Reason Magazine - Topics > Censorship

Ready, Aim, Firewall!

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:28:00 EDT

Remember how anyone protesting China in Nepal risked getting shot during the Olympic torch relay at Mt. Everest?

Well, that's not the only censorship that's going to surround the Olympics, though it's a rather more dramatic interpretation of the word firewall: Technology Minister Wan Gang told Reuters some sites would be shut down or screened during the Games. "To protect the youth there are controls on some unhealthy websites."

In light of statements like there, there seems to be a serious case of unfounded optimism at the IOC:

Wan's statement comes just over a month after the International Olympic Committee reminded China of its obligations as an Olympic host city to allow the press to report as freely as they have in the past—which usually includes full, unfettered access to the Internet. The IOC insisted to the government that the Internet be "open at all times during Games time," and commission vice chairman Kevan Gosper appeared optimistic that China would comply. "On all issues where that's been concerned they've lived up to the (host city) agreement so we don't see any reason why they'd step back from that now," he said at the time.

More on China here. More Beijing Olympics here.

Drink Up Me Hearties, Yo Ho

info@reason.com (Damon W. Root) — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:24:00 EDT

The next time one of your English-born pals complains about America's impending collapse into fascism, tell her to try flying the Jolly Roger back in Merry Old England. From The Guardian:

A fireman has been threatened with legal action for flying a Jolly Roger outside his home for his daughter's pirate-themed birthday party.

[...]

"It's a £5 flag, not hurting anyone, and they're probably spending hundreds of pounds of our cash getting me to take it down," the father-of-four told the Evening Standard. "That could be spent on improving the local area—it's disgraceful."

Another neighbour erected a Jolly Roger in support but took it down after receiving the same warning letter from the council.

A spokeswoman for Mole Valley district council said they visited both properties flying the flags and wrote to the owners informing them of the regulations.

The letters stated that although any resident was entitled to fly national flags outside their properties, the Jolly Roger was not allowed under the Outdoor Advertisements & Signs Regulations.

Whole thing here.

I'm curious about just what the council thinks he's advertising? But here's the real issue for reason's UK fans: What the hell flag is an anarchist supposed to fly?

Via the indispensable Fortean Times.

UPDATE: Contributing Editor Charles Oliver chronicled the opening salvos of this battle in the November 2007 print edition.

'There Is No Reason for This Stuff'

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:01:00 EDT

A British law criminalizing the possession of "violent and extreme pornography" is expected to take effect next week. The bill, a response to the 2003 murder of Brighton schoolteacher Jane Longhurst by a man who liked violent pornography, would ban simulated sexual violence as well as images of the real thing. The prohibited material includes images of "an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person's life"; "an act which results in or appears to result in serious injury to a person's anus, breasts, or genitals"; "an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse"; or "a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal" (emphasis added). Critics worry that the definition is too broad and too vague and that the law will punish people for engaging in consensual activities that do not actually harm anyone. "If no sexual offense is being committed," one M.P. who opposed the bill told the BBC, "it seems very odd indeed that there should be an offense for having an image of something which was not an offense."

But the Justice Ministry insists that "pornographic material which depicts necrophilia, bestiality or violence that is life threatening or likely to result in serious injury to the anus, breasts or genitals has no place in a modern society and should not be tolerated." The M.P. who led the fight for the bill in the House of Lords promises the government will target only images that are "grossly offensive and disgusting." Jane Longhurst's mother, who campaigned for the ban, has little patience with the critics:

Speaking from her home in Berkshire, Mrs. Longhurst acknowledges that libertarians see her as "a horrible killjoy." "I'm not. I do not approve of this stuff, but there is room for all sorts of different people. But anything which is going to cause damage to other people needs to be stopped."
To those who fear the legislation might criminalise people who use violent pornography as a harmless sex aid, she responds with a blunt "hard luck."
"There is no reason for this stuff. I can't see why people need to see it. People say what about our human rights but where are Jane's human rights?"

[Thanks to Daniel Reeves for the tip.]

Too Fast for Sarnia

info@reason.com (Damon W. Root) — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:27:00 EDT

Thank the gods, today's London Free Press brings word that the effort to keep glam metal dinosaurs Mötley Crüe from rocking Sarnia, Ontario's Rogers Bayfest have failed. Despite efforts by Sarnia city council member Dave Boushy, who opposed the band's appearance and accurately described their offstage antics as "pornographic," the full council refused to heed his warnings.

But as the paper reports, local grandfather Gord Park, the man who first alerted city officials to the Crüe's lewd legacy, remains defiant:

"There's been an enormous reaction and I'd say 99 per cent is in favour of my opinion," Park said. "People are saying this world is on a downward spiral. I'm not just talking about Motley Crue, I'm talking about any kind of trash."

