 1000 photos and videos, then all it takes is the SAME 1000 photos and videos to satisfy 1 or 1,000,000 kiddie-porn-perverts. No new demand is created.

Pure freedom is nice and all in theory, but when people are still too uncivilized to handle it, then it's unrealistic.

You misspelled fascist .

It's no surprise this bill is coming out of New Jersey. NJ has host to two major Internet speech cases in the past 2 years: E merson, NJ city council members sue EyeOnEmerson.com over anonymous postings [freedomforum.org] (note: the council members lost their case) Troy Hills Village, (Parsippany, NJ) vs. John & Jane Doe users of ApartmentRatings.com [nytimes.com] (note: case still in progress)

It is no coincidence that the GOP leader of the New Jersey Assembly introduced this law. It goes right back to the 2002 lawsuit (Donato v. Moldow) against EyeOnEmerson.com in which four Republicans LOST their libel suit against the website over anonymous comments they disliked.

N.J. judge dismisses lawsuit over anonymous Web site criticism

New Jersey Court of Appeals rules for EyeOnEmerson website

"It is far from over," said Jack Darakjy, the attorney representing the plaintiffs. "We will appeal the decision. If we need to, our clients are prepared to take this all the way to the Supreme Court."

Or, if you are politically connected in New Jersey, maybe you just go to your party and get them to take up your crusade.

It is no coincidence that the GOP leader of the New Jersey Assembly introduced this law. It goes right back to the 2002 lawsuit (Donato v. Moldow) against EyeOnEmerson.com in which four Republicans LOST their libel suit against the website over anonymous comments they disliked.

N.J. judge dismisses lawsuit over anonymous Web site criticism

New Jersey Court of Appeals rules for EyeOnEmerson website

"It is far from over," said Jack Darakjy, the attorney representing the plaintiffs. "We will appeal the decision. If we need to, our clients are prepared to take this all the way to the Supreme Court."

Or, if you are politically connected in New Jersey, maybe you just go to your party and get them to take up your crusade.

I was going to say... Freedomforum.org states that:

Free speech

The First Amendment says that people have the right to speak freely without government interference.

The Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center presents several programs addressing aspects of free speech, including Freedom Sings and First Amendment on Campus.

Free press

The First Amendment gives the press the right to publish news, information and opinions without government interference. This also means people have the right to publish their own newspapers, newsletters, magazines, etc.

The Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center provides a program for newspaper editors and other staff through a partnership with the American Press Institute.

Conspicuously absent from the first amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.") is any mention of libel or such. In fact, the first amendment which he claims to defend is extremely specific in saying that Congress is not allowed to make any law that abridges the freedom of speech or of the press in any way (some will point out that congress doesn't stop people from publishing libellous documents, just punishes them afterwards... personally I consider that if a man tells me "if you say this you'll be fined $1000", he is abridging my freedome of speech, but this particular argument is, I suppose, off-topic).

While I sympathise with Mr Seigenthaler about the crap that ended up attached to his name on Wikipedia, I don't sympathize with this sort of dual approach to freedom.

Daniel

Many years ago, we (Meow Media, Inc - parent company of Persian Kitty's Adult Links) were sued by Jack Thompson in what later became a landmark sixth circuit court of appeals first amendment case. Granted, we were vindicated after two years of legal expenses... but it still cost us several hundred thousand dollars in attorney fees, expert witness fees, and appeals fees (which required a second set of attorneys).

While Jack Thompson's lawsuit was grinding its way through the court of appeals, another copy-cat attorney by the name of John DeCamp decided to sue us (Meow Media) for the Columbine shootings!

Soon, every attorney with expensive car payments was jumping on the bandwagon, in [what I perceive as] an effort to collect a "nusiance" settlement from us and other defendants. In fact, this practice became so common and popular that PBS FrontLine ran a feature story on our collective plights.

Fortunately, when the Court of Appeals ruled in our favor on the Paducah lawsuit (and reaffirmed this when they rejected the appeal for reconsideration), the other defendants were quick to drop their lawsuits, else face an action sounding in tort. However, that too required attorney fees and retainers for each case, in each particular venue.

For those of you who have not yet gone through lengthy and cumbersome litigation... there is not much you can do to recover the costs involved with defending yourself from most tort litigation. Sure, we could turn around and sue the families of the deceased children who were killed by the shooter... but that's not exactly good publicity, nor does it make for a sympathetic jury.

So here I sit today, a few hundred thousand dollars poorer, watching history repeat itself.

Anyone can tell the difference between porn and a breast cancer website.

I'm not so sure about that.

And the word is tariff. Besides, a tariff only applies to imported goods, and I don't recall ever seeing a digital good being taxed due to tariffs.

