Score a big one for the First Amendment today.

"The First Amendment precludes the FCC from sanctioning CBS for the indecent expressive conduct" of Janet Jackson's nine-sixteenths-of-a-second exposed breast, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today, and in striking down the FCC's obscene $550,000 fine, the Federal appeals court not only saved CBS lots of money, but struck a blow for freedom of expression on television, and media in general.

It's good to remember that this current reign of FCC terror, in which fines of millions of dollars have been levied by the FCC against offending media, was ignited by that split second of Janet Jackson's breast in the Super Bowl Halftime show on CBS in 2004. The FCC said it received more than a million complaints from outraged Americans about indecent broadcasts that year, and even though it was later revealed that at least half were instigated by Brent Bozell's Parents Television Council (see my debate with Bozell below), the race to trample the First Amendment was on.

So Sue Me!

The great minds at the Republican National Committee are once again demonstrating their transcendent grasp of marketing, finance, and public relations.

In an action so preposterously witless as to scramble the common cranium, the GOP has sent a "cease and desist" letter to CafePress citing trademark infringement on the part of sellers using the term "GOP" or the elephant logo.

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cross posted from The Dream Antilles and docuDharma

WaPO reports that Maryland police infiltrated and spied upon peace and death penalty abolition groups in 2005.  The information the cops gathered was apparently sent to other law enforcement agencies.  No crimes were alleged to have been committed by the activists.

That crushing sound you hear is the crumbling of the First Amendment.

Please join me below.

Not your behind, necessarily, unless you wear saggy pants, below the buttocks, in Paterson, New Jersey. If you do, Councilman Anthony Davisapparently has had his eye on you - or, at least, your backside - and is sick and tired of seeing it. So much so, that he's pushing for fines for indecent exposure for anyone parading around with such low cuts.

To be clear, I don't think anyone is actually showing a complete, naked rear. It's big baggy underwear, with maybe a little of the top of the bottom line.

But to tell you the truth, I'm not really the best person to testify about this, because, the few times that someone wearing such an outfit has crossed my path, I didn't particular look. So maybe because I'm not particularly interested in seeing those behinds, and therefore haven't seen that many for all that long, I'm not tired of seeing them.

It is ironic that a new battle is taking place here in San Antonio at the Alamo, that legendary battlefront where so many gave their lives for freedom.  This time the battle is for the First Amendment and the freedom of speech.

From the first OMG! and WTF! over the New Yorker cover, I have been waiting for the correct measure and context about what is going on. I have been saddened by what I do not see in the arguments of the very wise people I review around the web.

Where are the comparisons and contrasts to the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad?

And where is the recognition that the graphic is a 'swiftboat' attack?

First Amendment scandals. Ever hear of them?

By Steve Bergstein

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I once wrote that no one ever talks about a First Amendment scandal the way that we talk about sex scandals or bribery or other abuses of the public trust. There is no such thing as a First Amendment scandal. But First Amendment scandals happen all the time. We just don't hear about them.

The Denver Post reports today that it was not the Secret Service who ordered, through a Denver Center for the Performing Arts security man, Carol Kreck to give up her "McCain = Bush" sign or be arrested this past Monday morning. According to DCPA sources, the request came from McCain's campaign staff.

That could well have been the headline back in 1925.  For it was on this very date of  July 10, 1925 that the trial of a high school football coach and substitute biology teacher – John Scopes – began after he was arrested for teaching Evolution in Dayton, Tennessee.  It became known as the Scopes Monkey Trial – but many of us may be more familiar with it after being memorialized on Broadway and in film as "Inherit the Wind".

You've all likely read about this, and/or seen the video:

A 60-year old librarian in Denver was carrying a sign with the message, McCain=Bush, as she waited to attend a McCain town hall meeting at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (a public venue). Some guy in a beige jacket asks her to remove the sign. She refuses. An onlooker asks him why she's been asked to remove the sign. The beige jacket responds that he was "asked" to do this, "by representatives of the Secret Service." Soon after, a Denver policeman starts talking, and informs the librarian that she has two choices: keep the sign, and be issued a ticket for "trespass," or get rid of the sign, in which case she can continue to stand in line to attend the McCain town hall event. Carol Kreck, the brave librarian, takes the ticket. She's escorted off the public premises, and tells the camera that she's been told that, if she returns, she'll be arrested.