Park is disappointed council didn't support Boushy's attempt to have input on Bayfest's lineup.

"I just hope groups like the Women's Interval Home and other protection agencies that combat drugs and sex abuse can handle the repercussions of what's being promoted."

Little Brother Is Watching

jwalker@reason.com (Jesse Walker) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:00:00 EDT

Blurry Boobs, Butts Bother Bureaucrats

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:15:00 EDT

Fox is refusing to pay a $91,000 indecency fine imposed by the Federal Communications Commission for a 2003 broadcast of the now-defunct reality show Married by America in which the naughty bits of strippers at a bachelor party were blurry but inferrable. The FCC conceded that "the pixelation of the female strippers' naked breasts and buttocks does render the material less explicit and graphic than it would have been in the absence of pixelation" but concluded that "the material is still sufficiently graphic and explicit to support an indecency finding." It initially imposed a fine of $1.2 million—$7,000 for each of 169 Fox stations that aired the show—but later decided to fine just the 13 Fox stations in cities where viewers had complained. Fox nevertheless remains defiant, saying the FCC fine is "arbitrary and capricious, inconsistent with precedent, and patently unconstitutional."

In my column last week I said the FCC should stop it already with the indecency nonsense. Now I'm having second thoughts. I never saw Married by America, but I feel pretty confident in suggesting that it was less entertaining than the bureaucratic brouhaha it generated.

[via The Freedom Files]

How Do You Know When a Kid's Interest in Sex Is Prurient?

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:37:00 EDT

Indiana booksellers are worried about a new state law that requires anyone who sells "sexually explicit materials" to pay a $250 fee and register with the secretary of state so he can be tracked by local officials. In addition to books, magazines, and videos intended for "the stimulation of the human genital organs," the targeted material includes anything deemed "harmful to minors." The latter category is nebulous and potentially wide, defined elsewhere in the Indiana code as material that "describes or represents, in any form, nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse"; "appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors"; "is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable matter for... minors"; and "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."

An Indiana bookstore owner suggests that definition, depending on whom you ask, could cover "just about any coming-of-age novel and books on health, hygiene, and human sexuality." Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, agrees that the law sweeps more broadly than its authors and supporters (who had in mind businesses that specialize in pornography) anticipated:

The way we read this bill, if you stock a single book with sexual content, even a novel or a book about sex education, you will have to register as a business that sells sexually explicit material....This is just outrageous from our standpoint, and we believe it is a violation of the First Amendment.

A co-sponsor of the law, state Sen. Brent Steele (R-Bedford), tells the Indianapolis Star the booksellers are overreacting. He notes that the law does not cover "a person who sells sexually explicit materials on June 30, 2008," so existing booksellers need not register as smut peddlers. Unless they move to a new location. Or change their inventory.

[Thanks to Nicolas Martin for the tip.]

Nonsense of Indecency

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:00:00 EDT

In most of the places where this column appears, the four-letter words it contains will not be spelled out. Instead they will be rendered as initial letters followed by dashes.

That custom is an example of self-restraint by newspapers and websites that do not want to offend their readers. It is not the result of government censorship, which would violate the First Amendment.

Yet as a case the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear illustrates, different rules apply to broadcast TV, where the Federal Communications Commission has decreed that anything it deems "indecent" may not be aired between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. One day soon Americans will marvel at the bureaucratic energy expended on censorship in this one arbitrarily chosen segment of the media universe.

The FCC imposed its first fine for broadcast indecency in 1975, provoked by a mid-afternoon airing of a George Carlin monologue on a New York City radio station. In upholding the fine, the Supreme Court emphasized the distinction between Carlin's "verbal shock treatment," involving the deliberately provocative, repeated use of expletives, and "the isolated use of a potentially offensive word."

For the next three decades, taking its cue from the Court, the FCC let stray expletives slide. Then Bono got a little carried away at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, where he pronounced his award for best original movie song "really, really fucking brilliant."

In response to complaints orchestrated by the Parents Television Council, the FCC's Enforcement Bureau said Bono's expletive was not indecent because it was not really a sexual reference and in any event was "fleeting and isolated." Five months later, the commission reversed this finding, along with its longstanding policy of overlooking isolated vulgarities. The FCC later ruled that expletive-containing comments by Cher at the 2002 Billboard Music Awards and by Nicole Richie at the 2003 Billboard Music Awards were indecent as well.

Last June, in response to a lawsuit by broadcasters, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled that the FCC had violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to "articulate a reasoned basis for its change in policy." That decision, which the Supreme Court now has agreed to review, did not definitively address the broadcasters' constitutional objections, but the court was skeptical that they could be overcome.

