[WARNING: This post is part of an April Fools Day prank. The Arizona bill is real, but the bill by Senator Lieberman is completely fictional. Eric Turkewitz was the ring leader for this event, and he has the wrap-up. The short version is that no one bit who should have known better.]

This weekend we're seeing a one-two-punch against freedom of speech -- at least as it exists on the internet -- one from Arizona, the other from the U.S. Senate.

You may have heard of the first punch, in the form of a stupid law that I can only guess is an overreaction to the "bullying" panic. The Media Coalition offers this description of Arizona House Bill 2549:

Arizona House Bill 2549 would update the state's telephone harassment law to apply to the Internet and other electronic communications. It would make it a crime to communicate via electronic means speech that is intended to "annoy," "offend," "harass" or "terrify," as well as certain sexual speech.  However, because the bill is not limited to one-to-one communications, H.B. 2549 would apply to the Internet as a whole, thus criminalizing all manner of writing, cartoons, and other protected material the state finds offensive or annoying.

The Media Coalition explains what's wrong with this in their letter to Arizona Governor Janice Brewer:

Government may criminalize speech that rises to the level of harassment and many states have laws that do so, but this legislation takes a law meant to address irritating phone calls and applies it to communication on web sites, blogs, listserves and other Internet communication. H.B. 2549 is not limited to a one to one conversation between two specific people. The communication does not need to be repetitive or even unwanted. There is no requirement that the recipient or subject of the speech actually feel offended, annoyed or scared. Nor does the legislation make clear that the communication must be intended to offend or annoy the reader, the subject or even any specific person.

In other words, this law would enact broad censorship of the press, and precisely because its result is so blatantly unconsitutional, I'm not too worried about it, even if it spreads outside of Arizona.

The second punch comes at the federal level, from reliable internet panic-monger Senator Joe Lieberman.

I know a lot of blogs attract crazy people, but I don't get too many of them here. I was reminded of this recently when I got a comment on this post about Julian Assange blaming me for the decline of journalism since Walter Cronkite died (or something). Perhaps the most dangerous sounding was "Albatross," who stopped by to defend writing about his fantasy of killing one of my former co-bloggers, and even he wasn't as crazy as that short summary makes him sound. I'd like to think the relative lack of crazy is because all of you regular readers are so goddamned intelligent and level headed, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that there just aren't very many of you.

But even if the craziness in the comments got much, much worse, I don't have to spend too much time worrying about it, largely due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which makes it clear that web sites that accept content from third parties are not considered publishers of that content, and are therefore not legally responsible for it. Essentially, comments I receive are not editorial content of this blog; they're more like sheets of paper pinned to the billboard at a neighborhood community center.

All that could change if Senator Lieberman gets his way with a stupid new bill he's just proposed. The bill changes Section 230 to essentially strip away the protection against third-party content, making every blogger responsible for what commenters post. This will kill or cripple the lively comment areas of many blogs.

Even worse, remember that in many cases the blogs themselves are third-party content on someone else's site, such as blogs hosted by Live Journal, Blogger, or Wordpress. (The Huffington Post media empire itself would never have gotten off the ground if this law had been passed a few years ago.) There's no way those companies could afford to police the millions of blogs for which they would now be liable, and I suspect most of them would go out of business. Even my own humble blog might go under, since the company I pay to host it might somehow become liable for its content.

The Arizona law seems blatantly unconstitutional, but I'm not sure to what extent something as technical as the status of third-party content is constrained by the Bill of Rights, especially since 1st Amendment lawyer Brian Cuban seems concerned:

One may look at this and think, "good riddance to sites like the Dirty" but free speech for one is free speech for all, even commentary we find offense.  If this amendment passes, we are all stripped naked in our ability to engage in the honest and blunt discourse that anonymous commenting protects. It  puts an unbearable burden on not only the sites we might not like but the sites that encourage legitimate discourse. All consumer rating sites would disappear practically overnight.

Hat-tip to Florida criminal defense Lawyer Brian Tannebaum, who takes a Voltaire-esque stand:

I'm not a fan of the sewage that is most anonymous comments. In my little part of the blogging world they come from lawyers, lawyers parading as cowards - afraid to express their thoughts unless protected by anonynimity. But I certainly don't support federal legislation controlling the sewage.

Strangely, Mark Bennet thinks it might be a good idea:

Obviously, making it possible for web hosts to be held responsible for the conduct can't help but raise the tone. Letting people who have been libeled online seek justice from those who allow the comments rather than chasing anonymous ghosts will essentially bring much-needed grown-up (but -- and this is the key -- nongovernmental) supervision to the Internet, raising barriers to entry and therefore the quality and utility of the discussion.

I think the Other Mark is forgetting that he doesn't own the servers his blog is hosting on, and if this stupid bill passes, he might get an ugly surprise when his hosting company decides they don't have the time to research the facts behind some of the potentially libelous things he writes.

First Amendment Badass (and restauranteur) Marc Randazza confirms my interpretation and, naturally, stands strong, so I'll let him have the last word, in his inimitable style:

Although Lieberman is touting this amendment as an anti-terrorist effort, this action will have a chilling effect on all forms of Internet speech. Service providers from Comcast to Consumerist may now be treated as publishers to content posted to their websites. This opens up the possibility that review sites and others that rely on third parties for content will be held responsible for those very same deranged, sub-literate contributions. Lieberman's proposed amendment will have a chilling effect on free speech, as any site that does not want to drown in legal bills likely won't accept anonymous comments.  If you're a sissy with paper-thin skin or an obsession with "bullying," rejoice, I suppose.

...

Needless to say, inhibiting anonymous speech is an attack on this right in gross.  It will be a grave day if this amendment succeeds.  Although anonymous speech on the Internet is not always the most intelligent, it still has its place in public discourse -- for me to poop on.  Civil liberties should not be victims in the attempt to curb terrorism, yet we have already succumbed to the Scylla and Charybdis of the TSA and NSA in entrusting our rights to the benevolent government.  At this point, what's one more right ceded to the security theater's alphabet soup?

Eternal vigilance, folks. Enternal vigilance.

This is a great explanation of how and why the Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R.3261) is going to do a lot of damage to the Internet:

And this is what you can do about it. Make waves. Talk to people. Tell your congresscritters to vote against it.

If you want to know more, you can read more about SOPA at Wikipedia, you can see its progress at GovTrack, and you can find out more about your representatives at places like Project Vote Smart and OpenSecrets.

Apparently, Professor James Miller at the University of Wisconsin (Stout campus) is a Firefly fan, because he had on his office door a poster of Nathan Fillion as Captain Mal Reynolds, with the quote "You don't know me, son, so let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you'll be awake. You'll be facing me. And you'll be armed."

That sentiment so enraged the morons in the campus police department that they ripped down the poster. and Chief Lisa Walter sent Miller a nastygram:

Dr. Miller,

I wanted to notify you that I removed a printed/copy (pictures attached) of a poster from the outside of your office. I don't know if you posted it or if someone else placed it on your board, but it is unacceptable to have postings such as this that refer to killing.

I knocked on your office door while there, but it appeared as though you were not in your office at the time.  Contact me if you have any questions.

Respectfully,

Chief Walter

When someone complains about something because it "refers to" a killing or "refers to" drug use or "refers to" some actual conduct, it's almost always a sign that they are censorious bastards trying to stretch a loophole to cover something they don't like.

Miller's reply was short and to the point:

Unacceptable to whom?

How dare you act in a fascistic manner and then sign your email "respectfully!" Respect liberty and respect my first amendment rights.

Walter, who hasn't learned that you don't have to respond to everything people say to you, responded thus:

I appreciate and understand the First Amendment, but also understand my responsibilities as the Chief of Police at UW Stout regarding postings that refer to violence and/or harm.

