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Federal Obscenity Rule Nixed In Internet Porn Case
CaptainEbo writes "A court has declared the federal anti-obscenity law unconstitutional in a criminal case against an Internet porn distributor: 'We find that the federal obscenity statutes burden an individual's fundamental right to possess, read, observe, and think about what he chooses in the privacy of his own home by completely banning the distribution of obscene materials.' The court's decision rested in part on Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court case striking down anti-sodomy laws. Under Lawrence, said the court, 'upholding the public sense of morality is not even a legitimate state interest.'"
This reminds me of the wonderful essay of Paul Graham, What You Can't Say (which could be easily transformed in What You Can't Watch).
upholding the public sense of morality is not even a legitimate state interest.
it's about fucking time! I'm getting so sick of these self-righteous jackasses that seem to think I have to live my life according to *their* beliefs.
If it were a legitimate state interest, then we would need laws banning sloth and greed, too, and no one here in the U.S. really wants that.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
The case was with a California company, but the Feds decided to try the trial here in Pittsburgh. They thought a federal judge in Pittsburgh would be more conservative than a judge in California, but thought wrong.
Here's more information from our local papers:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
WTAE-TV
Pr0n once again leading the way... from techonology to sane legal precedents, pr0n is probably the biggest motivator for change in human history.
Pr0n... is there anything it can't do?
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
The best thing that could happen now is for this to be appealed to the Supreme Court, to have them grant certiorari, and to find along the same lines as they did in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas.
:)
It's about time that it's been determined that "public morality" does not extend past public places. Then again, there has been much absurdity in both laws and judicial decisions for as long as there have been laws and judicial decisions.
Hopefully this is the start of a trend that will continue. The major "if" is who GWB will put on the Court after Rehnquist retires/dies. However, with what the Democrats have been doing regarding nominations to any post call into question whether anyone could possibly be confirmed onto the Court. We might just have a vacancy forever, because if the Democrats can do it, so can the Republicans if a Democrat wins in 2008.
it doesn't matter if it's porn or whatever... the judge summed it up perfectly. It is not the right nor the job of government to tell an adult person what they can see/think/read, and anything of the sort *is* an infringement on my liberties.
I also find it pretty funny that the bible-thumping types that are always so vocal about porn had a conference in some hotel a while back, and that hotel reported a 600% increase of their in-room porn rentals over that weekend... pot, meet kettle.
Remember when Republicans were all about not getting involved state issues? (pre-Reagan) What happened is that they have discovered that it's so better to aggregate the power into the hands of the few via legislation and control the populace and impose "morality" that way.
Take the gay marriage issue. Should this REALLY be a federal issue? Of course not and thank heavens that Sen. McCain pointed out that such a federal law would interfere with "state's rights".
Federal anti-obscenity laws aren't any different. What doesn't play in Peoria could be considered as quite tame in NYC.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I also find it pretty funny that the bible-thumping types that are always so vocal about porn had a conference in some hotel a while back, and that hotel reported a 600% increase of their in-room porn rentals over that weekend... pot, meet kettle.
;-)
That's just research. They need to be able to make educated opinions about porn, after all.
-- I Am Not A Terrorist.
"It is not the right nor the job of government to tell an adult person what they can see/think/read, and anything of the sort *is* an infringement on my liberties.
"
you forgot one.....
ingest. It's none of their business what I put into my body either.
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
And how many nanoseconds elapsed before the right-wing talk radio choir started their Banshee-like wailing over "activist judges"?
I don't tell [insert moralizing group here] that they have to [insert activity that group dislikes]. Many of them like to tell me that I can't [same activity from previous sentence].
Take student prayer for example. A law that says you can't pray is wrong. A law that says you must pray is also wrong. A law that says you can pray if you want to but no government employee in authority over you is allowed to influence that decision one way or another is ok, but redundant.
By wrong I mean unconstitutional and anti-freedom. By redundant I mean that it is already in the constitution, so why write another law?
You would be right about this, except for one thing. Laws against murder and theft are not to protect morality, but to protect one's rights, specifically the right to life and property. Laws against obscenity are not protecting anybody's rights, only infringing on them.
This comment was thought up very late at night and does not necessarily reflect my views at a more reasonable hour.
One might argue that this is also the case with obscene literature. Pornography turns ordinary pious citizens into perverted rapists, after all, just like marijuana turns well-behaved youngsters into Satan-worshipping anti-war deviants.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
You are so absolutely wrong, the laws against murder and theft are not laws for moral reasons. Government has one basic purpose and one purpose only, to maintain a monopoly on the use of force and coercion, and prevent the use of force and coercion by one citizen against another (policing) and by other countries/states against its own country/state (military).
This is the one area where both the Democrats and Republicans piss me off the most.
The democrats are being hypocrites as they are the ones always yelling about the republicans legislating morality, when what is welfare but moral legislation to force it citizenry to care for those less well off.
