A corrupt bible pandering bastard lied through his teeth, as such Republican hack bureaucrats are inclined to do, at the recent NAB convention. Is WBAI in California? Are FCC "indecency" standards clear, or have they been the subject of ongoing political and legal disputes for decades? Apparently Commissioner Martin doesn't know the history of his own agency's actions, where Pacifica's initial request for an advisory ruling (which the FCC refused to give) on the legality of airing a holiday special dramatic reading of an Albee play was in San Francisco, but the disputed penalties for airing Carlin's political satire comedy (recorded at a California theater) involved another of their outlets in New York. UPDATE ON FCC FINES CHALLENGEWASHINGTON, DC -- As we noted last week in an X-Press report, in a rare show of unity, CBS and other broadcast networks and their affiliates have asked a U.S. appeals court to overturn FCC decisions that found broadcasters violated decency standards by airing profanity. Organizations and commentators are quickly weighing in on the issue. Findlaw’s Julie Hilden opines that the FCC is likely to lose at the Supreme Court level. The Supreme Court might finally take the networks up on their invitation to make indecency law a historical relic, says Hilden, in order to make way for a more robust information age. Many other constitutional scholars agree that outdated broadcast indecency rules might fall victim to the broadcast network’s challenge. On the other side of the issue, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is holding fast to the correctness of the fines. Speaking at the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, Martin noted that some of the violations cited for fines involved the Supreme Court's famous "Seven Dirty Words" decision, based on a George Carlin routine aired on a California radio station. Little could be more clear than that two decade-old decision, Martin scolded, yet broadcasters are still crossing those lines.Martin quotes are from John Higgins and John Eggerton, Broadcasting and Cable, 4/25/06 [above report used with permission of http://www.freespeechcoalition.com ]Are Democrats any better? Michael Copps wasn't as openly hostile towards protection of what's rightfully legal speech when I spoke with him after a hearing a few weeks ago, but didn't see any move by the Commission to end its blatant religious prejudices to trounce basic civil rights absent orders from Congress, which are unlikely any time soon. He saw it as even less likely they'd pursue action I suggested in comments at that hearing, to investigate the American Family Association and other rabid religious right Christo-fascist political hate cults for felony perjury and conspiracy to file fraudulent indecency complaints. The fact that in one case they generated 18,000 such complaints, only three of which were based on actual audience members to the alleged offensive program content, reinforces the extent of that fraud based pseudo-religious political conspiracy, rightfully deserving prosecution as criminal felonies and heavy fines (eg, 18,000 x $20,000 = $360 million). But, the major problem is with the Supreme Court itself. In Miller v CA, they may have seen themselves as making progress relative to Roth, but the idea of differential community definitions of core civil rights would have made far more sense prior to the 14th Amendment's equal protections in 1868. Miller's anal-retentive focus on Puritanical concepts of sexuality cannot be reconciled with either neutrality or Free Exercise of sex-positive (often pagan) religions, nor can its pandering to select Abrahamic views on natural body functions as if evil, rather than merely normal and natural. OTOH, Bush's illegal wars of aggression are patently offensive and grossly obscene in the perspectives of millions of ethical Americans, and are harmful not just to minors, but to American culture for decades to come due to the incredible psych baggage troops from such a traumatic invasion to tamper with foreign governments bring home, except for the highest suicide levels of any war this country has ever engaged. Presumably we must promote truly obscene speech and activities, but censor targets of convenient religious bigotry? "Indecency" is inherently a religious concept, which exists in law only by fraud of the court in "Pacifica". Given case law like People v Santorelli, Schloss, et al (1992, NY state) protecting topfree equality on every street including places where women and children are present (topfree rights for men were obtained in NY in the 1930's), or Paul Robert Cohen's "Fvck the Draft" jacket court findings specifically addressing issues of alleged harm to women or children in the LA County Courthouse, it's absurd to pretend there's some need on broadcast TV to shield viewers from human reality they have no right to not witness on Main Street, the local restaurants, parks, school yards, or courthouse. In fact, it's far more likely by psychological standards that kids are harmed by being deprived of growth experiences to deal with the diversity of society around them, however incompetent many baby hatchers are to raise and responsibly parent kids in diverse society. There are also issues of religious free exercise and skyclad practices, plus fraud in most common legal definitions of "nudity" to focus on the same body parts deemed "evil" based on overt or institutionalized religious prejudice in the court's wrongful opinions in Miller v CA, whereas no honestly religion or ethnic culture neutral definition of "nudity" exists, any more than (and for similar arbitrary vagueness reasons) Potter Stewart was able to define "pornography" for the court in 1964 (subjecting himself to decades of jokes, that porn is whatever gives Judge Stewart a hard-on).