There's that stretchy "refer to" again.

My actions are appropriate and defensible. Speech can be limited on a reasonable expectation that it will cause a material and/or substantial disruption of school activities and/or be constituted as a threat. We were notified of the existence of the posting, reviewed it and believe that the wording on the poster can be interpreted as a threat by others and/or could cause those that view it to believe that you are willing/able to carry out actions similar to what is listed.  This posting can cause others to fear for their safety, thus it was removed.

I am willing to schedule a meeting with you to discuss this further, if you wish.  If you choose to repost the article or something similar to it, it will be removed and you could face charges of disorderly conduct.

As Professor Miller points out, this is insane: 

Postings that "refer" to violence constitute a threat? As in a poster from Hamlet? Or a news clipping about Hockey players that commit violent murder?

Don't threaten me with charges that have no basis in reality--I am a committed pacifist and a devotee of non-violence, and I don't appreciate card carrying members of the NRA who are wearing side arms and truncheons lecturing me about violence.

Exactly right. Police officers have no business complaining that words on a poster can cause people to fear for their safety. Not when they're carrying weapons.

Miller responded with another poster on his door, this one showing a diagram of a cop beating someone down, with the text "Warning: Fascism. Fascism can cause blunt head trauma and/or violent death. Keep fascism away from children and pets."

On the one hand, calling this incident Fascism is a bit over-blown. This is just a run-of-the-mill case of an overbearing bureaucrat abusing her power for her own self-aggrandizement. On the other hand, Chief Lisa Walter certainly seems to be trying to live up to Professor Miller's expectations with her response to the new poster:

Dr. Miller,

My office removed another posting from the outside of your office. The posting depicts violence and mentions violence and death. The campuses threat assessment team met yesterday and conferred with UW System Office of General Counsel and made the decision that this posting should be removed. It is believed that this posting also has a reasonable expectation that it will cause a material and/or substantial disruption of school activities and/or be constituted as a threat.

Got that? A college Professor puts up a poster showing police beating someone and the police tear it down because it depicts violence. It doesn't get much more blatant than that.

This part gets me: "The campuses threat assessment team...made the decision that this posting should be removed."

As it happens, I know a little bit about threat assessment. A very little bit. As in, I've read a few books on the subject. That's it. I am far from an expert. And yet I'm pretty sure I know more about distinguishing actual threats than the entire University of Wisconsin (Stout campus) threat assessment team.

The materials in question -- one from a popular television series and the other an anti-fascism message -- simply aren't indicative of any kind of threat. They lack specificity, especially as to the target of the threat, and they therefore lack the intimacy that makes it likely the threat will result in action. Miller's responses to the chief are hardly enraged or indicative of unstable emotions. I suppose his references to Fascism could indicate a paranoid over-reaction, although the chief did threaten to have him arrested for a poster. And technically a fascination with violent entertainment is an indicator, although I don't think ordinary American television counts.

In fact, as the wording of the email indicates, they didn't do a threat assessment at all. They simply decided that people seeing the poster could feel threatened. That's really not what a threat assessment is about. That's not how a threat assessment team should be used.

Fortunately, University Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen stepped in and reminded Chief Walter that the campus police are there to support the university's faculty, and that trying to suppress their First Amendment rights is unacceptable...Nah! Just kidding. Chancellor Sorensen was actually a total dick:

UW-Stout administrators believe strongly in the right of all students, faculty and staff to express themselves freely about issues on campus and off.  This freedom is fundamental on a public university campus.

Don't be fooled. That's just the standard bureaucratic tyrant's obligatory genuflection to free speech. It always comes right before they explain why they're suppressing free speech:

However, we also have the responsibility to promote a campus environment that is free from threats of any kind--both direct and implied. It was our belief, after consultation with UW System legal counsel, that the posters in question constituted an implied threat of violence. That is why they were removed.

This was not an act of censorship. This was an act of sensitivity to and care for our shared community, and was intended to maintain a campus climate in which everyone can feel welcome, safe and secure.

Of course it was an act of censorship. Free speech is not limited to only speech which makes people feel safe and secure. Although, really, if either of the things that Miller had on his door makes you feel threatened, you're kind of a wimp. Or a liar.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has gotten involved.

Let me get this out of the way in the first paragraph: Terry Jones of Qur'an burning fame is a bigoted fool. He's a bigoted fool not because he burned his copy of the Qur'an, but because he hates people simply because they don't worship the same God he does in a similar enough way. What a tool!

The number of people (and legislators) over-reacting to this incident, however seems to have reached an intensity I haven't seen before. I'm hoping it will die down without any further stupid actions, but, baring another nuclear meltdown somewhere soon, I'm concerned it will not.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here about free speech, so I'll skip the lessons about the Heckler's Veto and importance of protecting unpopular speech beyond simply reaffirming that popular speech rarely needs protection in a democracy.

One element in this story that seems to have been neglected in the rush to ban such speech is that the original demonstrations over the Qur'an in Afghanistan were small and peaceful; similar to the kinds of protests I see in Chicago over immigration policies. The trigger that seems to have set off the violence and killings is President Hamid Karzai deciding to use the Qur'an burning in a speech of his as a political tool. It seems he wanted to show how much he cares about some of the fundamentalists in his country.

The reaction to that was, apparently, the Taliban deciding to cash in politically as well, and they joined one of the peaceful marches, broke off from the main group, and committed pre-meditated murderous acts. Their motive was, almost certainly, a political reaction to Karzai's stumping.

The incident in Afghanistan seems to have been far more about politics than religion.

Now we cut to the reaction in America. Senator Reid would like to start Congressional hearings to look into ways he can protect people in other nations by banning speech in America. Senator Graham would like to invoke wartime powers (in our Forever War) to directly ban speech which could "inspire the enemy". When can I expect politicians to start accusing each other of being soft on book burnings?

The reaction in America seems to be far more about politics than religion.

Let's pretend, however, that this really is all about religion and free expression. There seem to be a few different arguments out in the community about why this type of speech should be banned. They all seem flawed. The problem is that I'm not a Constitutional scholar, and may have some very wrong ideas about free speech, so I'll go over some of the common arguments I've been seeing and present my understanding of them even though I may be wrong. If anyone knows better, please enlighten me in the comments.

The most common argument I see is that America "restricts" speech anyway all the time, so we don't really have free speech, so why are you complaining about just one more restriction in the name of saving lives? The basic problem with this argument is that there is a difference between restricting speech and banning speech. As far as I can tell (not being a Constitutional Scholar) is that America only outright bans one type of speech, regardless of time or place. You cannot directly incite violence. Period.

Some commentators have latched onto this idea and simply accuse Jones of incitement and proceed to call for banning of such speech on the same grounds. I consider this to be a most insidious and worrisome argument. If Congress were to ban speech by broadening the definition of incitement, we could run head first into the problems of the Heckler's Veto, but I fear it would be used simply to ban speech the majority considers unpopular. I truly fear the majority in a democracy, for they can be more difficult to overthrow than a dictator.

Beyond incitement, though, I can't think of any other speech that is outright banned in America. There is a variety of restrictions, but not a banning of speech beyond incitement. I suppose libel would be the speech with the most restrictions that is not outright banned. Even so, as I understand it, there are situations where libel is allowed, or perhaps isn't legally called libel in America. I know it's nearly impossible to stop someone from knowingly lying about a public figure, such as a celebrity or politician. I wonder if this blog is enough for me to be considered a "public figure". I imagine there are legal debates going on right now about how that definition is changing in the new media.

Another form of speech that seems to be cited as heavily restricted is when conspiring to commit a crime. In this case it is not the speech that is illegal but the conspiracy. From what I have read, the speech is the evidence used to prove conspiracy. The situation and intent is all important here as Rod Blagojevich has been trying to prove. If you say the words in jest, they are not evidence of a conspiracy.

