Slashdot Mirror
Judge Blocks Louisiana Violent Games Law
kukyfrope writes "A Baton Rouge federal judge has today issued a temporary injunction against Louisiana's violent games law that Governor Kathleen Blanco just signed last week. According to local newspaper The Advocate, U.S. District Judge James Brady issued the injunction just hours after the Entertainment Software Association and Entertainment Merchants Association filed the lawsuit in Louisiana. "How would a person assess whether a particular video game appeals to a minor's 'morbid interest in violence'? And what constitutes a 'patently offensive' depiction of violence? Persons of ordinary intelligence are forced to guess at the meaning and scope of the act," said New Orleans attorney James A. Brown"
At least someone has their head screwed on tight enough to realize that this is bullshit legislation. I'm glad we're not te only ones here at /.
I am Spartacus
Who didn't see that coming? And why is cash-strapped Louisiana wasting its tax dollars passing and then having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend blatantly unconstitutional laws that have no chance of holding up in court in the first place? It doesn't seem to be financially responsible to the state's taxpayers, if you ask me.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
At least we know the US judicial system isn't completely buggered yet. I can't imagine what the world would be like if any more of those fuzzy terms were introduced into law; It would make everything subjective, people could eventually be arrested for anything at all. Why this and other such stuff even got and continues to get passed is beyond me. I guess the courts and patent offices have a lineup at their door, so they have to rush things along. It's the only thing that makes sense, beyond bribery and blackmail, which I'm sure had a hand in it as well.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
I think he may be referring to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellate_jurisdictio n
You can tell I'm an aries because of my ram.
Yeah, who the hell does this federal judge think he is? Just because the law is "unconstitutionally vague" doesn't mean he can say "no" to it... I mean, it's like he thinks he has "federal question jurisdiction" (which means the complaint is based on a federal law (which may be the Constitution or a statute)) or something. ahref=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_questio n_jurisdictionrel=url2html-31364http://en.wikipedi a.org/wiki/Federal_question_jurisdiction>
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
While I could see this coming as soon as I read the law itself (and I'm a layman), there's Another Law in the same stat that is receiving full support of the game industry.
The difference with this law is that it only targets sexual content - and thus is allowed to use the "Millar" test. The one that is blocked uses vague/ambiguous definitions that could (in theory) be used to ban the game of Chess.
No state has the right to bypass Federal constitutional freedoms.
I would be bullshit if as a US citizen my -federal- rights were limited in any state I visited.
Given that, sadly, it seems lately nothing stops the federal government from stepping on my rights.
At least its even.
In any case, the judgement is right on.
The federal judicial system enforces the Constitution. Its their job to step in when a state law violates it. This law is patently against the first ammendment, and as such it is the duty of the federal system to block it. This is the system working like its supposed to. If it didn't, the constitution wouldn't be worth the paper its printed on, and we'd still have states where women couldn't vote and Jim Crow laws are the norm.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
In unrelated news, the state of Alaska has today signed the following bills into state law:
- All state elementary, middle school, high school, colleges and universities are now considered faith-based organizations, and can only be attended by white male catholics
- Black people can no longer vote, and only count as 3/5 of a person in the state census
- Slavery is now legal
- All media or speech of any type is subject to arbitrary censorship from by the state government
Looks like that wacky Ted Stevens is at it again!
Chums up, let's do this!
In fact, we need to make a video game where you're a judge and you get to shoot down unconstitutional video game laws.
Aside from the legal meddling of state social workers, there are fewer problems that parents face today than they did before. Parents actually have the ability to extend their standards to places where they would normally have no control, like the television when they're working late. The V-Chip allows a parent who actually has to work late, rather than just to buy that new beamer, to control the content that is accessible. All media today is rated down to minute details to allow the rushed parent a fine-grained survey of all possibly objectionable content within ten seconds, literally. Anyone out of high school with a literacy rate above the fifth grade should be able to grok a ESRB rating in ten seconds or less.
We actually have lawsuits brought by parents who seriously think that others should do more of their job for them!. This is a generation of parents that is so self-indulgent that it wants to legislate its personal preferences onto content providers because it cannot even be bothered to buy the content it enjoys!
The irony of it is that most the people really pushing these laws are left of center! The very people who whine, piss and moan about "puritans" on the right! Last I checked, a puritan is someone who forces their views on someone else at gun point when they're not harming anyone or anyone's property. It's nice to see that the political social conservatives have competition, albeit in a dark sort of way.
I plan to be a full-time father, including sacrificing my material possessions for my kids. Someone once commented to the effect that it's not wise to try to gain the whole world at the expense of your spiritual life. I believe he also commented before some self-righteous liberals and conservatives of his day killed him for defying them, that there would come a day when parents would see their children so throughly abandon the right path that they would curse themselves for being fertile.
We are notorious for money wasting projects, corruption (see Edwin Edwards, Huey P. Long, and his brother Earl K), and really bad legislators. This legislative session we've passed a law that changes the state flag (and requires them to be replaced on state buildings), forces the sale of ethanol within a few years (because our Agricultural Secretary runs the state with an iron fist), and increases state spending from $19 billion to $27 billion a year!!! Seriously, I think we would fare better as a federal protectorate.
Most of the rights in the bill of rights have been incorporated to restict the states too, via the 14th amendment. If you have a problem with that, take it up with whatever late 19th century or early 20th century court made that decision, not the federal system now.
Do they take volunteers? Because in 7 years as a registered voter I've never been called. Google searching gives all sorts of suggestions for how to get out of jury duty, but nothing for how to get it.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
People only pass laws to prevent behaviors that they can imagine themselves desiring to do. There is, of course, a far far smaller class of laws that exist not to indulge the repressive instinct by proxy, but rather to maintain the social order (do not kill, rape, maim, or steal), but in that category there truly is nothing new under the sun. For everything else, there is the moral crusader.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Anyone with two neurons to rub together knew the legislation was BS.
Which tells you, in case you'd missed it, exactly whom this legislation was meant to appeal to: fearful idiots.
Now we'll get the next phase in the fearful idiot plan, in which those who passed the legislation tell us scary, black robed judges are dictating our society to us. Does any of this sound at all familiar?
All these social wedge issues are microcosms of the "Southern Strategy" that's been winning the Republican Party national elections since 1968. Don't scoff. It's like the old moment with Adlai Stevenson. Told he had the support of all thinking voters, Stevenson replied: "That's not enough, I need a majority." Fearful idiots have a narrow majority in this country. Hence: thinly-veiled "race cards," our latest attempt to make immigration a hot button issue, the supposed gay marriage crisis, and so on.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
The beer industry does not seem to be suffering from the fact that it's illegal to supply liquor to minors; the porn industry does not seem to have been stifled by the fact that Walmart does not stock hardcore videos.
Actually, both of those industries have suffered terribly from crappy local and federal laws designed to "protect minors". Ask yourself why you can't purchase wine over the internet from small vineyards in California or France. Ask youself where all the local breweries have gone. The control of alcohol has severely limited the quality and choice you have when you want any. I'm no friend of the porn industry, but they too suffer from an amazing and contradictory raft of both specific and vague legislation. You can read about their complaints in xbiz.
The state of both of those industries show that specific laws can suck too. In the case of alcohol, the federal government ruled that brewers must respect each local law. This is not only contradicts former notions of state interference with interstate commerce, it's also unreasonably complex and expensive to comply with. Even if you could comply, good luck finding a shipper. See UPS shipping terms for an example. The porn industry suffers similarly, even online where federal laws are being written specifically to burden the industry.
These laws waste enforcement resources for little public good.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.