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"Indecency" and "Obscenity" censorship unConstitutional
- Thread starter Loki
- Start date
Julie Hilden, mentioned in the Free Speech Coalition news, holds a Harvard Bachelors, then Yale law, and a Cornell M.FA degree, plus has been a noteworthy legal commentator at Findlaw and several major news and broadcast networks. She ignores some of these issues, but presents strong rational and technical legal arguments as to why neither FCC indecency policies, or Supreme Court precedents from Miller or Pacifica, were ever legitimate reflections of Constitutional obligations of the courts to protect enumerated rights. http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20060425.html"In this column, I'll explain why indecency law has always been on extremely tenuous ground, from a constitutional perspective. I'll also explain why - thanks to modern technology -- the Supreme Court might finally take the networks up on their invitation to make indecency law a historical relic, in order to make way for a more robust information age." http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20050131.html"Put bluntly, the law of obscenity, no matter how longstanding, has never satisfied constitutional requirements, and it never will. Finally, a judge has been brave enough to say as much. This opinion is notable for that reason - and for Judge Lancaster's novel approach. His opinion attacks the obscenity laws on privacy grounds - and thus may be more effective than pure free-speech attacks mounted in the past.""The Supreme Court should have resisted its discomfort, and yielded to logic. For example, "I know it when I see it" is obviously an insufficiently clear standard for a law, especially a criminal law. Yet this was Justice Potter Stewart's not-very-reassuring reassurance as to how he figured out what was, and was not, obscenity. (The comment occurred in Stewart's concurring opinion in the 1964 case of Jacobellis v. Ohio - in which the Court reversed a state Supreme court's judgment that a particular film was obscene.)"In the interests of justice, it's overdue to reverse court errors if not malicious fraud in Miller and Pacifica, and give both the Bush FCC and Gonzales campaign of domestic terrorism against lawful Constitutionally protected speech new marching orders, out of town. While the black robed lynchmen of SCOTUS have often been hostile towards in theory obligatory protections of religious rights, and often speech rights, perhaps Ms. Hilden has made astute observations of legal tactics which might get their attention. Roe v Wade could even be added to the examples she offers, as rightfully 1st amendment freedom from other people's religious dogmas, and the 14th amendment rights accrual only to "persons born or naturalized", should have guided the court to protect abortion choice rights based on moment of birth, not some arbitrary construct of institutionalized bigotry the court fabricated and rationalized based on 4th amendment privacy interpretations. Adding again to the examples Ms. Hilden shares, John Roberts demonstrated some cause to hope he respects Free Exercise rights in ways Chief narcotics addict Rehnquist treated with overt hostility in Boerne v Flores, Smith v OR Emp Div, and other cases, as Roberts joined in supporting a South American rooted church's use of hallucinogenic tea in religious rituals, and chastised the DEA and Justice Dept. for failing to present any serious legal basis for their claims such rights must be violated. Dad Bush brought us David Souter, who in Erie v Pap's so much as apologized to the nation for his naive position supporting a misguided court faction early in his tenure in Barnes v Glen Theatre. Is it possible that a "Dumbya" nominee might not turn out to be a Scalia or Thomas clone as promised, but instead guide the court to restoring long overdue rights protections? It's certainly possible, and far more likely than marching orders from Congress to clean up the FCC's rightfully illegal speech content discriminatory censorship, and illegal chilling prior restraint. I know it when I see it, and Miller and Pacifica have always been such bad law, that Ms. Hilden's depictions of why both are not valid Constitutional precedents are far too polite towards the misdeeds of the Justices. Any recent FCC actions based on those and other late 1990's precedents they manipulated merely compound the malicious injustice.
