Archive for the ‘Censorship’ Category

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Facebook played a “starring role” in revolution

Monday, February 14th, 2011

According to this New York Times article, Facebook played an important role in the recent events in Egypt that brought down their government. Indeed, American politicians are urging Facebook to go further in aiding such uprisings:

Last week, Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, urged Facebook to take “immediate and tangible steps” to help protect democracy and human rights activists who use its services, including addressing concerns about not being able to use pseudonyms.

Of course, I’m pretty certain that Facebook would be expected to immediately share any and all info about its users should the U.S. government demand it (regardless of any Constitutional prohibitions) as they have been known to do in the past.

It should also be noted that, while Facebook has no policy specifically prohibiting the use of its network to bring down a government, you’d better not be posting pictures of women breast feeding their babies.  I mean, there are limits to what a socially responsible mega-network will do in the name of freedom…

Posted in Censorship, Egypt, Nudity, Politics | 1 Comment »

Sex offenders may lose 1st Amendment Rights

Monday, February 14th, 2011

Vermont is considering a bill that would prohibit sex offenders from using an alias when posting on line.

Vermont lawmakers are considering making it a crime for convicted sex offenders to use false names on social media sites like Facebook, after one such incident was reported in the state.

One incident?  I guess it doesn’t take much to get a law introduced in Vermont.

Interesting how Facebook has taken over from Craigslist as the main playground for sex crazed adults looking to violate children.

The bill under review would make the crime a misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in jail. The committee said it would continue to consider the bill.

So merely using an alias can get you up to two years in prison, huh?  Remember the old days when you actually had to have an actual victim to get prison time?  Of course, the U.S. does have an reputation to maintain.

Thanks to Maggie McNeil for the link to this story.

Posted in Censorship, Paranoia, Politics, Sex Offender Registries, Vermont | 1 Comment »

Craigslist prostitute-turned-teacher gives up

Saturday, February 12th, 2011

Melissa Petro is giving up her fight to keep her job with the New York City school system the face of a powerful effort to fire her for openly admitting to selling sex on Craigslist before becoming a teacher.

Pietro, who resigned late last month and promised never again to seek employment with the D.O.E., continued, “Although I could have fought my removal I have decided, instead, to move on. Regardless of the outcome of a trial, which I have every reason to believe I would have won, I do not believe I would have ever been welcomed back to the classroom by the Department of Education.”

New York City has proven that, while it’s nearly impossible to fire an inept teacher,  it is indeed possible to fire one that isn’t.

Nice work, New York Department of Education.  I’m certain the Devil has reserved a special place in hell for you.

Posted in Censorship, New York, Politics, Prostitution | 1 Comment »

Monday Links

Monday, February 7th, 2011
  • After an anonymous tip, a female teacher in Ohio is accused of having sex with five of her male students. She “faces up to 81 years in jail if she is convicted of 16 counts of sexual battery and three offenses involving an underage person.” The sexual “battery” charge presumes that the sex was unwanted.  I’m guessing that’s probably not the case (although reality does not play a major roll when it comes to the legalities of sex with  minors).
  • Florida is going to consider banning “simulated” obscenity, whether clothed or unclothed, in material accessible to minors.  Perhaps next year they will outlaw having dirty thoughts within 1000 feet of a minor.  No more suggestive cheer leading moves or dancing in Florida.
  • to minors by adding a clause that says that “a suspected sexual predator purposely and knowingly sent obscene electronic messages to a minor”.   This is apparently a attempt to reconcile free speech rights with their desire to restrict free speech rights.
  • Biblical porn: “My lover thrust his hand through the hole, and my insides groaned because of him.”  Surprise!  The Bible is conflicted about sex!

Posted in Books, Censorship, Florida, Massachusetts, Obscenity, Ohio, Pornography, Prostitution, Relgious Zealotry, Texas, Trafficking, Virginia, Washington | 5 Comments »

Egyption internet kill switch comes to the U.S.

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Senator Joe Lieberman, former Presidential candidate and active proponent of internet censorship, is co-sponsoring a bill to give the President the same kind of internet kill switch recently made famous as the weapon of first resort in quelling the popular discontent in Egypt.

From the HuffPo:

The authority granted to the government in the bill, known as the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA), has been likened to an Internet “kill switch.”

The bill would require that private companies–such as “broadband providers, search engines, or software firms,” CNET explains–”immediately comply with any emergency measure or action” put in place by the Department of Homeland Security, or else face fines.

And how will this new security measure be administered?

[The law] would also see the creation of a new agency within the Department of Homeland Security, the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC).

Because, if there’s anything that the bloated and largely incompetent Department of Homeland Security needs more of, it’s bureaucracy.

But wait, there’s more!  The bill not only subjugates the privately operated internet infrastructure to the government, it also provides for additional violation of your privacy and Fourth Amendment rights.