The 2nd Circuit suggested that the FCC's indecency rules are unconstitutionally vague, creating "an undue chilling effect on free speech" by drawing seemingly arbitrary distinctions. A single fuck or shit on a live awards show can cost a network millions of dollars, for example, but the same words are OK in a "bona fide news interview," even if the interview is a thinly disguised promotion for one of the network's own entertainment shows.

The accidental airing of Cher's "fuck 'em" is indecent, but the deliberate airing of the very same footage in the context of a news report is not. The "repeated and deliberate use of numerous expletives" is OK in a fictional World War II movie because they are "integral" to the film yet indecent in a documentary about real-life blues musicians.

It's obvious by now that the FCC makes up the rules for acceptable speech as it goes along. In the paradigmatic example of broadcast indecency, Carlin's monologue about "the words you couldn't say on the public airwaves," there's no question that the expletives were "integral" to the routine, which was partly about the very censorship to which it became subject.

The premise underlying the Supreme Court's decision upholding the fine for Carlin's monologue was that TV and radio over the airwaves are "uniquely pervasive" and "uniquely accessible to children." With nine out of 10 U.S. homes receiving cable or satellite TV, with downloads and DVRs making a hash of "time channeling," with ratings and parental controls available across video sources, that premise is no longer tenable. The only question is how much longer the courts will pretend otherwise.

© Copyright 2008 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

Put Down the Book and Step Away From Your Co-Workers

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:39:00 EST

At Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis (IUPUI), the image to the right is considered Not Safe for Work. Can you guess why? Hint: It's not because the statue of the Virgin Mary atop Notre Dame University's dome is considered risqué. It's because—well, I'll let IUPUI Affirmative Action Officer Lillian Charleston explain (italics added):

The Affirmative Action Office has completed its investigation of [redacted]'s allegation that you racially harassed her by repeatedly reading the book, Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan by Todd Tucker in the presence of Black employees...
We conclude that your conduct constitutes racial harassment in that you demonstrated disdain and insensitivity to your co-workers who repeatedly requested that you refrain from reading the book which has such an inflammatory and offensive topic in their presence. You contend that you weren't aware of the offensive nature of the topic and were reading the book about the KKK to better understand discrimination. However you used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your Black co-workers. Furthermore, employing the legal "reasonable person standard," a majority of adults are aware of and understand how repugnant the KKK is to African Americans, their reactions to the Klan, and the reasonableness of the request that you not read the book in their presence.
During your meeting with Marguerite Watkins, Assistant Affirmative Action Officer, you were instructed to stop reading the book in the immediate presence of your co-workers and when reading the book to sit apart from the immediate proximity of these co-workers. Please be advised, any future substantiated conduct of a similar nature could result in serious disciplinary action.
Racial harassment is very serious and can result in serious consequences for all involved. Please be advised that racial harassment and retaliation against any individual for having participated in the investigation of a complaint of this nature is a violation of University policy and will not be tolerated.

That's from a letter (PDF) that Charleston sent on November 25 to Keith Sampson, a middle-aged member of IUPUI's janitorial staff who is working toward a communications degree and likes to read scholarly books like Tucker's (about a 1924 brawl between Notre Dame students and Klansmen) on his breaks. He didn't realize that sort of provocative behavior could "result in serious disciplinary action."

After thinking about it for a couple of months, Charleston evidently decided her threat was unwarranted. In a February 7 letter (PDF) to Sampson, she said she wanted to "clarify that my prior letter was not meant to imply that it is impermissible for you or to limit your ability to read scholarly books or other such literature during break times." Charleston, of course, never implied that; she stated it explicitly. But now she wanted Sampson to know it was never the book that was the problem; "it was the perception of your co-workers that you were engaging in conduct [i.e., reading the book] for the purpose of creating a hostile environment of antagonism." She contrasted that perception with "your perception," which was that "you were reading a scholarly work during break time, and you should be permitted to do so whether or not the subject matter is of concern to your coworkers." Faced with the clash between these two equally reasonable perceptions, Charleston threw up her hands, saying, "I am unable to draw any final conclusion concerning what was intended by the conduct."

To clarify, then, Sampson was not in trouble because of the book he chose to read. He was in trouble because of what he might have been thinking while reading the book.

Still confused? You can reach Lillian Charleston at lcharles@iupui.edu or 317-274-2306 and ask for further clarification. If you have any suggestions for books that Sampson should add to his reading list, please offer them in the comments.

David Hoppe covered Sampson's run-in with IUPUI's thought police in Nuvo, a local alternative weekly.

Addendum: I've fixed the email address and Amazon link.

[Thanks to Nicolas Martin for the tip.]

Once the Cat's Out of the Bag, Should Cloning It Be Prohibited?