That leaves the various "time and place" restrictions. The thought experiment generally cited is the classic "yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater". The speech "Fire!" is not banned in America. The time and place of that speech makes creating the ensuing dangerous panic illegal.*

The other time and place restrictions such as getting your bullhorn out at 3:00 am in front of a hospital are, just like the "yelling fire" example, not banning speech, but placing reasonable restrictions on speech. The same speech is allowed in most places at most times. Saying you want to restrict burning holy books just like America restricts people from yelling "fire" is not at all the same. You can yell "Fire!" outside of the theater, or even inside when the theater is not crowded. Banning book burnings is not a time and place restriction.

In conclusion, let me reiterate a point I've made before. It's just a friggin' book! It's paper, ink and some binding material. The words and ideas within cannot be destroyed by burning a copy of a book. I once suggested the correct reaction to such situations was to burn the holy books of as many religions as possible all at once to demonstrate this fact as well as show that it's not just about religious penis envy.

I now realize, however, that's so 20th century. We should instead organize a mass deletion of holy e-books. I want to not just delete them, however, since I know that all of the words will still exist. We need to destroy those magnetic bits so they can't be reconstructed. On PC's it will be easy to download software to overwrite that Bible with random electronic signals, utterly destroying that copy forever. In other e-book devices you may need to erase that Qur'an then upload new, larger books in its place, then delete that and repeat enough times to make the original words vanish into digital oblivion.

Buddhavacana, Norse eddas, the Four Books of Confucianism, the Book of Enoch, the Tabula Cortonensis and many, many more. Let's get digital copies and erase them en masse! Mash those Holy Ones and Zeros together with such a fury that even the NSA couldn't put them back in any semblance of order. Grab your old book reader loaded with all these texts and turn on that giant electro magnet you built years ago but never had a use for! Listen to that glorious buzz as the memory chips are hopelessly cleansed of Bronze Age rituals and misogynistic rules!

What the world needs now is a Holy E-Book Demolition Party! Can you still book Comiskey Park?

---

*By the way, I think it's time for the scholars to update that thought experiment. Yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater today would, most likely, just result in a head full of popcorn and getting yelled at to sit down and shut up. The fire codes are so good (not saying they couldn't be improved at all) that most people would no longer be panicked by such a statement barring secondary indications of a conflagration such as smoke and a fire alarm going off. Perhaps we can use "Yelling 'Muslim!' in a crowded Tea Party Convention".

(I've been hanging onto this for a few days in the hope of figuring out a better way to say what I'm trying to say, but it's just not coming to me, so I'm going with what I've got.)

In the wake of the tragic shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords last weekend, we've been hearing the usual scolding from public figures worried about the anger and hatred in our political discourse:

Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by 300 percent. A number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness -- but something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence.

And there's not much question what has changed. As Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings, put it, it's "the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business." The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.

Here's an example from an AP article by Charles Babington and Calvin Woodward:

Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democratic leader in the Senate, on Sunday cited imagery of crosshairs on political opponents and Sarah Palin's combative rallying cry, "Don't retreat; reload."

"These sorts of things, I think, invite the kind of toxic rhetoric that can lead unstable people to believe this is an acceptable response," Durbin said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

The attack might be the work of "a single nut," Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, whose Arizona district shares Tucson with Giffords' district, said Saturday, the day Giffords was shot. But he said the nation must assess the fallout of "an atmosphere where the political discourse is about hate, anger and bitterness."

It seems like every time something like this happens, some people try to blame it on the rhetoric of their political opponents. They tell people to tone it down, to quell the vitriolic rhetoric, to be careful what they say, so that crazy people don't violently overreact.

I say to hell with that.

First of all, if politicians and other public figures don't want us to hate them, if they don't want us angry at them, then they should stop doing stuff that pisses us off. I know that's going to be difficult: Every issue has people on all sides of it, so no matter which side they take, someone's going to be angry at them.

Tough. That's the job. If they want to hold an important public position, then by definition they're going to be responsible for making decisions that matter to people. They're going to have to make hard calls, and they won't be able to please everyone. That's what having power means. Thinking you can hold public office without angering people is like wanting to be a race car driver without damaging any cars.

Second, the idea that we should tone it down is related to the pop-psychology idea that anger and hatred are "negative emotions" which we should try to suppress. That's mostly nonsense. Feelings of anger and hatred are part of the perfectly normal human reaction to dreadful situations. So if you think the folks who run our government are doing bad things, it's normal to be angry. It's normal to hate them. How else should we feel about the people who are ruining everything?

That said, you don't want to let anger and hatred consume you. Timothy McVeigh should not be your role mode. (And, for different reasons, neither should Fred Goldman.) But getting pissed off at the people you think are messing up our country...that's normal. Don't worry about it.

Third, anybody who's ever given a speech or written a blog knows that it's hard to make people understand what you want to say. Some people will misunderstand your point because they lack the background, or because they've had different life experiences, or just because they have a different way of thinking about the world. It's hard work telling a story or making a point in a way that communicates clearly with most of your audience.

And that's just with normal, sane, and intelligent people. Throw in some real insanity, and there's no hope of being understood properly. Crazy people are quite likely to hear something very different from what you're saying. We're talking here about the kinds of people who watch David Letterman on television and think he's sending them secret personal messages, or the kind of people who talk to Steven Spielberg for 30 seconds in a hotel elevator and think he's agreed to produce their script.

There's no way to predict how someone like this will understand the things you say, and it's madness to censor yourself in anticipation of every possible reaction. You just can't let crazy people run your life that way.

Finally, we have to look at the kinds of people calling for moderation: Politicians and media personalities. The prominent and the powerful. They always hate it when the rest of us have something to say.

For example,

In Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Dupnik suggested "all this vitriol" in recent discourse might be connected to Saturday's shootings. "This may be free speech," he told reporters, "but it's not without consequences."

So we're getting a lecture about violent rhetoric from a guy who has his own SWAT team? A dozen guys like Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann--or a thousand bloggers like me--couldn't begin to do as much harm with words as Sheriff Dupnik's SWAT team could do in one bad day. The Sheriff was probably even carrying a gun while he spoke, so those consequences he's worried about are just one trigger pull away for him.

It's the same with all the members of Congress. They're funding big wars in two countries--not to mention the drug war here are home--and they're telling us to tone it down? President Obama orders the assasination of an American citizen, but we're supposed to be worried about violent subtext on talk radio? Police around the country are shooting innocent people as the unavoidable consequence of performing forty thousand armed raids every year, but we should worry about heated expressions of opinion?

I'm not saying it's good to be a tough-talking jackass, but people who have the authority to kill--and who have on occasion used it--should lay off telling the rest of us to be careful how we say things.

Update: Since I wrote this, the Pima County Sheriff's SWAT team has had their bad day. On May 5, they killed a United States Marine during a drug raid.

Over at the Legal Satyricon, Charles Platt is a little annoyed at Julian Assange over the whole Wikileaks business:

I'm getting an uneasy feeling when I watch Julian Assange using pretentious phrases such as "my philosophy" and "my work." ... It's the same feeling I had when I saw the World Trade Center going down. A feeling that I am watching a golden opportunity for people in power to take away some of my freedoms.

That wasn't exactly my first thought when I saw the towers fall, but I know what he means. This is going to be an excuse for some people in government. Oh, they'll say they're all for freedom of the press, they just want to make sure it's used responsibly, not abused by people who aren't legitimate members of the press.

