Two skirmishes with the "thought police"
First, a lecturer on Islam at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Kevin Barrett, has his neck on the line after discussing his thoughts on 9/11 and possible CIA involvement in a conspiracy - on a radio show! Students who have taken his courses have, for the most part, defended Barrett's ability to keep his lectures free of his opinion, and a university review of his course has shown no impropriety on Barrett's part. This, of course, has no sway on Republican state legislators, who are trying their hardest to boot Barrett from his $8,247, one-semester, one-class contract to be terminated over this. I hand the quote of the article to John Wiley, Chancellor of UW-Madison: “I think it would be a serious mistake for legislators to try to get in and micromanage curriculum... We don’t go around and question all our instructors to find out what all their views are.” (As a side note, check out C-SPAN's broadcast of a scholars' symposium on 9/11 theories, airing this week, and available at the C-SPAN website.)
Next, though I may be behind on this one by a week or so... It's apparent that there has been a trend on the Internet of disguising links to disgusting/pornographic material as something innocuous in order to shock/startle people. Now, we have legislation against it. However, this legislation is very dangerous due to its wording:
§ 2252C. Misleading words or digital images on the Internet
(a) IN GENERAL.—Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a person into viewing material constituting obscenity shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 10 years.
(b) MINORS.—Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years.
(c) CONSTRUCTION.—For the purposes of this section, a word or digital image that clearly indicates the sexual content of the site, such as ‘sex’ or ‘porn’, is not misleading.
So, by (a), it is illegal to dupe ANYONE - including adults - into clicking on a link leading to "obscenity," subject to imprisonment for 10 years. Wow. On top of that, in (b), "material harmful to minors" is defined as "something that minors would find interesting but their parents would not like them seeing." As the website I have linked to says (and I agree with), this is the beginning of the Nanny State... if only because these laws can be interpreted to mean anything anyone wants. What happens if I were to put a link up that says, "Check this cool Pokemon site out!", and a kid clicks on it, and finds our ramblings interesting... but his parents don't want him reading liberal "propaganda" ;) ... Will we need to waste the Supreme Court's time to decide that the parents of this child are insane?
-R.
Next, though I may be behind on this one by a week or so... It's apparent that there has been a trend on the Internet of disguising links to disgusting/pornographic material as something innocuous in order to shock/startle people. Now, we have legislation against it. However, this legislation is very dangerous due to its wording:
§ 2252C. Misleading words or digital images on the Internet
(a) IN GENERAL.—Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a person into viewing material constituting obscenity shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 10 years.
(b) MINORS.—Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years.
(c) CONSTRUCTION.—For the purposes of this section, a word or digital image that clearly indicates the sexual content of the site, such as ‘sex’ or ‘porn’, is not misleading.
So, by (a), it is illegal to dupe ANYONE - including adults - into clicking on a link leading to "obscenity," subject to imprisonment for 10 years. Wow. On top of that, in (b), "material harmful to minors" is defined as "something that minors would find interesting but their parents would not like them seeing." As the website I have linked to says (and I agree with), this is the beginning of the Nanny State... if only because these laws can be interpreted to mean anything anyone wants. What happens if I were to put a link up that says, "Check this cool Pokemon site out!", and a kid clicks on it, and finds our ramblings interesting... but his parents don't want him reading liberal "propaganda" ;) ... Will we need to waste the Supreme Court's time to decide that the parents of this child are insane?
-R.
posted by Minister of Propaganda @ 8/01/2006 10:45:00 AM
2 Comments:
At August 03, 2006 2:37 PM,
Anonymous said…
as a law student i will inform you of the adage, "the law is not black or white. it's gray.".... you can quote from any statute you'd like; it's guaranteed to be nebulous, even if it seems otherwise to the informed at first blush. such is the nature of the field & the source of our adversarial legal system in America.
moreover, no one would bother suing you because you would be considered "judgment proof" -- a term of art meaning it would probably cost more to sue you than one could possibly recover anyway(the whole blood from a turnip thing, you know?)
from your many postings (much or which don't merit any color of a thoughtful response at all) it seems that your ignorance is the source of your false confidence. it's too bad really. so in essence, not only do you have no authority you aren't credible either -- just intellectually lazy & vapid banter.
At August 06, 2006 11:50 AM,
Minister of Propaganda said…
I'm no legal "expert", I'll own up to that right up front.
Using our blog in my example was thoroughly an exaggeration of an otherwise-valid point. Yes, the law is grey and not black and white. Yes, it would be a waste of time to legislate against us, for exactly the reasons you state. I have never been ignorant of these facts. In fact, the "greyness" of the law is exactly the reason why I presented an example, regardless of the exaggeration, to show that the "grey" could well be used and abused depending on individual proclivities.
The point is that excessive legislation for things that don't really require legislation only serves to be a drag on a court system whose time might be otherwise better spent. The potential for lengthy imprisonment of people based on the wording of the statute makes discussing just how "grey" the law is extremely important.
Finally, keep the personal attacks coming. Your attempts to humble me are quite amusing. Ineffective, but amusing nonetheless.
-R.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home