This is one of the most outrageous violations of the First Amendment I've seen in a long time. Not a case of allegedly indecent broadcasting, in which there is at least a confused (and unconstitutional) Federal Communications Act to back it up. Not a shield law issue, which, although profound in its threat to the First Amendment, is not a direct assault upon it.

An "AP Internet reporter" posts a story tonight that calls into question the  existence of "free speech" on the Internet. I guess the reporter doesn't have a law degree--"free speech" questions involve what the government does, or fails to do, regarding the First Amendment right to freedom of expression in America.

This reporter's raising concerns about the way that private sector entities are regulating what people can and can't say on the Internet. Big difference, in my opinion, but still worth discussing:

Note: I posted a slightly different version of this on my blog last night, on the eve of the Fourth of July - well, it was the eve then, it's the Fourth now (I live in Australia, so I'm a bit ahead of y'all). It was a reaction to news I read that day, and a rumination about being an expatriate American on our national holiday.

Recent events regarding civil liberties have hit the news in Australia. World Youth Day, a gathering of a quarter-million young Catholic pilgrims, will kick off here in Sydney next week, and Pope Benedict will visit. It's a big deal for a country that's 25% Catholic.

Follow below for more, including some non-gratuitous vulgarities.

The 2008 FISA bill which will pass the Senate on Tuesday significantly raises the stakes on the Marijuana legalization front, but not for the reasons that might come to mind. Its not about how warrantless surveillance might help them catch drug smugglers, dealers, or users; if only the factors which join the FISA and Pot issues were that mundane.

Actually, it IS all about "how you think" and "what comes to mind" - quite literally. Its about your right to control your own consciousness, and to the privacy of your thoughts. Intercepting your phone calls, emails, and text/instant messaging may be all the rage at the NSA today, but just wait a few years. The next wave of personal electronics will be a lot more "personal" than your iPod, PDA, GPS, or Cellphone is right now.

Regardless of whether or not you personally enjoy the use of entheogens, whether you are Progressive or Libertarian in your politics, the First Amendment implications of the Marijuana debate will directly impact the Fourth Amendment future of all Americans. (more...)

After many years of fighting against racial profiling, the Department of Justice is now considering using racial profiling to catch terrorists.

The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.

I don't like this at all. As someone who just finished a Civil Rights class in law school, I'm disturbed by the possibility of people being investigated simply because their skin looks a certain way or they fit a "profile".

Yesterday when I watched KO, I found myself disturbed both by Obama's announcement that he intended to continue the Office of Faith Based Initiatives, and by KO's reaction to it.  Talk about a soup of conflicting feelings.  Then I started thinking.  (Yeah, sometimes I actually do that.)

In the summer of 2004, protestors wanting to demonstrate against the policies of the Bush Administration during the Republican National Convention’s visit to New York City were denied a permit to gather on Central Park’s Great Lawn. The city, we were told, could not afford the cost of repairing the damage done to the lawn by such a large crowd.

I didn’t buy it—no one really did—but the city could at least point to the $130,000 worth of damage that happened as a result of a 2003 Dave Matthews concert as some sort of object lesson. Concert crowds were bad for the lawn, protest crowds were bad for the lawn, crowds were just bad for the lawn, or so the story went. . .

. . . until Monday. . . .

It is worth remembering during this week concluded by an Independence Day holiday weekend that as Americans we are united by freedom, perhaps even as many freedoms as there are of us. That is both the ideal and the reality of America, that each one of us enjoys a freedom all our own, to defend through participation, or allow abrogated through indifference.

The Declaration of Independence that we ostensibly honor this week with cookouts and fireworks displays was quite clear about this, about the influence that common men should have over their own lives.

Two hundred and thirty-two years later this remains the true genius of America, that our freedom as citizens comes first from our belief in it.