Assange's self-righteous crusade is sufficiently defiant, and is being done in such a pompous style, some kind of retaliation seems inevitable. Already the UN is on record as wanting to "harmonize" efforts to regulate the Internet, in response to Wikileaks. (See this news item.)

Oh God, the last thing we need is U.N. involvement. Those are the folks who put Lybia in charge of the Human Rights commission and recently decided not to concern themselves that some countries were executing people for being gay. 

I am old enough to remember how publishers got rid of US laws regarding pornography. They fought a carefully executed, incremental campaign. Freedoms tend to be won this way, slowly but relentlessly, in small steps. Media whores who make grand gestures are not useful in this process. They just provide more fuel for backlash.

Look, I'm not a huge fan of Julian Assange, either. He comes across like a self-important jerk. But when you fight for free speech rights, you often fight for the free speech rights of self-important jerks--pornographers, gangsta rappers, foul-mouthed comedians, primadonna rock stars, racists, Fred Phelps. They're the kinds of people that everybody wants to shut up. Nice people, the ones with accomplishments and values you admire, are a lot less likely to set some would-be censor on a clean-up crusade.

(There are, of course, exceptions. Even non-controversial people can run into campus political correctness or bizarre commercial speech laws.)

We enjoy freedoms online because resourceful groups such as ACLU and EFF fought and won test cases. How unfortunate it would be to see those freedoms squashed because of a prima-donna whose "philosophy" and "work" have been of negligible value so far. It's important to remember that he is really just another content aggregator, and the material that he has revealed has not been of critical significance. Certainly not important enough to justify a battle that we are likely to lose.

The things WikiLeaks has revealed may not be "important enough to justify a battle that we are likely to lose" (although this is pretty awful), but that's the sort of evaluation that would have been useful before they started dumping documents. Now that Assange has made his move, for better or worse, we're in the battle, and we have to fight it or we certainly will lose.

(We all serve in our own way. Guys like Marc Randazza become First-Amendment lawyers, and guys like me just bitch about it to anyone who will listen.)

The other thing to remember is that this is how we want it to be. If we're fighting the forces of government censorship over really important issues, then we've already let them get too far. It's like defending a country against invasion: You want to stop the enemy at the borders, not in the heartland. We want the battles for free speech to occur at the fringes, and that means defending people like Julian Assange.

I was reading yet another story about the good old fashioned book burning organized, then cancelled, by Pastor Terry Jones. President Hamid Karzai was quoted as saying:

"We have heard that in the US, a pastor has decided to insult Korans. Now although we have heard that they are not doing this, we tell them they should not even think of it.

"By burning the Koran, they cannot harm it. The Koran is in the hearts and minds of one-and-a-half billion people. Insulting the Koran is an insult to nations."

It sounds like he has read Fahrenheit 451 and even managed to understand the premise that burning a book cannot destroy the ideas within the pages. Yet he still considers the act an insult to the book. Protesters around the world burn American flags (which doesn't matter since that act cannot harm the ideals of the US Constitution) angry that the US government didn't take away the liberties of the Koran burners.

It's hardly the greatest infringement of free speech I've ever heard of, but this doesn't sound right:

The manager of a North Chicago sandwich shop learned in a Lake County courtroom this week that the difference between a joke in poor taste and an inflammatory remark is about 75 bucks.

Arjunsinh Sindha, 64, said he feels as if he was treated unfairly when he was fined $75 after he was found guilty of disorderly conduct for asking a Pakistani-born customer if he was a terrorist.

...

Khan reported Sindha's comment to North Chicago officials and Sindha was issued a ticket under a city ordinance for disorderly conduct.

I can't tell from context if Sindha is a jerk or just a talkative guy who went a bit over the line, but either way I'm pretty sure this falls well within his right to freedom of speech. Cops have always stretched the definition of disorderly conduct to include whatever happens to piss them off, but speech restrictions like this are supposed to be based on time, place, and manner of speech -- e.g. screaming your head off late at night in a hospital zone -- not on the offensiveness of the words spoken.

I seem to have developed a talent for offending people at Reason magazine. I think I might have annoyed Radley Balko with this post from last year, and now I think I can add Nick Gillespie to the list.

In my previous post, I was a little peeved at Reason for not producing a better article for Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. After writing that post, I emailed both the authors of the offending piece, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, to encourage them to explain why the piece turned out the way it did.

Much to my surprise, Nick Gillespie answered:

Mark,
 
Now that my parents have been dead for over a decade, it is always a relief to know that I am still capable of seriously disappointing somebody!
 
Based on traffic volume and a desire to weed out gratuitously abusive comments (almost all of which revolved around Mohammed either fucking or getting fucked), we closed the comments to Matt's and my blog posts introducing the contest--we continued that with this as well. Additionally, in what was probably an incorrect anticipation of server-crushing traffic (alas!), we decided to host our winners page on our backbone server, which is less prone to server squirrels shutting down.
 
Yrs,
 
Nick Gillespie
Editor in Chief
Reason.tv and Reason.com

Ah, Geez. That sounds right doesn't it? And now that I think about it, I'll bet that a lot of the drawings weren't much better than the comments. I guess that makes sense.

What the hell?

As you probably know, today is Everybody Draw Mohammed day. In case you're wondering, I'm not participating. Mostly because I couldn't think of anything clever to draw. And you probably wouldn't have recognized it if I tried. In case you haven't noticed, Windypundit doesn't have a cartoon section. There's a reason for that.

On the other hand, I was looking forward to Reason magazine's post on the subject. They've been asking people to send them drawings of Mohammed for about a month, and I wanted to check them out. So I waited, and waited, and waited...until finally, late in the afternoon, they posted this.

What the hell? They say they received over 190 images, but they just picked three winners and wrote a long article. Where are the other 187 images? I thought I'd get to see them all.

As for the winners, I think the first one is kind of dumb, the second one is pretty funny, and the third is absolutely brilliant. But there's a problem with all of them: They're not really pictures of Mohammed. Granted, none of the Mohammed drawings are pictures of Mohammed because nobody knows what he looked like: You only know it's Mohammed becasue of the context (which is kind of the point of these three winning images).

Still, if people are going to celebrate free speech by drawing Mohammed, I would have expected the images to be a little more in-your-face offensive, like the original images here. Or this.

The post is a little strange for a couple of other reasons as well. First, it's hosted on Amazon's storage server at this URL: http://reason-contest.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html. What, did they think it would get so many hits that their server would crash? Maybe if they had all the images, but not with this weak collection.

Second, like most Reason articles, this one was announced in Reason's Hit & Run blog when it went up. But unlike every other post I've seen there, this one doesn't allow comments.

What the hell is going on at Reason? Are they owned by Comedy Central now?

Update: Got an answer from the boss.

Let me run a few legislative proposals past you:

• We should make it illegal for anybody to receive money in return for performing an abortion. This would in no way impair a woman's right to choose, because money is not choice.
• The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly reserves the right to bear arms to "the people," therefore it is not a violation of the right to bear arms to prohibit corporations from making or distributing guns.

Does either of those statements seem reasonable to you?

Then how come so many people think it makes sense to respond to the Citizens United ruling---which struck down restrictions on corporate spending for political advertising---by saying the original laws didn't violate the First Amendment because "Corporations aren't people, and money isn't speech"?

[Update, 12/29/09: the village idiot himself weighs in; see the comments.]

Here we go again . . .

Near as I can figure out, Josh Hendrickson of Minnetonka MN, didn't have anything useful to do last Saturday, so he headed on down to the Obama Worship Seminar at the Target Center, where thousands and thousands of Minnesotans were assembling to hear Barack Obama explain that the folks who had done such a wonderful job with delivering our mail are now ready and eager to take over our health care, or something like that.  