J
Johnny Morgan
Guest
The problem goes back to the Justice who wrote Pacifica--John Paul Stevens. Reviewing his First Amendment jurisprudence, we find that Stevens believes there are "levels" of speech--political is the most protected, commercial not protected much at all, and fighting words and the like, not protected at all either. Obscenity falls into no protection--as it has since the country was founded. Indecent speech--that which discusses sexual function or excretory function in a patently offensive manner--is between obscenity and political speech. In Stevens' view, indecency is on par with commercial speech--offered some protection, but not total.Once he goes, and Pacifica goes, maybe we can find the time to decide what is protected and what is not. It's almost a foregone conclusion that the Golden Globes decision from 2004 is a bastardization of the FCC's own rules as well as Pacifica.By the way...you can't post that entire article, or even as much as you posted, if not the whole thing, and get away with it. That's a blatant copyright infringement.
Dude - Why blame this legal and political abuse on the NAB? The NAB is certainly dominated by large MSO broadcasters and media conglomerates, as they're the ones with big $$$ to fund operations, and staff with time not already overloaded 150% running an on air station who can lead projects. Historically they used to support a speech code which did promote censorship and indirect hate speech by denial of equal treatment to minorities and minority perspectives, but that's long since deceased. There are issues of NAB "buying legislation", which overlap speech content related reasons why the still pending ownership rules were rejected by the courts. However, I fail to see how an NAB forum whose attendance is literally larger than many small cities hosting the top figurehead and ringleader of a corrupt political regime's FCC can seriously be attributed to any failings in the NAB? Were I booking a keynote address speaker, I'd consider an FCC Chairman a leading choice, whether I thought he personally or in an official capacity, or the policies he championed, opposed, or carried out as marching orders from either side of Pennsylvania Avenue, were brilliant, misguided, despicable, or otherwise. Ultimately the problems of speech censorship and US Constitutional law run far deeper than any trade association or government agency, or bureaucratic manager or court officer in their official public figure capacities. They reflect issues of division traceable right back to the foundations of this country, alongside others of established and emerging technologies and far easier to address technical allocation and interference or service models. It's because content censorship has few regulatory models which don't wrongfully pick and choose favorites, whether by denied or coerced speech (think Fairness Doctrine and Personal Attack Doctrine, and their regulatory and litigated histories), that most recent FCC's have backed away from speech content manipulation. There's plenty to do sorting out big and small money interests over ownership and spectrum allocations, and the balance some former FCC Commissioners have astutely noted of a balance between private spaces and public commons, without resorting to no-win games of illegal censorship. Or, no-win games to anyone whose real goals are Constitutionally compliance as a mandate of any other policy or law.... In factions with inherently corrupt goals of circumventing those legal core mandates, we see very different priorities and values, which are antithetical to current obligations of both agencies and agents administering them. In a far less mobile or technology oriented culture of the 17th century, some of the founders of this country had commercial motives primarily, while others were such religious extremists as to define "religious freedom" as the ability to operate a genocidal, coercive village in ways so incompatible with neighbors of any other religious or cultural paths as to be at odds with then European society. A state like Pennsylvania fostered notions of religious freedom far closer to what it means today, whereas other colonies banished or killed people for being of the wrong religion, or being natives. Come the Technology Revolution, railroad, and telegraph, things got messy. People became more mobile, and less often linked for life to a single town or farm. We fought a war over issues not resolved during the original Constitution Convention, and added a 14th Amendment which made a big mess of local jurisdictions prone to oppressive practices, by creating Federal jurisdiction inside states to protect rights which set severe limits on what had been local authority to legislate so-called morality, often in ways seen as far from moral or ethical by others. Thomas Jefferson's letter of January 1st, 1802 to Danbury (CT) Baptist's Association penning the phrase "Wall of Separation" was sent into a Congregational theocracy (CT had a tax funded Congregational government until ended in 1818), from a state (VA) where armed feuds between Baptists and Anglicans (later Episcopal) government had previously collected taxes from other religionists. Move forward to about a century ago, and the post-Reconstruction issues saw some primarily concerned with industrial progress, but others assemble in upstate New York for the Niagra Conference, from which the pamphlets "The Fundamentals" were published. Those were harsh promotions of violent felonies and murders based on archaic xtian biblical interpretations of the type people have teased "Dr Laura" for promoting, which led to the Protestant Fundamentalist (upper case) movement, centered at Princeton's Divinity School in New Jersey, and to all the violence of Prohibition. In social cycles, it seems to me that kind of violent oppression enlisting abuse of law and government has peaked during the Red Scare era of the 1950's, and currently with the Bush