I agree completely with the prediction that once .xxx is functioning, legislation will arrive requiring pornographic web sites to be herded into cattle cars and shipped off to .xxx land.

However, believing that it is evil conservatives who will do this is misguided.

- it was Tipper Gore who led the campaign to put warning labels on music
- Patrick Leahy was the co-sponsor of the Hatch-Leahy bill (S151) in 2003 that overturned the Supreme Court ruling that Computer-Generated kiddie porn was was not real porn. The Senate approved the bill 84-0. To do otherwise would have you labelled as supporting kiddie porn - who is going to do that?
http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp ?documentID=17597
- Feminist groups (Catherine McKinnon comes to mind) have led the charge proposing many anti-pornography laws
URL:http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript2 15.htm l?

Slashdot is for the 0.001% of the world that cares about geek stuff like this.

Slashdot is Planet Geek Virgin.

Note alot of Geeks get rich and then convert to being cool, not a bad path to take.

You are on the wrong forum budd, try http://www.freedomforum.org/ perhaps...

Of course the student would want to draw attention to this. One person's "overblown" is another person's "needed publicity."

I'm guessing that if this went to court, it would be thrown out as this site is fairly clearly a parody site. This allows considerable freedom in copying images, ideas, logos, and so on.

Much like the Gone with the Wind publisher battling The Wind Done Gone, it can be fairly counterproductive for large corporations to try and fight these parodies. They do nothing but draw unwanted attention to their rather nasty behavior.

Do yourself a favor, take a break from slashdot, and google "supreme court content neutral ruling"

Ok I will, lets see...

Google result #1 - CITY OF LADUE v. MARGARET P. GILLEO a case involving a city ordinance that prohibits homeowners from displaying certian signs on their property. So a citizen wants to use thier own personal property to promote a political cause. Hmm, ok that's not revelant, since the WiFi access is supplied and funded by the State of Texas. Lets try...

Google result #2 - Zelman v. Simmons-Harris Ok, so this is regarding a school voucher program challenged on First Amendment grounds but upheld by the court. From the ruling: "We would be loath to adopt a rule grounding the constitutionality of a facially neutral law..." - Rehnquist, citing an earlier case. Hmm, it seems the supreme court ruled agreed with a previous ruling by saying that legal neutrality is not protected by the Constitution. Ok, lets try...

Google result #3 - Smith v. City of Jackson. Hmm, that's about an age discrimination suit...not really relevant here. What about...

Google result #4 - Alameda Books, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles et al. Ok so this is a position paper on the secondary effects doctrine, which argues that it "allows seemingly content-based laws that single out adult businesses to be analyzed as content-neutral". The paper then goes on to list a number of cour cases in which city governments used zoning laws to try to shut down adult bookstores and movie theatres. If the adult bookstores and theatres were being run by the State of Texas with taxpayer dollars, then that might be relevant to the law at hand...in fact, these cases just support my argument that the First Amendment protects an individual's right to free speech, and does not the require that the state provide a free (as in beer) platform for anyone to express themselves.

Ok, so how much reading do I have to do here before I find something that supports your argument? It seems to me that you've misunderstood the meaning of content-neutrality as it pertains to free speech protections. Tell you what...I've done my google searches...Why don't you find the specific court ruling or State/Federal law that says (in your words) "the state is required to do is provide whatever access it DOES provide (to adults) in a content-neutral manner."

A similar example in US law might be Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition , where the SCOTUS ruled that child porn is illegal, but virtual child porn is not.

This became a rubber stamp court, with only one request out of over 7,500 since its inception being rejected by the judges. Of course, the people are unaware of it because the proceedings of the court are secret, and the defendents are usually unaware of the evidence being used against them.

The existence of the court is not secret though, as it was created by a law passed in the 80s, and the quantity of searches granted by the court is public. Indeed, the US government was accused of abusing this court recently to broaden its purpose, before the Patriot Act was "clarified" to permit such abuse by the US prosecutors, FBI and intelligence agencies. One of the judges on the panel scolded the US government for being deceptive in the types of cases it was bringing, indicating that the US government does try to bring people before FISA that are not spies, but instead ordinary criminals. The US appealed a decision to legally obtain a broading of the courts purpose, originally without legislation.

If I remember correctly, congress passed a law to "clarify" that the Patriot Act extended this to cover those suspects of "terrorism". Hasn't it occurred to anyone that none of the trials of suspected terrorists are public?

This is such a sad demise of the US Constitution and American liberty. To me, I'd be willing to die like our forefathers did to preserve American freedom and create the Bill of Rights. I just wish we weren't so willing to discard it today under the illusion that our life-spans will be longer. When I was a child, being willing to die to perserve American freedom was a common notion. Now, being willing to give up freedom to avoid the remotest chance of dying, no matter how statistically improbable, has become a de facto notion. To suggest otherwise, well, that would be unpatriotic! Or would it be terrorist?