I can actually understand why somebody who has a Minnesota carry permit (often mistakenly called a "conceal and carry permit") might reasonably choose to carry a handgun under his outer clothing when heading into downtown Minneapolis -- or, actually, anywhere else.  Bad stuff can happen anywhere, and the area outside the Target Center is not a mugger-free environment, nor is the walk from there to wherever one parks.  As Hendrickson later, in a moment of lucidness, said to a Star Tribune reporter, when he leaves his house, "I grab my wallet, my keys, and my gun."  Nothing wrong with that.   .

And I can certainly understand why somebody would want to be part of a counterprotest against Obamacare.  "We are Americans.  We have the right to disagree and debate with any administration," as Hillary Clinton said, back before she joined this administration.  She was right then; she's right now.

So far, so good.

And it was also, all in all, pretty good that somebody in the Secret Service and/or MPD apparently spotted a telltale bulge at Hendrickson's waist.  Concealment isn't difficult, mind you, but a lot of folks who have taken inadequate carry classes haven't been given good directions as to how to do that, and some who have taken good carry classes weren't paying attention.

So, it was perfectly reasonable that a couple of MPD cops came over and checked out his carry permit -- something they've every right to do, under the law -- and then a Secret Service agent stopped by for a quick, professional chat.  It's not like there was any chance that Hendrickson was going to get near the President, after all -- hell, he couldn't have gotten inside the building without going through a metal detector -- and while there's no reason at all to think he planned on shooting President Obama, it didn't hurt to check him out.

But then, his little incident having been concluded with no muss, no fuss, and no arrest, Hendrickson proceeded to chase down the nearest reporter, and make sure that he got the attention that he so desperately craved.  Apparently dressing so that the authorities would "accidentally" see the bulge in his clothing hadn't gotten him enough attention, the poor dear.

He did get his attention, and he isn't liking it. The idiot's been posting up a storm, ever since. 

As it turns out, Josh Hendrickson's is pretty lengthy, and pretty bad:

• CASE NO. 27-CR-08-57490 June 8th, 2009 Convicted-5th Deg. Assault-Intent to Cause Bodily Harm

• CASE NO. 02-CR-07-7671 Oct. 6 2008 Convicted Disorderly Conduct-Brawling or Fighting

• CASE NO. 10-VB-07-8199 Apr. 16, 2008 Convicted Disorderly Conduct

• CASE NO. 27-CR-06-084595 Feb 14, 2007 Convicted 3rd Deg. DWI

• CASE NO. 27-CR-04-014473 Sept 29, 2004 Convicted Disorderly Conduct

• CASE NO. 27-CR-03-025265 Apr 21, 2003 Convicted Interfere with Emergency Call

• CASE NO. 27-CR-99-011521 Feb. 18, 1999 Convicted Alcohol con. .10 or more

• CASE NO. 27-CR-98-086285 Sept. 14, 1998 Convicted Reckless Driving

• CASE NO. 27-CR-96-109111 Jan. 9, 1997 Convicted Disorderly Conduct

Yucko.  Four convictions for disorderly conduct?  How the hell does anybody manage that?  Discon is, often, one of those bogus charges that cops throw at somebody who they really don't have anything on, and which quickly gets dismissed as soon as a real lawyer enters the case.  Four of them?  Interfering with an emergency call?  Two DWIs?  And let's not get into the pepper-spraying incident that cost him his most recent conviction for 5th Degree Assault.

Why somebody with that kind of record would try to draw both police and public attention to himself is pretty easy to explain. 

See, there's apparently been an open position in Minnetonka for a village idiot, and, having gotten fired from his job as a security guard for pepper-spraying a customer, Hendrickson was just looking for work.

Earth to Josh Hendrickson:  the position of village idiot doesn't pay well, or at all. 

Sheesh.  I was going to be blogging about another idiot, but . . . some other time. 

Addendum:  a fair number of folks have asked why this nimrod had a carry permit in the first place.  It's a good question.  The Minnesota Citizens Personal Protection Act is, by design and intention, a liberal law -- the notion is that somebody should not have a fundamental right restricted, except under unusual circumstances.  Hendrickson would have lost his right to possess firearms -- and his carry permit -- if he'd been convicted of any felony, or a domestic violence misdemeanor.  Among his cornucopia of convictions -- including an amazing four disorderly conducts, a couple of DWIs, interfering with a 911 call (!), and his latest feat:  the assault where he spend thirty days in the more structured environment suitable for his special needs -- there aren't any of those.

But there is some hope, and it's in the law:

(c) The sheriff of the county where the application was submitted, or of the county of the permit holder's current residence, may file a petition with the district court therein, for an order revoking a permit to carry on the grounds set forth in subdivision 6, paragraph (a), clause (3). An order shall be issued only if the sheriff meets the burden of proof and criteria set forth in subdivision 12. If the court denies the petition, the court must award the permit holder reasonable costs and expenses, including attorney fees.

Yup.  Hendrickson's sheriff can, if he chooses, file a petition to have Hendrickson's permit yanked, on the grounds that "there exists a substantial likelihood that the applicant is a danger to self or the public if authorized to carry a pistol under a permit."  Hendrickson's due process rights would be intact -- and, if he managed to beat the petition, he'd be awarded his lawyer's fees.

I don't think that's likely, though.  Sounds like a slam dunk to me, and I wouldn't find it at all surprising if Hendrickson loses his permit, sooner than later. 

I guess we'll see. 

Really.

For those of you who think I'm going all Rush Limbaugh with this "feminazi" stuff: chill.  I'm talking about Elisha Strom, the now ex-wife of convicted kiddie porn felon, the loathesome Neonazi Kevin Alfred Strom. (The two of them had a falling out of some sort.  Nazis, like other people, find breaking up hard to do at times.)

That's her, at right, in a photo from around 2003.  She is apparently as uncharming as she looks, and calling her a Feminazi is only fair, because she's the closest thing the neonazis have to a feminist, okay? 

Okay.  Fine.  If she happens to be out walking someday and a cow falls out of a clear blue sky to squash her flat, that would be a sad thing only because it would be a waste of a good cow.  Got it.

But, alas, what she's apparently been charged with an is, basically, blogging and photograpy. The scumbag neonazi bitch has a blog; she makes comments hostile to, and posts snapshots of some local cops. 

Well, blogging and photography aren't a crime, and it would really be a shame -- really -- if all of our civil rights were further degraded because people wouldn't support the rights of this feminazi scumbag to write and to take pictures.

So:  please support the rights of this feminazi scumbag.  It's important that her case get coverage, and that she be acquitted of the absurd chages. 

Damn.  Well, you don't always get the good poster boys and girls on this civil rights stuff.  Yeah, sometimes you luck out and get a real hero like Rosa Parks, or Savana Redding.

But most of the time it's scumbags like Ernesto Miranda or Elisha Strom.

Live with it.

(h/t Scott over at SJ) <

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." -- Winston Churchill

For those of you who didn't follow it, an amendment to a bill in the US Senate was defeated this week, on a 58-aye, 39 nay vote.  (Yeah, I know that sound strange; another time, okay?)  You'll find a remarkably typical MSM take on it here, and, honest, I'd love to discuss all the issues involved, but let's save that for another time; that's not this story. 

Part of the fight against passing this was the notoriously anti-gun advocacy group, the "Violence Policy Center," headed by Josh "Sugar Daddy" Sugarman*, and, as you'd expect, they were slaughtering trees, right and left, to turn out their agitprop, foremost among it, a "study" (actually, a collection of unreliable anecdotes, including at least one just plain lie) that purports to show that shouts that "Concealed Handgun Permit Holders Kill 7 Police, 44 Private Citizens Over Two-Year Period", which is, presumably, a bad thing and, putatively, some sort of reason that a law-abiding citizen who has been issued a carry permit in Minnesota can't be trusted to, say, carry a handgun in New York. 