regime and its Christo-fascist backers. While such movements have religious motivations, the public side of them isn't about religion other than as an explanation of abuse of government powers, and healthy or pathological social practices. Both commercial censorship using $$$ as the goal for pandering to values and practices which are inherently social pathologies relative to the needs of a diverse society with strong legal protections of civil and human rights, and what are rightfully outright illegal government actions as we've seen in both military and domestic operations from the Bush regime, are miserable failures relative to both Constitutional law (including when protecting rights amounts to fending off mob tyranny) and healthy social models for contemporary diverse society. It's difficult to clean up related government messes when such pathologies are so prolific in society, but unfair to pin it on the NAB that those issues exist, or are spilling over through government agents and agencies violating their legal charges and obligations. There's a perverse truth to a retort Marc Rotenberg (EPIC Senior counsel) made to me several years ago at a SOCRES (New School Graduate Faculty in Social Research) Privacy conference. "Law doesn't matter; tactics do." What we've seen from the Supreme Court, over several cycles or society and administrations, amounts to a pathology of warped legal process, for that to reflect all too much truth. Some, sadly including to some extent law prof's like Nadine Strossen (ACLU Pres, based on her comments to me at another law school's event), act to proliferate those elements of current legal process. Others, myself included, ask how can we change them, and shift law from a perverse game among high capacity assault lawyers and politicians, to one where we can honestly expect government to play by its own rules? It's those issues Julie Hilden seems to be addressing in her analysis of why FCC speech content regulation, and far broader aspects from Congress and the courts, or states, have never (since 1868 at least) and cannot be reconciled with the 1st, 4th, 8th, & 14th Amendments, and other elements of our Constitution.
J
Johnny Morgan
Guest
FCC has been ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court--see the NBC case from the 1930s.Since the Commission is constitutional, their powers under the 1934 Act are also constitutional, and as such they cannot be ignored.And because the statute allows for inspection, investigation, and seizure, they are not trespassing, but in fact have a legal privilege to be on your property.That's FCC Con Law 101. Hope you took good notes.
Johhny - While I wouldn't care to watch "Tampon Man" on cable, or be among "Bubba the Love Sponge" core audience, the reasons JP Stevens liked "zoning" of speech are precisely the reasons ICRA criteria are a far from content-neutral fraud, and that strip bars in a community are a sign of healthy diversity, not harm to anything but legal and religious frauds intolerant of civil rights. This speech is controversial precisely because it reflects serious ideological differences and core values systems with very different perceptions of sexuality, not because it legitimately qualifies for some lesser protections of law. Were that the case, why not set up the Catch 22 that any corporation which applies to the IRS as a 501(c)3 has demonstrated a primary interest as a business operation, and so receives lesser legal protections than other religious paths which simply exist as individual practices, or unincorporated private associations, as the latter are in reality far less commercial? Why do you depict "indecency" with a "patently offensive" element of Miller "obscenity" tests? While I'm already on record agreeing with Ms. Hilden's explanation of why both Miller and Pacifica were Constitutional errors by the courts, and go beyond her reasoning (though over issues the courts have often mishandled, possibly why she chooses a more tactical focus?), your description appears to misstate the court's view in Pacifica, regulating speech which in its view is not patently offensive (that phrase enters the FCC's language however, attempting to define the religious issue of profanity as if a neutral legal term close to Miller obscenity, which FCC treatment deserves legal challenge). What do you think the outcome of the Golden Globe mess will be? If nearly everyone but some right wing wackos who publish legal strategy manuals for bastardizing not just indecency law, but use of obscenity statutes to abridge traditionally highly protected speech and lifestyles, agrees that was an abortion of legal precedent, will it be used as the foundation for pushing ConLaw forward, or backwards? As to what I quoted, the one excerpt of a newsletter segment as noted was used _with permission_ and _with credit_ under a trade association's standard limited license (not Fair Use) for a member newsletter. The brief excerpts quoted under Web links from two different lengthy articles by Ms. Hilden on Findlaw's "Writ" were far below the 5% standard (and moreso the 20% limit others suggest) relative to both her articles (just the portion in quotation marks), and the rest which is my original writing, well within the standards for either commercial or noncommercial review and comment Fair Use under US law. Notably, Fair Use is messy in an international forum (which this is less of than many), as allowable excerpt levels vary from 100% in some cases, to no provision for any Fair Use under other legal systems, within countries the Net reaches. For that matter, all of IP law is messy, as it is unlikely the life of Disney or Sony corp's was the "original intent" for fostering of creative publication underlying US foundations for not simply protecting all ideas as part of a public sphere, once published in any form. The new and compiled content I posted was written as a single item, but posted as two messages due to size limits.
