Court Says FCC Out-of-Bounds With Digital TV

USA4034 writes "A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday stated that regulators had overstepped their authority by imposing a rule designed to limit the copying of digital television programs." From the article: "The FCC rule aims to limit people from sending copies of digital television programs over the Internet. The FCC has said copyright protections are needed to help speed the adoption of digital television."

Comments

Re:But they didn't say ,"Stop!"

[FredThompson]

"This makes it pretty clear what was intended - keep government entirely out of everyone's religious affairs"

Uh...no. You've already contradicted yourself with the example of human sacrifice. Preventing "religious" human sacrifice most certainly is the government interfering with religion.

Thomas Jefferson was not founding dictator of the United States. He was only one of the founding fathers and only one president.

But, back to your comment. Are you truly claiming government and religion cannot co-exist? That's not what the founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, said. You're quoting from one little letter written as a private citizien, not as a founding father or President. After he wrote that letter he called for opening prayers to God before the various governmental meetings. His own state, Virginia, required a person to be a trinity-believing Christian to hold public office.

For that matter, what does the first amendment to the Constitution state? The WHOLE amendment, that is. It says Congress shall make no law which endorses or prohibits free expressions of faith, right?

The idea that religious expressions are prohibited in any kind of government-funded activity most certainly IS a prohibition of free speech and expression of faith.

There is a huge difference between preventing religious discrimination or enforcing a state religion and preventing relious expression. You're confusing the two.

You're Dowdifying historical fact.

Re:But they didn't say ,"Stop!"

[Lord Kano]

Moderation not withstanding, you are incorrect with respect to a few items.

First, if describing the beliefs of deists, why not quote deists themselves?

Deism.org defines deism as "Belief in God as revealed by nature and reason combined with a disbelief in scripture, prophets, superstition and church authority. "

It may be subtle, but that distinction is important.

The separation of church and state was designed to give no one religion a particular upper hand

There is no such separation in the constitution, that was a later construct.

The founding fathers intended there to be no state church because they had seen how a state church becomes a propaganda machine for those in power.

For example, the Church of England was formed primarily because a king wanted a divorce that his church wouldn't grant.

Would you be offended if your child were forced to pray to Allah before every school event?

For his sake, stop it!

It is annoying beyond all explanation when people act as if "Allah" is a proper name. It is not. It's the english spelling of what would best be described as an arabic contraction. "Ah" meaning the and "Illah" meaning God. Allah is a direct translation of "The God".

Thomas Jefferson would not approve of religion being taught in science class for the simple fact that reason is not the same thing as faith. Reason is about taking the measurable, the observable, and the manipulatable and abstracting the process and system by which they work. Faith is about believing, in the absence of reason or evidence, that something must be true for the simple fact that nobody can say that it isn't.

Deism is about reason and observation of nature. As are most other sciences. Don't you think he'd be opposed to it being taught as well?

I suspect that he would. Unanswerable question have no place being taught in school.

Science cannot be about faith. We've got other subjects for religion and philosophy. Science is pure reason, pristine and untouchable.

What then is a hypothesis? It's a belief, one that will either be proved or disproved.

Science is far from untouchable. 100 years ago science said that it wasn't possible for mankind to visit the moon. Science is in a state of flux, it is always changing.

Science named the atom. A the prefix meaning "not" and tom meaning "cut", science said that it wasn't possible to cut the atom. In the 1940s science evolved when it was shown that we can split atoms.

I promise you that if Thomas Jefferson were alive today, there'd be a whole lot of ass kicking going on.

I'll grant you that there'd be a lot of bitching if Jefferson or any of the founding fathers were alive today. We have negros walking free and intermarrying with whites. We have homosexuals trying to get married. We have women voting, holding public office and owning property.

He was an exceptional man in his day, but that day has long since passed.

LK