Unfortunately, without the ability for the press or the people to attend trials of suspected terrorists, it's unlikely that this will ever be overturned. We'd have to prove that the system as used unjustly, but the Patriot Act has removed all accountability, so that it is nearly impossible to prove the injustice.

The question is, if it was "spies" yesterday, and now includes those labeled as "terrorist" or "threats to national security" by the investigators and prosecutors today, then what label is next? Or, are the current labels broad enough to permit US prosecutors to throw anyone in prison for life that they see fit? It's hard to discern when our government is no longer accountable to the people it's supposed to represent.

Is there anyway to determine what cases the government has filed to prevent public accountability under the Patriot Act? I'd like to follow up on this to at least try to estimate how many cases there are today. If at all possible, I'd like to know if it even remotely possible to discover any injustices occurring. Justice is, after all, the purpose of all this. Right?

Links:

THE SECRET FISA COURT: RUBBER STAMPING ON RIGHTS
Secret court meets to consider Justice Department appeal
Secret court gives U.S. gov't wiretap powers
Secret Court Rebuffs Ashcroft
Secret court may limit government power to spy on domestic terror

These links aren't in chronological order, and I obtained them using a simple

A slight warning: To any properly (patrioticly) configured mind this is flamebait. So is the parent posters anyway, so who cares.

The US is a exceptional country. It is indeed so exceptional that people file lawsuits, because they werent told that:

• Eating fat food makes you fat
• Coffee is hot

And ofcourse for any other reason they may find. Like culture. We are all will-less victims of culture.

• My son got killed because you made a movie, which some mentally-disturbed person watched
• Again, mental, murder. New item: music
• Suicide? Blame the music! Can't be society, at least.

Ok. I could go on, but I'm feeling lazy. And yes, these lawsuits does not at all fully represent your country, we know.

But in a country where lawsuits like this even can be legaly filed (and not rejected as barratry, as they should), must at least consist of some exceptionally stupid people.

There. You got your exceptionlism. Be satisfied.

I've once been told, trying to understand this madness, that one reason for these amazingly stupid (and brave and creative, nevertheless. Takes guts and fantasy to come up with shitlike this), is that you don't have a public health system.

That is. If you gets hurt, you will either

1. Make sure you're still able to speak, inform personell of your insurance, get treatment.
2. Being able to speak, inform of none-existant insurance, get treatment. Debt for life thrown in as a bonus.
3. Being able to speak, inform of none-existant insurance, get no treatment. Death or permanent injuries may ensue.

Yes. This was very much flamish, but jeez guys. Have some modesty. You are by far the youngest country in the western world. Now show some respect for your elders, who might actually have some history on running a country properly.

BTW: Imposing armageddon on the entire world, because of one small attack, could be considered immature.

Kinda like scriptkiddies on irc with their nuking-tools, but actually dangerous.

CT
NY
MA

apparently, putting sex offenders and deadbeat dads in the stocks isn't easy with long hair, an unwaxed head, non-perfect teeth and a suit that costs less than three grand.

of course, it's a different game once you get down into NJ. That dude looks like Herbert Kornfeld.

Somebody already did

"There ought to be limits to freedom," he said. "We're aware of the site, and this guy is just a garbage man." - GW Bush on what he thinks of www.gwbush.com

Yes, but Houghton Mifflin Company, the publisher of The Wind Done Gone, won in that case.

Not really.

According to this, the injunction against publishing imposed by an Atlanta judge was overturned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The injunction was just a quick emergency remedy to stop "damage" occurring immediately. The Mitchell estate looked like they were going to sue, but a sealed settlement was reached. H-M has to make donations & maybe they have to give the Mitchell estate some portion of profits.

That's hardly a victory.

Derivative works in general are a grey area, but in your specific example I would have to say that you are in fact wrong. Not wrong according to the original U.S. copyright law, but definitely wrong according to what we have now. You say, "If I wrote a story that was derived from the LOTR...". That's it. You wrote a story derived, it's a deritave work. That simple. For example, let's say you would like to re-write Gone with the Wind from a slave's perspective. Completely different story (as you can imagine), but characters, plot, etc. derived from the original. If you did this, you would wind up in court, much like the person that did.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
-- The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Text & Description

A strict definition is the government shall not pass any law that restricts the content or distribution of information via the press. Last time I checked, online journalists (who you might say provide press services on the internet) are not restricted what they are or are not allowed to publish. In this case, the government is exploring their legal rights to determine the source of the material that is being distributed.

I agree that there should be limits, but you might want to consider the context.

A parody web site was erected, and his election committee was not happy. When asked about the web site on television, his response was the source fo the quote.

More information see here, here, and here.