J
Johnny Morgan
Guest
I'm not saying I agree with Stevens--in fact, my third-year law school thesis was depicting just how WRONG Stevens and the Pacifica case was. It is a wholly unworkable test that relies on a falsehood--the pervasive argument ("pig in a parlor").I use "patently offensive" in regards to indecency because the FCC uses "patently offensive" in regards to indecency, and Pacifica upheld that definition. The fact that it came from Miller (obscenity) doesn't change the fact that certain words may also be used in defining indecency. I missated nothing--patently offensive was the FCC standard in 1978, and it is the standard now. Pacifica upheld it.The outcome of Golden Globes under Pacifica SHOULD BE a reversal. The FCC must judge in context, as the Commission rules and Pacifica state. They did not, and I don't think a per se prohibition of a word will stand.As for your fair use arguments, I take you on your face. If you had permission to reprint, then so be it. I'm sympathetic to the Findlaw argument you make as well. I might suggest, for ease of delineation, that you put what you're quoting from in a differnt font, even if also in quotes, when it's a block quote.
Jurisdictional conflicts
Those local Trespass conflicts with FCC authority can get messy. I've heard credible reports of pirates running off FCC guys using county mounties or state cops, unless and until the FCC guy comes back with a court order and either US Marshals or local support based on that order. In other cases, locals are inclined to help anyone with a Federal LEO status. In another case, an FCC guy who didn't like a speeding ticket from a cop with attitude in the NYC area made a police barracks and cop miserable with two intensive inspections, back in the days when RADAR required licenses, and cops frequently violated station ID requirements on their 2-way systems. $120,000 in fines reportedly resulted from those inspections, against the department and individual officer. (US law has become so complex and conflicted that even generally law abiding LEO's can "get" each other sometimes.) I've been run off from a request to inspect a public file, at a station I knew was blatantly violating licensee obligations, by local cops who asserted that after being asked to leave, I would be trespassing to return unless I came back with a court order, and hired them for private security. That became an additional element of an FCC license renewal petition to deny, resulting in nonrenewal, forced sale at a servere loss, 6 figure attorney's fees to the crooked broadcaster salvaging the license for forced sale after designation for hearing, etc. IOW, while in some cases locals will view Federal issues as outside their jurisdiction, ultimately it's even more difficult for a licensee (who's signed off under felony penalties to obey FCC regs) than a pirate to evade FCC compliance without great potential losses. The direct FCC fines were only 5 figures in that case, while the former owner was denied the privilege of FCC licensure for life with prejudice. I've also one of the guys who used state civil courts to shut a pirate that made front page of some broadcast trades some years back, when the Commission in trying to act didn't have the resources and proximity to the pirate to catch his games of cat and mouse over a couple years. That was a costly process to the station, which pursued it in part because the pirate didn't just try to broadcast his own content, but apparently was an unmedicated psychotic who had religious conflicts with the station's format, and broadcast fraudulent contests and slander of station sponsors in forms which caused harm to the station and third parties. If the Commission's authority were as broad as some of its regulations read simplistically and literally out of context suggest, they could have simply entered the pirate's house, or those of other family and friends he at times used, and seized his equipment. He was a Ham, and so in theory had signed off on voluntary agreements to FCC regulatory compliance under 18 USC 1001 additional penalties, which not all pirates have done. The state court order included an injunction, damages and costs to the station, and forfeiture of equipment not to the FCC, but to the harmed commercial broadcaster. That set up potential jail time without trial for contempt if he repeated, which his then wife of a young kid and parents strongly pressured him to not try. In theory there were Federal felonies perpetrated, but any FBI (or FCC, or other) agent knows Federal enforcement follows a business cost-justification matrix with exceptions for political high profile actions, and is not actually based on simple tests, like was a law violated, criminal or civil? If only the FCC would stick to those issues where they can easily convince courts of their Constitutional purposes, to enact international spectrum use agreements and address interstate aspects of telecom policy, such as interference models or telco related issues, this thread and its topic likely wouldn't exist. ==(squinting and checking out hover over meaning of editor icons..... OK, I see the button for changing font now. Aging eyes strain to see those details, as