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:49:00 EST

Wikileaks, the website that was "shut down" by a federal court last month because it carried confidential bank documents, is back up under its plain-English address now that U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White has rescinded his injunction. Even when the order was in force, Wikileaks, which is dedicated to publicizing evidence of government and corporate wrongdoing, was accessible under its numerical address and at various mirror sites. But civil libertarians were dismayed by Judge White's order, which the ACLU likened to closing a newspaper because of one objectionable article. Critics of the injunction noted that it flew in the face of Supreme Court rulings regarding prior restraints on speech. On Friday, White came to his senses, saying the injunction "raises issues regarding possible infringement of protections afforded to the public by the First Amendment." According to Time, he also expressed discomfort at adjudicating "a squabble between the Cayman Islands branch of a Swiss bank and a global confederation of whistle-blowers whose Net domain is owned by John Shipton, an Australian national residing in Kenya."

The Time report, headlined "A Disquieting Victory for Wikileaks," is ambivalent, reflecting a concern raised by Hit & Run commenters the last time I discussed this case: What happens to privacy if third parties are free to disseminate previously confidential information obtained by others (in this case, a disgruntled bank employee bent on exposing what he portrayed as tax evasion and money laundering schemes) in violation of contracts or the law? In practical terms, people are already free to do so. As White noted regarding the vain effort to recapture the bank documents, "The cat is out of the bag." But in principle, should third parties be punished for passing on information they never agreed to keep secret? If so, under what circumstances? Should similar rules apply to classified government information obtained and disseminated by third parties, as in the case of the two former AIPAC analysts charged with violating the Espionage Act (and scheduled to be tried next month) or the Espionage Act prosecutions of journalists contemplated by Alberto Gonzales?

Read the Website a Judge 'Shut Down'

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:33:00 EST

"Judge Shuts Down Web Site Specializing in Leaks," says the headline over the New York Times story. The website, Wikileaks, describes its mission this way:

Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations.

As you might guess from the "uncensorable" part and as you can plainly see, Wikileaks is not really shut down. The Times explains:

Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco granted a permanent injunction ordering Dynadot, the site's domain name registrar, to disable the Wikileaks.org domain name. The order had the effect of locking the front door to the site—a largely ineffectual action that kept back doors to the site, and several copies of it, available to sophisticated Web users who knew where to look.
Domain registrars like Dynadot, Register.com and GoDaddy .com provide domain names—the Web addresses users type into browsers—to Web site operators for a monthly fee. Judge White ordered Dynadot to disable the Wikileaks.org address and "lock" it to prevent the organization from transferring the name to another registrar.
The feebleness of the action suggests that the bank, and the judge, did not understand how the domain system works, or how quickly Web communities will move to counter actions they see as hostile to free speech online.

Still, Judge White tried to shut down the website, in response to complaints from a Cayman Islands bank that a disgruntled former employee had used it to post purloined documents. Which suggests the judge did not understand how freedom of speech works. While the former bank employee may have violated a confidentiality agreement and therefore be subject to civil penalties, the people to whom he passes the information are not bound by any such agreement. In the Pentagon Papers case and other First Amendment decisions, the Supreme Court has taken a dim view of attempts to prevent third-party dissemination of heretofore secret or confidential information, let alone attempts to suppress an entire publication because it carried such information. Wikileaks says White's order "is the equivalent of forcing the Times's printers to print blank pages and its power company to turn off press power."

Censorship in the Land of Cloudberries

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:33:00 EST

Finland has a secret list of blacklisted sites that are not accessible through Finnish servers. The blocked sites are supposed to be child pornography only, but (surprise!) the list of banned sites was recently expanded to include a critic of the government's policy who published a list of the sites, which he says includes other legal sites as well:

Now the censorship list has been appended with a site called lapsiporno.info [translates to childpornography.info] that is maintained by a Finnish Internet activist Matti Nikki. The site does not contain child pornography, but articles that criticise censorship and a list of blocked IP addresses.
Leena Romppainen, a member of the Effi board wonders: "If the site really had some illegal content, wouldn't the correct solution be to take the site down and take the site owner to the court? The site is located on a Finnish server and the name of the site owner appears visibly on the root page of the site."

Think this sort of thing only happens to crazy foreigners? Think again:

The United States had its own close encounter with a secret blacklist of ostensible porn sites in the form of a Pennsylvania statute that coerced Internet providers into blocking access to certain Web sites the government didn't like. In 2004, a federal judge ruled the law was unconstitutional, noting that "there is an abundance of evidence that implementation of the Act has resulted in massive suppression of speech protected by the First Amendment."

All's well that ends well in the Pennsylvania case, but you'd think we'd know by know that secret government blacklists can get pretty messy.

Via reason contributor Declan McCullagh

What's All This I Hear About Freedom of Speech?

