Comment What is porn? Why CyberNot must be public info (Score 1) 416
Will anyone who can offer a more precise legally upholdable definition of "porn" than "whatever gives the judge an erection" please stand up? Instead of censoring speech, let's remove religious bias from other laws and regulations. Nudity on the beach, the town green, the back yard, or along Main Street, USA harms no one. At most it harms supremacist ILLUSIONS of certain predatory religions. Nudity is a goal in several forms for a number of non-supremacist religions, for which it might be nice to eventually acheive "equal protections of law". Sex, while more controversial given indoctrinated prejudices and bigotry, is likewise a matter of religious ritual and celebration for people of some religions, and as such qualifies for freedom from legal oppression, just as much as anti-sexual religious followers aren't obligated to take their sex to the town square if they prefer otherwise. Nudity is a state of being, deserving equal legal protections as sideburns, hats, other costumes including genital coverage in xtian ideas of religious "decency", covering head hair for females in Muslim ideas of "decency", or carrying a book of one's choice, whether the bibles of xtians, pagans, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or any other group under whatever name. Sex is an activity. To rid laws of religious bias, it might be restricted where motion or making noise would disrupt usage-dedicated places at at times when activities could be disruptive. That means that it's reasonable to restrict sex at some time and place a xtian bible discussion would be legally banned, or where a volleyball game might be banned, but not elsewhere or at other times. Clean up those elements of law, and speech censorship related to them would become moot. ==== As to CyberNot, so long as CyberPatrol is marketed and used in public facilities, citizens have a right to know what illegal criteria are being used to impose illegal discrimination. If Microsystems won't release the info, such that a public user cannot comply with an FOIA demand for the censored sites, citizens are entitled to do whatever else it takes to discover that info. This is a simple issue of the peitioning for redress of grievance prong of the 1st Amendment, not to mention generic speech, press, Establishment clause, or Free Exercise clause prongs. There could be an interesting issue for the Supreme Court if this case raises the issue of how those aspects of Constitutional rights contradict Copyright law. Skala & Janssen appear to have acted to help Americans hold local governments accountable under the law, which might just preempt and contrary business interests of fraudulently promoting intentionally discriminatory criteria as if "neutral" under Lemon v. Keurtzman, or the broad notions of what are equal protections of religion under the 29 CFR 1605.1 analysis of Supreme Court findings and US Code. Rev. Terry Smith ERLAN Electronic Communication Freedoms Liaison