to delineating quoted content more obviously.) If it's so obvious that Pacifica was bad law, how long before we can flush it? Could the Golden Globes have pushed things so far over the edge that perhaps we're about to see an overdue challenge? While I generally support the ACLU, IMHO they screwed up in ACLU v Reno by endorsing Pacifica as an easy out, rather than tackling some of these issues then. Notably, the courts blew off the expedited bypass of Appellate review from the CDA (Telecom Act of '96, Title V) in both US v Playboy (which overturned more of the CDA blown off in ACLU, perhaps for reasons related to donors and marketing of nonprofits?), and Nitke v Gonzales (recently denied Cert, wrongfully IMHO). In that sense, we saw a case of Congress so much as admitting they were violating ConLaw in the CDA (even ignoring the revision and extention of the Comstock Act Reno stipulated as already overturned, in two very carefully crafted deceptive paragraphs most of us missed as if innocuous technical conformance until later), but the court arbitrarily selectively enforcing or ignoring that provision of direct appeal to SCOTUS as if one political high profile shot qualified for different treatment than two lower profile cases. At least the "Leading Coalition of Scholars" Marjorie Heins coordinated before switching affiliation from ACLU to www.NCAC.org set up some serious projects to take a religion neutral, social psychology and law approach to studying "harm to minors" issues and developing potential litigation evidence, in parts funded by Soros and Warhol Foundations. But, the issues of dysphoria, cognitive dissonance, and outright pathologies in adults may deserve far more consideration than they've received, to consider child rearing practices leading to calls for censorship, rather than adults skilled at living in a society which protects these speech (and larger life practices rights they merely reflect) often at odds with other adults not fully capable of living in a society which seriously protects rights our Constitution seems to define as top level standards. The old legal saw goes "justice delayed is justice denied", which taken a step further can be seen as promotion or mitigation of potential wrongful violence by honest or defective court actions. "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy At what point are we discussing not just innocent regulatory policies of civil bureaucracy, or judicial theory, but real life violence by protection of abridgement of rights in real people's lives, subject to police gunpoint imposition?
Those local Trespass conflicts with FCC authority can get messy. I've heard credible reports of pirates running off FCC guys using county mounties or state cops, unless and until the FCC guy comes back with a court order and either US Marshals or local support based on that order. In other cases, locals are inclined to help anyone with a Federal LEO status. In another case, an FCC guy who didn't like a speeding ticket from a cop with attitude in the NYC area made a police barracks and cop miserable with two intensive inspections, back in the days when RADAR required licenses, and cops frequently violated station ID requirements on their 2-way systems. $120,000 in fines reportedly resulted from those inspections, against the department and individual officer. (US law has become so complex and conflicted that even generally law abiding LEO's can "get" each other sometimes.) I've been run off from a request to inspect a public file, at a station I knew was blatantly violating licensee obligations, by local cops who asserted that after being asked to leave, I would be trespassing to return unless I came back with a court order, and hired them for private security. That became an additional element of an FCC license renewal petition to deny, resulting in nonrenewal, forced sale at a servere loss, 6 figure attorney's fees to the crooked broadcaster salvaging the license for forced sale after designation for hearing, etc. IOW, while in some cases locals will view Federal issues as outside their jurisdiction, ultimately it's even more difficult for a licensee (who's signed off under felony penalties to obey FCC regs) than a pirate to evade FCC compliance without great potential losses. The direct FCC fines were only 5 figures in that case, while the former owner was denied the privilege of FCC licensure for life with prejudice. I've also one of the guys who used state civil courts to shut a pirate that made front page of some broadcast trades some years back, when the Commission in trying to act didn't have the resources and proximity to the pirate to catch his games of cat and mouse over a couple years. That was a costly process to the station, which pursued it in part because the pirate didn't just try to broadcast his own content, but apparently was an unmedicated psychotic who had religious conflicts with the station's format, and broadcast fraudulent contests and slander of station sponsors in forms which caused harm to the station and third parties. If the Commission's authority were as broad as some of its regulations read simplistically and literally out of context suggest, they could have