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:53:00 EST

As a couple of commenters have noted in response to my column today, the National Post reports that Muslim activist Syed Soharwardy plans to drop his "human rights" complaint against Ezra Levant over the latter's decision, as publisher of the Western Standard, to reprint the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. This is how Soharwardy explained his decision:

Over the two years that we have gone through the process, I understand that most Canadians see this as an issue of freedom of speech, that that principle is sacred and holy in our society. I believe Canadian society is mature enough not to absorb the messages that the cartoons sent. Only a very small fraction of Canadian media decided to publish those cartoons.

By his account, then, Soharwardy had not heard of this whole freedom-of-speech thing until after he filed his complaint with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, and it took him two years to fully absorb how important it is to Canadians. During that time, he also took the measure of Canadians and judged them "mature enough" to look at cartoons depicting Muhammad without going on an anti-Muslim rampage. I think it may take a few more years for Soharwardy to get the concept at stake in his tiff with Levant.

Levant, for his part, says he plans to sue Soharwardy for wasting his time and money. I understand the sentiment, but I'm not sure it's a smart P.R. move.

The Western Standard comments on Soharwardy's announcement here.

Mandatory Niceness

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 07:23:00 EST

Last month, when an officer of the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission interrogated him about his decision to reprint the notorious Muhammad cartoons that originally appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, Ezra Levant did not try to ingratiate himself. Levant, former publisher of the news magazine the Western Standard, called the commission "a sick joke," compared it unfavorably with Judge Judy, and dared the "thug" across the table to recommend that he face a hearing for publishing material that offended Muslims.

That way, Levant explained, he could be convicted, which would give him a chance to challenge the censorship that Canadian human rights commissions practice in the name of fighting discrimination. "I do not want to be excused from this complaint because I was reasonable," he said. "It is not the government's authority to tell me whether or not I'm reasonable."

Legally, that remains to be seen. Canada's national and provincial human rights commissions were established in the 1970s to vet complaints about discrimination in employment, housing, and the provision of goods and services. But many of them have broad legal mandates that can be used to attack freedom of speech. Alberta's Human Rights, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism Act, for example, prohibits publishing anything that "is likely to expose a person or class of persons to hatred or contempt."

Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, claims Levant did that by running the Muhammad cartoons. "Publishing of cartoons in the Western Standards [sic] is in fact spreading hate against me," Soharwady scrawled on a complaint form he submitted to the commission in February 2006. He also complained that "Mr. Ezra Levant insulted me" when the two debated the cartoon controversy on CBC Radio. Soharwardy is demanding an apology. The commission can impose fines and gag orders as well.

Meanwhile, the Canadian, Ontario, and British Columbia human rights commissions are considering similar complaints against Maclean's magazine and the journalist Mark Steyn over an October 2006 article adapted from his book America Alone. The Canadian Islamic Congress claims Steyn "subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt" and harms their "sense of dignity and self-worth" by worrying about high Muslim birth rates.

Even if a complaint is dismissed, Levant notes, responding to it requires "thousands of dollars in lawyer's fees" and "an enormous amount of time," which encourages journalists to steer clear of touchy subjects. "A warning shot has gone out to every other media [outlet] in the country," he said during the 90-minute commission interview. "‘Don't mess around with the Muslim radicals, because they'll call in the censors.'"

In Levant's case the censors were represented by a bland bureaucrat named Shirlene McGovern, paid to enforce the commandment that Jonathan Rauch dissected in his 1993 book Kindly Inquisitors: "Thou shalt not hurt others with words." As Rauch cogently argued, "This moral principle is deadly...to intellectual freedom and to the productive and peaceful pursuit of knowledge."

But in a sense, Levant and Steyn are lucky. An Afghan journalism student recently was condemned to death for downloading and distributing a report that criticizes the way Islamic fundamentalists interpret the Koran to justify oppression of women. The student's Afghan defenders argued that distributing the report did not amount to blasphemy, that the prosecution was politically motivated, that the trial was unfair, and that the sentence was excessively harsh.

The one thing they did not say was what Levant said when confronted by Canada's kindly inquisitors: that even if the controversial speech is contrary to Islam and offensive to Muslims, the government has no business punishing him for it. "I reserve maximum freedom to be maximally offensive, to hurt feelings as I like," Levant told McGovern. While he has publicly explained the journalistic reasons for running the Muhammad cartoons many times, he said, "The only thing I have to say to the government about why I published [them] is because it's my bloody right to do so."