Any private company reliant on “the Internet, the telephone system, or any other component of the U.S. ‘information infrastructure’” would be “subject to command” by the NCCC, and some would be required to engage in “information sharing” with the agency, says CBS4.

As the government learned from the warrantless wiretap fiasco, the government needs a way to assure private corporations that they won’t be held accountable when the government tells them to violate the Constitution.

He added that the bill is necessary for it would reduce the liability of companies that may need to resort to extreme measures in an emergency situation. Companies might have to “do things in a normal business sense you’d be hesitant to do but national security requires you to do,” Lieberman explained, adding “We protect them from that because the action the government is ordering them to take is in national security or economic interest.”

We probably don’t give our “leaders” enough credit for thinking ahead.  It’s clear that Lieberman sees that what’s happening in Egypt could happen here.  Anyone who remembers the civil rights or Vietnam war protests and riots (as Lieberman certainly does) can attest to that.  But, if and when the U.S. has a popular uprising like we’re seeing in Tunisia, Greece, and Egypt, by God our government is going to be ready.  They are going to be able to summarily kill the internet and phone service but rather than looking like an oppressive tyrannical response to citizen unrest, it will be all dressed up in the rule of law.

The government has finally found a way to put the internet firmly under the thumb of government as the public silently goes about its business.

Posted in Big Brother is Watching You, Censorship, Egypt, Greece, Politics, Tunisia, United States | 4 Comments »

Cops in Cairo threaten CNN camera operator

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

Apparently there is no freedom to record events in Egypt during the current unrest as reporters face police harassment, intimidation, and violence.

CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman, along with photojournalist Mary Rogers, recounted how Egyptian police came up to them and, after a struggle, took the camera from Rogers and broke its viewfinder. Wederman tried to convince the officers to return the camera, telling them it would help show that Egypt believes in freedom of the press, but they refused – and threatened to beat him.

Video recording is a threat to government and law enforcement officials  everywhere because it limits their power to fabricate a version of events that favors those officials.

Of course, that could never happen here…

Posted in Censorship, Egypt, Police Misconduct, United States | 2 Comments »

Braving the limits of permissible expression

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

In connection to MTV’s decision to tone down its new show “Skins” rather than risk prosecution under child porn laws, Solon has an interesting summary of how the participation of children mainstream imagery has tested the boundaries of expression permitted in the “land of the free”.  Most of the examples will probably be familiar to you, but it’s interesting to revisit the pictures in the current  environment of fear encouraged by government and the media in their perpetual pursuit of self-serving public attention.

I watched the 1978 movie “Pretty Baby” last night.   While I had already seen it soon after it was released, I don’t really recall any sense of shock at its content.  This time, watching it in the context of today’s paranoia that a pedophile lurks behind every tree, I sincerely doubt the movie, if released today, would have seen the inside of a theater without serious editing.

While these examples are about child nudity, U.S. Justice Department  has again moved the line so as to broaden their definition of a prosecutable offense, under the term “child erotica“.  Under this strategy, Alabama photographer Jeff Pierson was indicted in 2006:

In a federal indictment announced this week, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Pierson, 43, of being a child pornographer–even though even prosecutors acknowledge there’s no evidence he has ever taken a single photograph of an unclothed minor.

Rather, they argue, his models struck poses that were illegally provocative. “The images charged are not legitimate child modeling, but rather lascivious poses one would expect to see in an adult magazine,” Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the northern district of Alabama, said in a statement.

The ease with which the government can curtail free expression in the name of protecting children encourages more and more of it and, indeed, almost all internet censorship crusades worldwide currently leverage off the public’s enthusiasm to sign over their freedom in exchange for a vague promise of security for children.

Posted in Art, Censorship, Child Pornography, Movies, Nudity, Television and Radio, United States | 6 Comments »

MTV tries to steer clear of U.S. censorship laws

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

In an environment of vague U.S. censorship laws that govern what media outlets can and can’t do, MTV has decided to tone down its new show, “Skins”, rather than risk a chance that some ambitious federal prosecutor will target the network for a high profile career-making crucifixion.

They are particularly concerned about the third episode of the series, which is to be broadcast Jan. 31. In an early version, a naked 17-year-old actor is shown from behind as he runs down a street. The actor, Jesse Carere, plays Chris, a high school student whose erection — assisted by erectile dysfunction pills — is a punch line throughout the episode.

While simple nudity of minors is not outlawed by U.S. porn law,in the current environment of pedophile and child porn paranoia, state and federal governments have a history of threatening and harassing producers of material which is clearly within the bounds of what the courts consider protected expression.   While its nice when corporations stand up for First Amendment rights, a business’s first obligation is to the bottom line and not to martyr itself for the cause of freedom at the expense of shareholders.

Of course, those scenes may be what attract young viewers in the first place. Jessica Bennett, a senior writer for Newsweek, wrote last week, “ ‘Skins’ may be the most realistic show on television.”