simply entered the pirate's house, or those of other family and friends he at times used, and seized his equipment. He was a Ham, and so in theory had signed off on voluntary agreements to FCC regulatory compliance under 18 USC 1001 additional penalties, which not all pirates have done. The state court order included an injunction, damages and costs to the station, and forfeiture of equipment not to the FCC, but to the harmed commercial broadcaster. That set up potential jail time without trial for contempt if he repeated, which his then wife of a young kid and parents strongly pressured him to not try. In theory there were Federal felonies perpetrated, but any FBI (or FCC, or other) agent knows Federal enforcement follows a business cost-justification matrix with exceptions for political high profile actions, and is not actually based on simple tests, like was a law violated, criminal or civil? If only the FCC would stick to those issues where they can easily convince courts of their Constitutional purposes, to enact international spectrum use agreements and address interstate aspects of telecom policy, such as interference models or telco related issues, this thread and its topic likely wouldn't exist. ==(squinting and checking out hover over meaning of editor icons..... OK, I see the button for changing font now. Aging eyes strain to see those details, as to delineating quoted content more obviously.) If it's so obvious that Pacifica was bad law, how long before we can flush it? Could the Golden Globes have pushed things so far over the edge that perhaps we're about to see an overdue challenge? While I generally support the ACLU, IMHO they screwed up in ACLU v Reno by endorsing Pacifica as an easy out, rather than tackling some of these issues then. Notably, the courts blew off the expedited bypass of Appellate review from the CDA (Telecom Act of '96, Title V) in both US v Playboy (which overturned more of the CDA blown off in ACLU, perhaps for reasons related to donors and marketing of nonprofits?), and Nitke v Gonzales (recently denied Cert, wrongfully IMHO). In that sense, we saw a case of Congress so much as admitting they were violating ConLaw in the CDA (even ignoring the revision and extention of the Comstock Act Reno stipulated as already overturned, in two very carefully crafted deceptive paragraphs most of us missed as if innocuous technical conformance until later), but the court arbitrarily selectively enforcing or ignoring that provision of direct appeal to SCOTUS as if one political high profile shot qualified for different treatment than two lower profile cases. At least the "Leading Coalition of Scholars" Marjorie Heins coordinated before switching affiliation from ACLU to www.NCAC.org set up some serious projects to take a religion neutral, social psychology and law approach to studying "harm to minors" issues and developing potential litigation evidence, in parts funded by Soros and Warhol Foundations. But, the issues of dysphoria, cognitive dissonance, and outright pathologies in adults may deserve far more consideration than they've received, to consider child rearing practices leading to calls for censorship, rather than adults skilled at living in a society which protects these speech (and larger life practices rights they merely reflect) often at odds with other adults not fully capable of living in a society which seriously protects rights our Constitution seems to define as top level standards. The old legal saw goes "justice delayed is justice denied", which taken a step further can be seen as promotion or mitigation of potential wrongful violence by honest or defective court actions. "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy At what point are we discussing not just innocent regulatory policies of civil bureaucracy, or judicial theory, but real life violence by protection of abridgement of rights in real people's lives, subject to police gunpoint imposition?
The supreme who? You're right, the constitution isn't of any validity anyway, since none of us signed it.Johnny Morgan said:
Call a spade a spade. The FCC is a band of thugs claiming ownership of portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. They demand protection money from anyone who wants to use it.
Legal privilege = Some strange men and women calling themselves "legislators" wrote some words down on paper, called it the FCC, then gave weapons and shiny badges to men who aren't afraid to use them on harmless individuals operating radio equipment.
I read the NAB's onair handbook, that was about enough FCC for me. I know their silly rules for onair behaviour, and that's about far enough. I can't handle reading anymore FCC drivel. I once looked into what it takes to get a license and about clawed out my eyes from all the legalese, paperwork, and fees.I see from your signature that your occupation is "Law". What is law but words on paper written by strangers and enforced by strangers with guns?
J
Johnny Morgan
Guest
Since you appear to be hostile to the Constitutional system, as well as the enforcement mechanism of the government, I think continuing this discussion would be futile. Have fun with your Free Talk endeavor.
- Status