From: greeny@top.cis.syr.edu (J. S. Greenfield)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
Subject: Re: Relevant 1st Amendment precedents (was: censored at UB...)
Date: 15 Apr 92 13:42:45 GMT
Reply-To: greeny@top.cis.syr.edu (J. S. Greenfield)
Organization: CIS Dept., Syracuse University

mpd@anomaly,sbs.com (Michael P. Deignan) writes:

>>It was stated that the cause of problem was a subject-line that stated
>>something along the lines of "Fuck Censorship."
>
>Why wasn't the Message-ID of the "offending" message posted? Why wasn't the
>offending message copied into the post crying "censorship!" ? Why? I for one
>think that there is more behind this than what is being described as a simple
>message with the title "Fuck Censorship".

I had the impression from the original post (which I do not have to check)
that the post was placed onto a local (UB) bulletin board, not UseNet.

Furthermore, in a response post, the original poster clearly stated that
the post consisted of a subject-line ("Fuck Censorship") and nothing else.

We have no reason to disbelieve the poster, that I can see.  And how would it
benefit him to lie?  It's not as though he's getting anything from
alt.censorship except advice.  Obviously, if he has misrepresented the
incident, he should expect that the advice might not be relevant.

>>Please write back after you have actually sat down and read (or read
>>reliable summaries of) the actual judicial opinions.  I'm sure that you
>>will find the law to be quite different from what your current understanding
>>appears to be.
>
>Absolutely not, from the relevant case law I studied five years ago, unless
>things have been dramatically changed since then. It is still "illegal" to
>incite physical harm against a group of people or one person. For one thing,
>consult the legal definition of "assault".

Maybe you didn't study enough.  You're example regarding a post advocating
violence against homosexuals was incorrect in suggesting that such speech
is unprotected, by my understanding of Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), which
still stands as the precedent regarding speech that advocates violence.

In that decision (which was a very short, and unanimous, per curiam decision),
the court clearly stated that advocacy of violence is *not* sufficient to
find speech to be unprotected.  Rather, such speech is only unprotected if
it represents "incitement to *imminent* lawless action"  (emphasis added).

As posts to UseNet advocating violence against homosexuals (and others)
have appeared on a number of occassions in the past, without incident, I
think it is fairly indisputable at this point that, generally speaking, such 
posts do not represent an "incitement to imminent lawless action."

>>Furthermore, neither of the "examples" that you give are relevant to the case
>>at hand, as it was described by the original poster.
>
>The point was, in case you missed it, is that "free speech" does not give you
>a blanket right to say whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it.
>Society places limitations on what you can say for the good of the public or
>protection of other people (in the two examples I cited.)

But you don't seem to understand that the examples that you provided, in
addition to being ill-conceived, were not relevant to the question at hand.
It is of little interest to an individual who posts "Fuck Censorship"
whether some completely unrelated forms of speech are unprotected.

What is of interest is that speech such as "Fuck Censorship" is *clearly*
protected (within the context of his post, at least--but not necessarily
in high school, see Bethel School District, No. 403 v. Fraser.)  The
relevant precedent comes from Cohen v. California (1971) in which the
court ruled that Cohen's jacket, which stated "Fuck the Draft" was a
protected form of free speech, even though he wore it in a county
courthouse.

>>I suspect that Carl's annotated references are quite helpful to individuals
>>who are not familiar with the judicial precedents.  For those who already 
>>are, there is always the "n" key.
>
>Carl constantly refers to the same, questionablely-related examples.

Well for goodness sake, he shouldn't be so droll.  Why doesn't he make up
some new precedents every now and then???

--
J. S. Greenfield                                         greeny@top.cis.syr.edu
(I like to put 'greeny' here, 
but my d*mn system wants a 
*real* name!)                        "What's the difference between an orange?"