An Obvious Opening for Cracks About Cleavage

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:20:00 EST

Over the weekend, Virginia Beach police confiscated two posters from a local Abercrombie & Fitch outlet and charged the store's manager with violating a city obscenity ordinance by displaying them in a location open to minors. The ordinance, violation of which can be punished by a fine of up to $2,500 and up to a year in jail, makes it a crime to "display for commercial purposes in a manner whereby juveniles may examine or peruse" a picture "which depicts nudity, sexual conduct or sadomasochistic abuse and which is harmful to juveniles." On Monday, a local TV station reports, police and City Attorney Les Lillie decided to drop the obscenity charges because "the displays were not technically obscene." You can judge for yourself whether the posters 1) depict nudity and 2) harm juveniles. Lillie decided police had probable cause to think so, although there was not enough evidence to prosecute. An Abercrombie & Fitch spokesman had this to say:

The marketing images in question show less skin than you see any summer day at the beach. And certainly less than the plumber working on your kitchen sink. This is an incredible over reaction by city officials that would be comical except for its potentially serious legal implications.

It's still at least little comical, I think, especially since Abercrombie & Fitch thrives on this sort of attention. In this case, though, the chain may not have gone far enough: The posters have been hanging in hundreds of stores across the country since mid-January, but the Virginia Beach outlet is the only one where the manager has been asked to take them down. In addition to citing complaints from customers, a police spokesman "said the ads made it difficult for police to enforce city dress codes, specifically noting teens who wore droopy jeans."

[via Celebstoner]

Jason Vorhees, Crime Fighter

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 11:45:00 EST

Opponents of efforts to regulate or censor violent entertainment sometimes argue that, rather than encouraging imitation, it reduces real-life violence by providing a release for aggressive impulses. Here's a new twist on that argument: A paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association, which was held over the weekend, suggests that violent movies reduce violent crime not by providing catharsis but by keeping young men with violent tendencies occupied:

Instead of fueling up at bars and then roaming around looking for trouble, potential criminals pass the prime hours for mayhem eating popcorn and watching celluloid villains slay in their stead.
"You're taking a lot of violent people off the streets and putting them inside movie theaters," said one of the authors of the study, Gordon Dahl, an economist at the University of California, San Diego. "In the short run, if you take away violent movies, you're going to increase violent crime."

Looking at crime rates and movie audience data, Dahl and his co-author, U.C.-Berkeley economist Stefano DellaVigna, found that "on days with a high audience for violent movies, violent crime is lower." They estimate that the difference amounts to about 1,000 fewer assaults per weekend.

The New York Times notes that Dahl, a Mormon who does not let his children watch violent films, "recently purchased a DVD player that strips out brutal or sexual images" and "eschews violent films himself, professing discomfort even with 'Schindler's List,' the epic portrayal of the Holocaust." It also quotes a psychologist who claims "there are hundreds of studies done by numerous research groups around the world that show that media violence exposure increases aggressive behavior."

In a 20000 column, I explained why such statements are misleading. Jib Fowles analyzed "the bum rap against TV violence" and the motivations behind it in the March 2001 issue of reason

Frankenstein Meets Thomas Edison

jwalker@reason.com (Jesse Walker) — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 13:57:00 EST

Friday fun link: the long-lost first film of Frankenstein, produced by Thomas Edison's studio in 1910. An interesting document in its own right, it is also an example of the ways censorship does not merely suppress art, but influences the shape of the art that does appear. Rich Drees writes:

As the popularity of motion pictures grew, so did the attention they received from moral crusaders and reform groups, who decried the new medium as being dangerous and encouraging of immorality. Some called for strict laws governing film content and some communities banned theatres all together. Knowing that these groups could pose a serious threat to his bottom line, Edison ordered that not only the production quality of his films be improved, but also their moral tone. The Trust even set up the first Board of Censors, consisting of film executives and religious and education leaders.

Frankenstein was the perfect choice to kick off production under this new moral banner. It's a story that deals with the extremes of the human condition, life and death, and the dangers of tampering in God's realm. Plus, Edison made sure that publicity stressed that some of the more sensational elements of the Mary Shelly's novel had been toned down....One of those changes made to the narrative concerns the creation of Frankenstein's monster. While Shelly's novel did not go into specifics about the monster's creation, the creation scene in the film certainly owes more to alchemy than science. The film certainly didn't stress the danger of unchecked scientific experimentation, not when the boss has transformed the world with his own scientific marvels. Instead, the monster is cast more as a reflection of Frankenstein's baser instincts and dark reflection of a mind that presumed to meddle in God's domain.

The film itself is a mixed bag, and parts (particularly the beginning) are poorly preserved. But there are moments of real power, notably the creation of the monster and the creature's final exit. Click the image to see it at reason.tv:

Bonus link: If you like "primitive" cinema, be sure to watch the greatest film of the early silent era, Georges Melies' Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902). My appreciation of Melies is here.

Now Playing at Reason.tv: Here Comes Da Judge!