(Pinky swear, since right about now I know that a bunch of you are reaching for your keyboards:  yes, there's a whole lot of other issues, around Federalism, states rights, carry permit laws, full faith and credit and all that stuff.  Not now, okay?)

Enter John Lott. Dr. Lott first came to public attention with the Lott/Mustard study that shows -- pretty clearly, I think; others disagree -- that among the effects of modern, mainstream, "shall issue" permit laws are to drive violent crime down slightly (when controlling for other factors), drive property crime up, also slightly.  By profession an economist, he's kind of been dragged, kicking and screaming only a little, into the national gun debate, and like anybody else who has been around for awhile, noticed that the antigun folks need to spend a whole lot of money on Nomex undies, what with their pants bursting into flame from lying a lot.

He noticed an unlikely anecdote on page 17:

Minnesota
# Concealed Handgun Permit Holder: Michael C. Iheme
Date: July 24, 2008
People Killed: 1
Circumstances: On July 24, 2008, Michael C. Iheme shot and killed his wife after she left
her job at an assisted living center. Court records show that she had an active harassment
restraining order against him and suggest a history of domestic abuse, including threats to kill her. After the shooting, Iheme called 911 and said, "I have killed the woman that mess my life up...." Iheme, who had a concealed handgun permit, was found guilty of second degree murder.

Source: "911 call: 'I have killed the woman that mess my life up," Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 26, 2008;
"Man found guilty of killing estranged wife in St. Louis Park," Minneapolis Star-Tribune, February 6, 2009.

Yeah.  That does look strange, and unlikely, if you know anything about the subject.  The subject of a domestic OFP having a carry permit?  Unlikely.  Somebody with a history of domestic abuse being issued one?  It's not impossible, but it's not the way to bet.  Know a bit more, and it gets more unlikely -- Sheriff Stanek's office screwing up by issuing a permit to a domestic abuser with an OFP out on him?  Nah. 

But "nah" isn't a debunking.

Lott dropped an email to Andrew Rothman, a local Minnesota activist -- he's a friend of mine, and also the Executive Director of MADFI -- asking him to check it out, and Andrew got busy, sending one flunky off to see if there was some wisdom on the subject (check, but the flunky knew that) and interest in helping out on the part of David Gross (one of the few essential people in Minnesota Second Amendment activism, David's also an attorney, who knows the laws around this stuff backwards and forwards, having been involved in the writing of some and the practice of a lot of them for decades), and dispatching another -- John Pierce, second year law student at Hamline -- to the courthouse to look for the documentation that would have existed if Iheme had been a carry permit holder arrested on suspicion of murder.

Gross struck paydirt -- Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, who would have been the issuing sheriff, took a quick look at both the relevant laws, regulations, and facts, and went on the record that Iheme not only had not had a carry permit, but had never even applied for one.

Yup. Stanek didn't say it -- I am -- but the VPC was lying.  What they said just ain't so.

And Pierce, looking for the nonexistent orders around the carry permit, stumbled across the smoking gun:  the police report that showed that what had been seized was Iheme's purchase permit.  Iheme had a permit to purchase a firearm, not one to carry.  But that fact had been carefully left out of the Star Tribune's reporting with the Strib's reckless disregard for the truth, and picked up and repeated by the folks at the VPC, who -- having endlessly picked at all of the states' carry laws -- had every reason to believe that the Strib had gotten it wrong, but just passed off the lie to their easily-gulled audience.

How easy?  Well, the next morning, on the Senate floor, Robert Menendez of New Jersey quoted the VPC "study", as though it proved something -- only to be shot down (metaphorically, honest) by the sponsor of the amendment, John Thune, who had been informed that there were provable lies in it, this among them.

What can we learn from this?

Well, we can't learn, alas, that 58 yes votes is enough to get something through the Senate; it wasn't, the other day.  We can't learn that the Star Tribune, in knowing and reckless disregard for the truth, will carefully leave out the word "purchase", when talking about a "gun purchase permit" held by a murderer -- we already knew that.  That's just how they roll.

We can't learn that the anti-gun folks like the VPC simply don't care about truth -- we already knew that, too.

We can learn, though, that networked grassroots activism can do things that the highly-paid lobbyists -- from the VPC or anywhere else -- just plain can't do.

That's worth learning, again.

____
* Okay, okay:  I don't have the slightest idea if Josh Sugarman has a nickname, and, if so, what it is. 

The attorney for Chicago real estate developer Peter Holsten has subpoenaed Google for information about two anonymously authored blogs that have been critical of neighborhood politics and the Wilson Yard TIF project. The Chicago Journal has the story:

Johnson said the subpoena asks for ownership information of the blogs. Uptown Update is an active blog that has gained popularity as a clearinghouse for information about the neighborhood. What the Helen was active during the 2007 aldermanic election and has not been updated in over a year.

Both blogs have been highly critical of 46th Ward Ald. Helen Shiller. Shiller's supporters and detractors often debate the alderman's policies and neighborhood issues in both blogs' comments sections.

[Link added. God forbid a newpaper would link to anything. The What the Helen blog has been removed.]

Holsten's attorney, Tom Johnson, has confirmed he filed the subpoenas, but he hasn't explained why. Holsten is being sued by the community organization Fix Wilson Yard, which opposes his development plans.

In response to my admittedly harsh missive about the conviction of Paul "Max Hardcore" Little, commenter "jt" writes:

I couldn't help but notice you mentioned you've never seen a Max Hardcore video. Perhaps you should. Once you have, you may understand how a jury could find his work obscene, based on the old Miller three prong test, and therefor not constitutionally protected speech. The outcome may not be what you would like to see, but the jury based their decision on the state of the law, not how they--or you--would like the law to read. The judge only enforced the law as it currently exists, she didn't make this stuff up either. If you want guys like Max Hardcore to continue to crank out their particular brand of "art," then get the law changed and quit pissing on the people who's only offense is doing their duty under the law and not making up their own along the way in order to get the result you would have preferred.

I'm sure "jt" is right that Little is a scumbag. Practically everybody says so. It's one of the reasons I don't want to see his videos.

Yet that's not what they prosecuted him for. I've heard that it looks like the women in his videos are really being abused. If they are, some cops and prosecutors really should come down hard on him for that. It seems like it would be a pretty easy case, what with all the video of the crime.

But that hasn't happened. Instead we get this federal-level porn distribution case. It's not even a real porn distribution case. Little was charged with conspiracy, for making the porn that the actual distributor sent to Florida.

(I'm always suspicious when the prosecution charges someone with crimes involving concepts like conspiracy and intent or their after-the-fact brethren, money laundering and obstruction. Not that those things aren't against the law, but couldn't they find a real, tangible crime? You know, something where people get hurt or lose money? Something with a victim?)

I have to admit that "jt" has a pretty good point about the judge and jury only following the law. This is especially true of the jurors, reluctant participants who are intentionally kept in the dark about legal theories other than the official version. Perhaps I was more disrespectful of the decision makers than they deserved.

Then again, all of Little's actions took place in California, but the federal prosecutors made their case in Florida. The obvious reason for this is that the feds thought they would lose their case if they tried it in California. Suppose Little's lawyer had been able to get the trial moved to California, and suppose Little had been found not guilty as the feds obviously expected. Wouldn't that judge and jury also have been following the law? How much respect does a court decision deserve if it could easily have come out with the opposite result just by moving the proceedings to a different state?

Clearly, one of these trial outcomes---from the actual trial in Florida or the hypothetical trial in California---has to be wrong, and I'm saying it was the one in Florida that was wrong. To put it another way, the feds have no respect for California courts or California juries, so I'm not sure why I should give any more respect to the Florida court and the Florida jury.

