A very important Ruling

Manniq, 05 Sep 2005 17:18:27

http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-795.ZS.html

Well, I posted this once already - but the computer ate it! And I am posting here and on the Informed Consent site: apologies for those getting to see it twice, but for campaign purposes, I think this ruling not only provides a wealth of material but also offers some very important argument and precedent.

Context: the US is trying to do similar to what the UK government is doing: viz., change the rules so that people who LOOK at images become criminals. In this country, the Child Protection Act was used as a Trojan Horse for what we are now seeing - because it slipped into popular discourse some radically new and reactionary ways of looking at the law.

And after all, who would DARE defend the rights of paedophiles!

Well, the answer is, in the US, the highest court in the land did just that - because the principle that the government tried to introduce for child pornography was a principle that potentially affected everyone.

It argues cogently that "the mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it".

It also makes a distinction - which our government does not - between real and virtual acts.

Now: this is not UK Law. It clearly has no direct application here.

However, it should be rammed down the throats of our legislators that the most senior judges in the world's most powerful nation took one look at the sort of thing that our gov is proposing - and booted those ideas straight into touch.

And second, if you read not just through the syllabus (judgment) but also click on the opinion behind that ruling, you will find enough material to fill a small book - let alone a couple of leaflets.

Regards,

M