If there’s any thing you don’t want children exposed to, it’s realism.

It is unclear when MTV first realized that the show may be vulnerable to child pornography charges. On Tuesday, a flurry of meetings took place at the network’s headquarters in New York, according to an executive who attended some of the meetings and spoke only on the condition of anonymity. In one of the meetings, the executives wondered aloud who could possibly face criminal prosecution and jail time if the episodes were broadcast without changes.

Of course, what makes this interesting is that MTV has no clue whether they would be breaking the law or not.  The laws are so subjective that no one can know what constitutes a violation in advance.  The first chance you get to know that you’re breaking the law is when you’re tried and convicted.  So the solution is to steer clear of anything that might excite some self-serving over-zealous prosecutor who sees high profile sex crime prosecutions as a pathway to higher political office.

Posted in Censorship, Child Pornography, Television and Radio | 6 Comments »

If we ban obscenity, we can ban hate speech

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Jumping on the current media trend that all newsworthy human activity can be tied to the Arizona shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Melanie Zoltan reviews the book, Degradation: What the History of Obscenity Tells Us About Hate Speech by law professor Kevin W. Saunders.

I have not read the book, so I am only going on Zoltan’s review.  The first half of the book defines how sex was transformed into a shameful activity by religious (particularly protestant)  powers and defines obscenity:

Church believed that respect for clergy was diminished by depictions of monks, nuns, and higher-order officials acting in sexual ways. Stories that portrayed church officials as such were slowly banned, increasingly so after the printing press allowed for wider dissemination of these stories. By the 13th century celibacy was required for Church clergy. By the mid-17th century, in the post-Cromwell era, as a more Calvinistic Protestantism took hold, sex was viewed as shameful.

Obscenity, then, derives from sexual depictions that degrade, or dehumanize humans.

It’s the second half of the book that gets our attention:

Saunders spends the second half of his book, having beautifully laid out the foundation for his argument in the first half, arguing that hate speech is the modern version of obscenity, and that the courts should treat hate speech under the First Amendment in the same manner as obscenity is treated.

“If hate speech is the current form of degrading speech, then past experience with the regulation of degrading speech would be valuable in examining how to regulate hate speech,” (99) Saunders posits.

Of course, I would argue that there is no exemption for obscenity in the First Amendment.  The Supreme Court pulled that invention right out of their collective asses.  The First Amendment was intended to protect speech that offends.  To say it doesn’t apply to offensive speech insults the intelligence of anyone with an IQ that reaches beyond the single digits.

Saunders concludes that: “Obscenity law is the law of offense, and hate speech is offensive for the same reasons as sexual obscenity. One has been seen as offensive because of the degraded view it presents of humanity. The other should similarly be viewed as offensive because of the degraded view of its target population.”

And as we all know so well, donning the mantle of victimhood by claiming to be  offended is a scam intended to give some people the power to control what other people say and do.

Other books by Saunders include “Violence as Obscenity” and “Saving our Children from the First Amendment”.

Sounds like another crusader whose mission is to force everyone into a third grade level cultural conformity.  I won’t even dignify the supposition that we should all rush to throw out the First Amendment because of what happened in Tucson.  That job has already been covered exceedingly well my the mainstream media.

Posted in Censorship, Obscenity, Relgious Zealotry | Comments Off

Legislating fashion in Selma, Alabama

Friday, January 14th, 2011

No study of the American Civil Rights movement leaves out the historic events that took place in Selma, Alabama back in the 1960swhen the law was different for people who looked different.  If you were black, you were treated as something less that other people.

Then, as now, Selma is mostly black, but now they have the same rights as everyone else and they can vote like everyone else.

But not everything about Selma has changed.  In December the Selma city council once again decided to embark down the path of treating people who look different as something less than other people.  They passed a law legalizing police harassment of people who wear their pants too low.

Nice work Selma, Alabama.  You are once again an icon of social intolerance.

Josh Moon at the Montgomery Advertiser offers additional perspective:

Things are great in Selma.

The crime rate is near zero. The economy is so good they hand out hundred-dollar bills on the courthouse square. The streets are pothole-free. And the court dockets are all up to date.

I don’t have stats to verify any of that — in fact, the stats I have seen directly contradict all of it — but still, it has to be true. Because if it’s not, I’m going to need a Selma City Council member to explain to me how a group of elected offi­cials — presumably adults — would ever set aside problems in any one of those aforemen­tioned areas and choose instead to spend their time writing, de­bating and passing a law that bans saggy pants.

Yes, you read that correctly. Saggy pants — they outlawed them.

We think we’ve come a long way since the Jim Crow days, but have we?  When we still see nothing wrong in passing laws that simply target people for looking different than us, I’d stay we still have a long way to go.  Is this what they pay the city council in Selma to do?

Posted in Alabama, Big Brother is Watching You, Censorship | 6 Comments »

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