Even if I accept that the judge and jury were only doing their duty and following the law when the found Little guilty, there's still the matter of sentencing. It's not as if the judge was just following an administrative process. She had broad discretion over the sentence, and she made the choice she did. It's reasonable to criticize her for that.

Finally, as to whether I should "get the law changed" if I don't like it, I think the law is already quite clear on this matter:

Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...

There's not a lot of wiggle room in there, not even for dirty pictures.

Since "jt" mentions the Miller test, perhaps he's not talking about the written law, but about case law as established by the history of court rulings on this subject. In that case, getting the law changed means getting judges to rule differently than they have been, so it only seems fair to comment on the judge's ruling.

Speaking of the Miller test, I'm not a big fan. Consider the first prong of the test:

whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,

How are potential offenders supposed to know what community standards are? It's one thing that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" but ignorance of the standards of every single community in the country?

And just what's wrong with prurient interests anyway?

A Florida court recently convicted Paul "Max Hardcore" Little for distributing pornography---adult pornography, I should point out. No children were involved. I expect this sort of thing from the kind of backwards Islamic countries that punish men for shaving their beards and women for for driving cars, but I hoped our country had more of a live-and-let-live attitude by now.

Caution: The next paragraph contains a lot of swearing.

Fuck you, Judge Bucklew for convicting Little and sentencing him to 46 months in prison. Fuck all you jurors too. Fuck you too, former Attorney General Alberto Gonazles for starting this mess and current Attorney General Michael Mukasey for continuing it. A big "Fuck you!" to prosecutor Lisa Maria Freitas, who did the dirty work in the courtroom. And finally, a big, painful, pound-you-in-the-ass "FUCK YOU!" goes out to the entire Obscentity Prosecution Task Force.

Sorry about all the swearing. I don't normally use the word "fuck" that much on my blog, but it seems appropriate when writing about pornography. Also, if you seriously don't like it, you don't have to read my blog. Which is also the whole reason pornography prosecution is absurd. No one has to watch.

Actually, that isn't quite true. There are a few people who had to watch these videos, perhaps against their will, but no one will ever be convicted for forcing them to watch pornography. That's because U.S. v. Paul F. Little and Max World Entertainment was a jury trial, and those twelve jurors were forced to watch pornography by the U.S. Government.

Seriously, with all the bad things happening in the world right now---terrorism, the financial meltdown, the Daley administration---is prosecuting consensual crimes really a top priority for federal prosecutors? Is this really what judges should be doing with their time?

Some people have pointed out that the Max Hardcore videos are violent and degrading to women. I wouldn't know, never having seen one, but I'll take their word for it. On the other hand, I'll also take the word of the porn actresses who performed in them, who have not filed police complaints against any of the actors or producers, and who testified on Little's behalf in court.

Really people, if everyone consented to the act, then "Ick, I'd never do that!" is a very bad reason to decide to lock people in a cage.

Legal Satyricon contributor Sam Lea clearly know how to begin a story:

Police in Winona, Minnesota charged a 14-year-old boy with desecrating a U.S. flag, after he wrote song lyrics on it, burned holes in it with cigarettes, and then proceeded to tear the flag into several pieces. He then scattered the pieces throughout his high school before skipping class to attend the "Rage Against the Machine" concert

Heh. Read the whole thing.

Last week, Representative Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) introduced a bill expressing the sense of Congress that the YouTube video hosting site should not allow "jihadist propaganda."

"The war against Islamic radicalism is both a shooting war and a battle of ideology. Our enemies understand that they cannot defeat us face to face on the battleground, so they have created a new battlefield on the Internet," Shuster said in a press release.

Er, no. The jihadis don't really know how to create anything, except maybe bombs. We built the Internet.

One of the core principles of free speech is that the best way to fight bad speech is not with censorship but with good speech. Shuster obviously doesn't know this or doesn't care.

It's also obvious that he doesn't have a clue about the sort of stuff that's actually on YouTube. Yes, there might be a few dozen jihadist propaganda pieces, but the other 10 million or so videos are likely to be a bit of a distraction. The jihadi-wannabes may come for the crappy revolutionary speeches, but once they look around at some of the other videos, they'll soon realize that our way of life is better than theirs.

Let me put it another way: Gary Brolsma's "Numa Numa" video appears many times on YouTube and just one of the copies has been viewed 1.7 million times.

The jihadi's will never catch up.

The Chinese government is well known for censoring its citizens' access to the World Wide Web. Now you can run a test to see if your website is blocked in China, thanks to the fine folks at greatfirewallofchina.org.

Naturally, I had to check if they're blocking windypundit.com. The site is a little slow, so it took a while to find out...

They're blocking me.

Wow.

There could be technical reasons why they're blocking me. Windpundit.com is served to the web through a shared hosting service from HostingMatters, meaning there are many other web sites on the same server and sharing the same IP address. It's possible they're blocking someone else on the same server.

I prefer to think that someone in the Chinese government doesn't want people to read what I have to say. I like the idea that tyrants think I'm their enemy. I like to think they're right.

(Hat tip: Kip)

Bong Hits 4 Jesus is going to the Supreme Court!

Basically, a bunch of people showed up at a rally in Juneau, Alaska, to watch the Olympic torch pass by, and one of them held up a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner. His name was Joseph Frederick and he was a student at Juneau-Douglas High School. The school had let him out early to go see the torch, so they tried to discipline him on the grounds that this was a school-sponsored event. He fought and won in court, and he won the appeal in federal court too. Now the school and the state have taken the matter to the Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear the case.

I think the school should have lost on the grounds that he wasn't at school. This wasn't a school-run event, and it wasn't a field trip.

However, the ruling being appealed is based on broad First Amendment principles. The school can tell a student not to speak or not to hold up a banner if such things might be disruptive. But when the school allows a student to visit a rally where people are holding banners, the school doesn't get to suppress a student's speech merely because the school disagrees with it.

That makes sense to me, and I think it will make sense to the Supreme Court. After all, this seems to be settled law ever since the Tinker decision that allowed students to wear black armbands. Which makes me worry, because the Ninth Circuit upheld the student's rights based on Tinker, so why is the Supreme Court agreeing to hear it?

It's probably because of some other issues related to the student's counter-suit against the school, but I worry whenever the Supremes go sniffing around the First Amendment.

I'm not a fan of impeaching U.S. Presidents for unimportant crimes—or worse, imagined crimes—but if a Democratic Congress ever impeaches George Bush, I would be highly amused if they got him for flag desecration.

Public Defender Dude has more to say.

Alright, it's a bad idea...but there's a certain cosmic sense of justice to it.

Can you believe this shit is still going on?

WASHINGTON - Federal regulators will stick by their decision to slap CBS with a $550,000 fine for the Janet Jackson flash at the 2004 Super Bowl.

But that's not all!

They also plan new sanctions against Fox, NBC and CBS TV stations or affiliates for violating decency standards, according to people familiar with the matter.

The two sources, who declined to be identified ahead of a public announcement, said one of the decisions involves an appearance by Nicole Richie on the 2003 Billboard Music Awards on Fox. During the broadcast, she uttered the "F" word and the expletive for excrement.

2003 for God's sake!

You'd almost think the FCC wasn't in the midst of a potential multi-billion dollar screwup of the HDTV roll-out.

Google's recent launch of the Chinese Google service is attracting a lot of attention because Google has agreed to censor the results in accord with Chinese law.

I feel about this the same way I did when Microsoft censored its blogs: In China, the only alternative to censored service is no service at all. I think that even partial service is better than none, because the censored topics are not the only things people want to find on the web.