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:00:00 EST

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Rating the Ratings Systems

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:13:00 EST

The latest issue of reason--if you were a subscriber, you'd be done reading it already!--has an excellent piece by Thomas Doherty about the ugly birth of the motion-picture code. (The current ish has a ton more in it too, all of which makes the $19.97 sub price an incredible bargain).

A recent paper from the Competitive Enterprise Institute takes a long look at how well various ratings systems work. A snippet:

While no media ratings system can or will ever achieve perfection, the best rating systems have three attributes: They attempt to describe, rather than prescribe, what entertainment media should contain; they are particularly suited to their particular media forms; and they were created with little or no direct input from government. We also find that ratings systems collapse, it simply results in the creation of better ratings systems....
Ultimately, ratings systems cannot influence the content of what gets produced in the long run. Even the highly prescriptive Comics Code did nothing to stop the emergence of graphic novels with adult themes and situations. Those who want to "clean up" media without unconstitutional government censorship will likely do best to simply avoid buying cultural products they dislike.

The whole study is here.

Ad Lib

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:59:00 EST

Five years ago, members of Congress voted to protect themselves from criticism in the name of protecting us from their own corruption. For those of us who were disgusted by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, the TV spots planned by SpeechNow.org would fulfill a revenge fantasy.

One ad, aimed at Sen. Mary Landrieu, notes that the Louisiana Democrat "voted for the law restricting the speech of public interest groups" by barring them from running ads that mention politicians close to elections. The ad continues: "People can now go to jail for violating her law that protects politicians from criticism. Hey, Mary Landrieu. This is America, not Russia. But we still have the right to vote. Say no to Landrieu for Senate. Say no to censorship."

SpeechNow.org, which describes itself as "an independent speech group of individuals who have assembled in order to promote and protect our First Amendment rights," has donors lined up to pay for producing and running the ads. All it needs is approval from the Federal Election Commission, which recently agreed to consider its request. If the FEC lets SpeechNow.org proceed with its plans, the decision will further unravel the gag woven by post-Watergate restrictions on the financing of political messages.

SpeechNow.org wants to know if its intent to run ads explicitly advocating the election or defeat of candidates for federal office means it has to register with the FEC as a "political committee." In addition to the administrative burden that would entail, it would limit the group's ability to raise money, since each donor would be allowed to give no more than $5,000 per year and would have to count the donation toward his two-year limit of $65,500 for all political contributions.

On their own, the members of SpeechNow.org are free to spend as much money as they want on ads attacking politicians. Why should the situation be different when they get together and pool their resources so their message can reach a wider audience? Does exercising their First Amendment right to freedom of association somehow undermine their First Amendment right to freedom of speech?

The Supreme Court has said restrictions on political contributions, even though they impinge on freedom of speech, can be justified when they serve the goals of preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption; providing the public with information useful in assessing the merits of candidates for office (including their possible favoritism toward campaign contributors); and preventing "the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas."

SpeechNow.org, which is represented by lawyers from the Institute for Justice and the Center for Competitive Politics, was deliberately organized to address these concerns. It is not a corporation (not even the nonprofit sort) and is not affiliated with any party or candidate. Its bylaws ban donations from corporations or labor unions, donations to parties or candidates, and coordination of its activities with parties or campaigns.

SpeechNow.org's ads would include disclaimers identifying the sponsor and noting that the spots are "not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee." The group would publicly disclose its donors' names and the amounts they give.

In these circumstances, it's hard to see how limiting the ability of SpeechNow.org's members to pay for their ads can be justified, even if you accept the Supreme Court's rationale for upholding campaign finance rules. SpeechNow.org notes that the Court itself, in a 1981 decision overturning a Berkeley, California, ordinance, said imposing "a Spartan limit—or indeed any limit—on individuals wishing to band together to advance their views on a ballot measure, while placing none on individuals acting alone, is clearly a restraint on the right of association."

The Berkeley debate was about rent control. SpeechNow.org wants to talk about speech control, but first it has to get permission from the speech controllers.

A Code Is Born

doherty@brandeis.edu (Thomas Doherty) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 07:47:00 EST

Long-Arming the Libel Tourist

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:12:00 EST

Last week the New York Court of Appeals heard arguments in a case that pits freedom of speech against British libel law. Israeli-American criminologist Rachel Ehrenfeld is challenging a libel judgment against her obtained by Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz, whom she identified in her 2003 book Funding Evil as a source of financial support for terrorism. Last June the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit allowed her lawsuit to proceed, but the case hinges to some extent on issues of state law, one of which the New York Court of Appeals is now considering: whether New York's "long arm" statute can reach a defendant such as Bin Mahfouz who is outside the U.S.