And the repubulicans are just as bad yammering about keeping government from over regulating and restricting our freedoms, and then they turn around and support laws which restrict our freedoms with regard to activities were there is no force/coercion/victim.
You can have the best reasoning skills in the world, and if your initial premises are flawed, you conclusion will be wrong every time.
I just wish people would really take the time to think about the consequences and effects of all this legislation, instead of the indulging the knee jerk, liberal pandering to "society's needy", and the conservative drive to a theocratic tyranny.
Goverment is supposed protect us from others, not take care of us, and not protect us from ourselves.
Anything else is an abuse of liberty!
my old sig is obsolete, and I haven't come up with a stupid enough new one yet
Well, there was the court case that was on I believe, 60 minutes, of the video rental shop owner somewhere in Utah who was brought up on obscenity charges. His not-famous attorney had a brainstorm, and subpoened the satellite TV companies' records for porn rentals in the community (since obscenity is supposed to be defined at the "community" level and found that those outraged citizens were viewing a LARGE amount satellite porn. He proved that the video store owner was well within community standards, and the charges were dropped.
DirecTV, Hughes, etc are owened by MUCH larger corporations, but you will NEVER see them break out their earnings by adult TV subscriptions, because General Motors or Rupert Murdoch (or EchoStar or whomever) don't want you to know that they are one of the US's largest porn distributors.
And yet there are many types of issue, and people's thinking about economics doesn't necessarily correlate with that on social issues, or morality, or the military, or culture, &c. Being aware of the difference can help you to think more clearly about them.
For example, Political Compass uses a two-dimensional grid for displaying political positions, with an economic axis (traditional left/right), and a social one (libertarian/authoritarian). On that scale, for example, the opposite of communism (at the extreme left) is neo-liberalism (at the extreme right), and the opposite of anarchism (at the extreme libertarian end) is fascism (at the extreme authoritarian end).
It's still simplistic in many ways, but presents a vastly more useful way of thinking about politics. Recommended.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
normalization of sexual attitudes and activities previously considered vulgar and obscene, and thus repressed or even banned outright by law.
That paragraph just screamed "interracial marriage" at me, and theme carries pretty well through your entire post. Did you know that as recently as 1967 (quite possibly during your lifetime) some one-third of all states had laws against interracial marriage? In several cases going so far as making it a criminal offense with up to 10 years in prison?
And of course you can easily complain about all sorts of ways society has gone to hell since the laws against interracial marriage were struck down.
And in case you missed the obvious, there is absolutely no constitutional difference between prohibiting interracial marriage and prohibiting gay marriage. Legally they are both attempts to discriminate which applicants are permitted to marry. Of course there are perfectly legal grounds for discriminating some acceptable applicants from other unacceptable applicants, such as that they have to be 2 humans capable of consent. However any attempt for the law to discriminate between applicants on the basis of race, gender, or religion is unconstitutional. Either the individual clause restricting applicants on that basis is null and void and all otherwise qualified applicants must be accepted, or if such single-clause-stickdown is not possible then the entire law granting any marriages at all would be invaild. No one would be able to legally marry in that state.
Oh, and I really love how you try to blame AIDS on "the newly open culture of male gay sex". First of all there would be no difference whether the culture was "open" or hidden in the closet. Secondly even if there were no gays at all it wouldn't have made much difference. Sure AIDS got a faster start in the gay community, but that also resulted in earlier detection and response. The vast majority of the spread of AIDS is from non-gay populations. We'd have almost the exact same "epidemic".
If you really want a health-based crusade you really should be declaring that hand-shaking is immoral. That results in more spread of more diseases than anything else.
But civilizations also have an interest in repressing at least the most extremes of the forbidden, for society's own good. And THAT is why we still have obscenity laws.
No, there is no legitimate use of government force for the sole purpose that some people dislike something. The primary legitimate purpose for law and the use of government force is in preventing one person from violating another person's rights, and responding to such violations when they occur. Sure there are other valid purposes for law, running a military and estabishing an economy and infrastructure, yada yada yada. But what we are talking about here is creating criminal law without any actual underlying crime against anyone's rights. You do not have a rigght not to be offended. If you don't want to be promiscuous, fine, don't be promiscuous. You don't want to buy porn, fine, don't buy porn. You don't want gay marriage "imposed on you", fine, don't enter a gay marriage.
There is certainly a legitimate government purpose in a law against violating someone's right not to be shot in the head. That is not a morality-law. That is a violatrion of someone's rights and it is a crime. As the court ruled, public morality is not a legitimate state interest to criminalize things that merely offend public's sense of morality.
You can't force people into heaven by holding a gun to their head. People are perfectly free to choose to go to hell. If someone is being "immoral", but he is not voilating any of your rights, then you have no buiness pulling out a gun and forcibly imprisoning him for it.
obscenity laws. Now, if you disagree with them, then work to change that. BUT...simply bitching about the laws won't accomplish anything.
In case you hadn't noticed this entire story is about changing the law by ha
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.