But here's what I don't get: Suppose Google built a complete data center in China with its own database and its own googlebots. The googlebots would scan the web as usual, following links wherever they go. However, when the bots attempted to follow a link to censored content, the Chinese government firewall would block access, and the bots wouldn't add those blocked pages to the index. The resulting database would therefore contain only materials that passed Chinese censorship. No one would blame Google for this.

Instead, Google scans much of the web outside of China, and then omits pages blocked by the Chinese firewall from its result sets. The same search results are available to users as if the data center were entirely within China, but now people blame Google for the censorship.

Like others, I'm angry about the censorship of Google results in China, but I think the proper target for our anger is the Chinese government.

The Volokh Conspiracy has a post about the Google subpoena, and a comment by someone using the name DEGOP has this to say about the definition of pornography:

"Prevailing community standards" is the only test worth a darn. We abandon it at our peril. The problem is that community standards in San Francisco are a lot worse than they are in, say, Kansas. Therefore, on the Internet, serious protections have to be in place. Otherwise, the children in Kansas might end up as corrupted as the children in San Francisco, even though their parents try to protect them.

This is wrong on so many levels.

First of all, "prevailing community standards" is no test at all, since no person seeking to produce, distribute, or consume sex-themed materials could possibly know what that standard means. It's a travesty of justice for our courts use such a vague and unpredictable "test" to decide people's liberty.

Second, if DEGOP is correct about the relative standards of San Francisco and Kansas, then a lot of people would say that San Francisco's standards are a lot better than in Kansas, because they permit more pornography. According to the 60 Minutes story "Porn in the U.S.A.", Americans spend $10 billion a year on porn. Wherever you make pornography available to people, they buy it, rent it, and use it. To millions of people, porn is not a problem on the internet but one of its many enjoyable features.

Third, DEGOP may be wrong about the relative standards in San Francisco and Kansas. Using U.S. census figures, Wikipedia, and an internet strip club guide, we can construct a crude proxy for community standards. San Francisco has 21 strip clubs for a population of 744000, or one per 35000 residents, whereas Kansas has 36 clubs for 2.7 million residents, or one per 76000. A significant difference, but not exactly night and day.

But wait, DEGOP is comparing the entire state of Kansas to a densely populated California city. If we look at California as a whole, we find 212 strip clubs serving a population of 36 million, giving it one strip club per 170000 people. Put another way, Kansas has five times as many strip clubs per person as California.

So, this DEGOP person can't even judge the "community standards" correctly in his own argument, picking regions of his choice. It's absurd to make "community standards" into a legal test.

It seems to me that the internet itself is a community, and the prevailing standard here is broader and more permissive than anywhere else in the world. A lot of us like it that way.

Marathon Pundit points to a Daily Herald story that says Illinois Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn is proposing a suspiciously censorial law prohibiting protest within 300 feet of a funeral.

As is typical of most proposed censorship, Quinn's bill is in response to some bastard who is using freedom of speech to say ugly things. Specifically, this bill is in response to the "unique picketing ministry" of something called the Westboro Baptist Church, run by Fred Phelps. I think you can learn everything you need to know about this outfit from it's web URL. Not it's web site, just the URL:

http://www.godhatesfags.com

(It's marked NSFW because the content probably violates your company's anti-descrimination policies. You do not want a hit to that page showing up on your web access records.)

Suffice it to say that they are unhappy with the modern acceptance of homosexuality and have decided to fight against it by staging protests at military funerals. There's more to it than that. Their FAQ page provides detailed answers.

As despicable as these people are, however, I'm not sure that Lt. Gov. Quinn's proposed law is a good approach. It's hard to tell though, because I can't find the language of the proposed "Let Them Rest in Peace Act" on the Illinois General Assembly web site. If the bill simply makes it illegal to engage in disruptive behavior within 300 feet of a funeral, that's not censorship, it's just noise control. I don't have a problem with that, and I don't think the ACLU will either.

But if the act distinguishes between different acts based on the content of speech or the signs, then it's censorship and is as un-American as anything Fred Phelps has to say. Here's hoping Quinn did the right thing in drafting this bill, so freedom-loving americans don't have to waste time fighting censorship for Fred Phelps' benefit.

[Arg. Every time I fix a typo, MovableType re-pings a bunch of trackbacks. Sorry about the duplicates, folks.]

I've been having trouble figuring out how to think about the issue of Microsoft's censorship in China.

Reporters Without Borders has been able to check that, as reported by several news agencies, when a Chinese blogger attempts to post a message containing terms such as "democracy", "Dalai Lama", "Falungong", "4 June" (the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre), "China + corruption", or "human rights", a warning displays saying, "This message contains a banned expression, please delete this expression."

—Reporters Without Borders, 14 June 2005

On the one hand, government censorship is reprehensible. On the other hand, Microsoft is just obeying the laws of the countries in which it operates. Yahoo does the same thing. Every company that wants to operate in China has to do that.

The folks at Reporters Without Borders seem to think that Microsoft has another option, although they never say what it is:

"The lack of ethics on the part of these companies is extremely worrying. Their management frequently justifies collaboration with Chinese censorship by saying that all they are doing is obeying local legislation.

"Does that mean that if the authorities asked Microsoft to provide information about Chinese cyberdissidents using its services that it would agree to do so, on the basis that it is "legal" ? Reporters Without Borders wondered.

"We believe that this argument does not hold water and that these multinationals must respect certain basic ethical principles, in whatever country they are operating."

That's a nice belief. But how can these companies do that? Microsoft and Yahoo may be giants of the Internet world, but in the real world, they're not so tough. Neither one is able to operate a rogue internet in China.

The only other possibility is for them to stay out of China completely. That's what Reporters Without Borders does.

But how would not operating in China help? If censored blogs are bad, then isn't no blogs at all even worse? The Chinese government doesn't want its people to blog about freedom and other issues that make them look bad. That sucks, but it's only a tiny part of blogging. What else do people blog about?

Right this second, here's the lead article of all ten of Blogger's Recently Update list:

• A recipe.
• A test message of some kind.
• Something with a photo. It might be testing, it might be art.
• A post about what some guy did this weekend (no permalink).
• A dead link.
• Somebody really looking forward to new comics.
• A post in Spanish that may have something to do with gay marriage. (Google translation es muy malo.)
• A German translation of something by Gabriel García Márquez.
• " It's the first day of summer! Yay!!!!!"
• Somebody's list of 100 things about them.

Hmm. That was a bit weird. Let's try Typepad's "Recently Updated Weblogs":

• Satiric comment about a study revealing that women's orgasms relieve stress and anxiety.
• Somebody's little girl being weaned off her Binky so she can go into a daycare facility on a military base.
• A list of eight items of personal trivia.
• A note about personal exercise habits.
• A pointer to a discussion about why someone chose Roman Catholicism instead of one of the Eastern Rite churces.
• An excerpt from someone else's article about protesting taxi drivers at the Toronto airport.
• A writer's account of how another writer was inspired by dislike for Macchiavvelli's The Prince.
• A posting about testing some blogging software.
• Something about Pam Anderson and Courtney Love.
• Somebody planning to go to a movie, then a bar.

So, there's some politics (although there's nothing about either Iraq, Social Security, or judicial appointments), but there's other stuff too. If Microsoft and other Internet companies submit to Chinese censorship, the Chinese people won't be able to blog about politics. But most blogs are not really about politics. They're about all this other stuff, much of which would be eliminated if western companies stop doing Internet business in China.

Kerry Howley at Reason explains:

The Chinese, just like the rest of us, want the web for its gossip, games, and, not least, porn. At least four million Chinese maintain blogs, 55,000 of them on MSN spaces. There is more to be passionate about, apparently, than politics.

So the Chinese people may not be able to write about "freedom," but with only a few constraints, they will be able to do freedom. It's a step in the right direction.