Calling Bin Mahfouz to account before a U.S. court seems only fair, given his strategy in trying to shut Ehrenfeld up. Although her book was published in the U.S., Bin Mahfouz sued her in London to take advantage of England's pro-plaintiff libel rules, which he has used to intimidate other critics into silence. The excuse for suing Ehrenfeld in the U.K. was that people there (possibly cronies of Bin Mahfouz) had bought 23 copies of the book online. In 2005 a British judge issued a default judgment against Ehrenfeld, ordering her to apologize, pay Bin Mahfouz about $230,000, and destroy all copies of her book. Jared Lapidus, a fellow at the Moving Picture Institute ("Promoting Freedom Through Film"), has produced an eight-minute documentary about the case, which the prominent civil libertarian (and reason contributor) Harvey Silverglate calls "one of the most important First Amendment cases of the past 25 years." Although Lapidus gets a little distracted by how awful the Saudis are, the video does communicate the dangers of libel tourism pretty well.

I mentioned the Ehrenfeld case on Hit & Run last month. Silverglate considered the implications in a 2006 Boston Globe op-ed piece co-authored by Samuel Abady. Katherine Mangu-Ward interviewed Rob Pfaltzgraff, the Moving Picture Institute's executive director, in the October issue of reason.

Wilhelm Reich: 50 Years in Hell and/or Heaven

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:08:00 EST

Psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich had his books burned by the U.S. government in the 1950s and died in prison 50 years ago, in prison basically for refusing to agree with the FDA that his work and devices had no medical value. The Boston Globe notes the opening of his personal paper archives at Harvard, and a possible trend in revival of interest in and furthering of his research.

The Wilhelm Reich Museum.

A devotee's history, with links.

A skeptic's analysis of Reich, with links.

The FBI on Reich.

Robert Anton Wilson's harrowing and wonderful play, Wilhelm Reich in Hell.

I operated a cloudbuster once. I cannot authoritatively state whether it had any effect on the weather.

Supreme Court to Look at Child Porn

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 09:19:00 EDT

That is, the issue of child porn. They will be hearing a case today involving whether merely advertising or talking about not-necessarily-actually-real child porn can be banned. From the USA Today account:

Challengers to the law, including the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, counter that it sweeps too broadly. They say it threatens the marketing of Lolita and other fictional depictions of adolescent sex.
.........
Since 1997, the Supreme Court has invalidated various provisions as too broadly written, potentially chilling speech or impinging on adult rights to pornographic pictures of adult men and women.
In 2002, for example, the court rejected a 1996 law against "virtual" child porn because Congress so loosely defined the materials that the court found the prohibition might have covered depictions of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
The current challenge arises from Congress' attempt to rewrite the 2002 statute. Part of the disputed provision makes it a crime — punishable by at least five years in prison — to advertise, promote, distribute or solicit materials purported to show children in sexually explicit acts.

Much background and links on the case, U.S. v. Williams.

See also this fascinating (and lengthy) account from New York magazine of a New York Times reporter who insists his life was turned upside down when he tried to save one youngster from a life of Internet child porn using methods that some other reporters, and prosecutors, find questionable. Some previous reason blogging on the background of that one.

What About Saw, the Video Game?

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:15:00 EDT

In a New York Times column, Seth Schiesel notes the double standard applied to violence in video games vs. violence in movies or TV shows:

Just look at coverage of Halo, the top-selling science-fiction series that is akin to "Star Wars" in its level of made-up mayhem. In the mainstream media Halo is often described as a "violent space epic" or a "violent shoot-'em-up game." But when was the last time "Star Wars" was described as George Lucas's "violent space movie"? For that matter, when was the last time anyone referred to "The Sopranos" as a "shoot-'em-up television show," which at some level it was?
The answer to both questions is basically never, and that is because American culture has become so inured to violence in linear media that even the most heinous depictions of brutality go almost without comment.

As a recent example of the heightened scrutiny games receive, Schiesel cites Manhunt 2, which the industry's Entertainment Software Rating Board initially gave a sales-killing Adults Only rating. After revisions, the game qualified for a Mature rating, meaning it's cleared for players 17 and older. Since the cutoff for Adults Only is 18, that may not seem like a big difference, but major retailers shun AO games, just as many theaters will not show NC-17 movies. Schiesel describes Manhunt as "a straight-up horror survival game for adults" and says "the redacted version...seems to retain at least 99 percent of the original content." While "Manhunt 2 is certainly not for the squeamish," he says, "it is no more violent than so-called torture porn films like the 'Hostel' and 'Saw' film series"—movies that were rated R.

Ultimately, Schiesel concludes, the controversy over Manhunt 2 probably will be good for U.S. sales, helping to generate buzz within the target audience. In the U.K., by contrast, the game was simply banned.