ONE BIRD PROTECTED BY THE CONSTITUTION

Not Walking The Line

One federal district court judge just ruled that the act of flipping off a police officer is protected speech under the First Amendment.

As your legal counsel, however, I must advise you that just because you have a constitutional right to flip off a police officer does not mean that it is a good idea to exercise that right.

--Junichi

AT&T & VERIZON ARE PUPPY-KILLING BABY MOLESTERS

This man is now forced to use Sprint

Today's LA Times has an interesting article about how AT&T's and Verizon's service agreements say that your contract can be terminated or your access to the Interweb can be cut off if the company thinks you are harming its "name or reputation."

I would normally dismiss this as harmless fine print that no company would enforce ... except that Verizon recently cut off Naral, a pro-choice group, from sending text messages. (They recently reversed course after a public outcry.)

This story highlights the danger, in my opinion, of having so many avenues of speech in the hands of a few corporations that are beyond the bounds of the First Amendment's reach.

I'm not suggesting that Verizon or AT&T are planning to censor everything we say, but I am absolutely sure that Verizon now offers High Speed Internet -- Fast, reliable, and just the right price. Just $14.99/mo. for LIFE with a 2-year agreement (up to 768 Kbps). Or you can get 100% fiber-optic speed straight to your home. As low as $29.99/mo. for 6 months (up to 5 Mbps).

--Junichi

THE FCC GETS THE SMACKDOWN

Cher = Not indecent (photo not included)

Today, the Second Circuit delivered a fantastic opinion for free speech advocates. The court of appeals essentially struck down the FCC's approach to profanity and gutted its right to fine stations for airing "fleeting" expletives.

This litigation stems, in part, from the FCC concluding that its ban was violated when the Billboard Music Awards inadvertently aired Cher saying, "Fu@k 'em" and, in a different year, Nicole Richie asking, "Have you ever tried to get cow sh!t out of a Prada purse? It's not so fu@kin' simple."

The surprisingly strong opinion slams some of the FCC's explanations for its language policy as "divorced from reality."

Best of all, the Second Circuit calls out the government on its hypocrisy by naming Bush and Cheney as violators:

Similarly, as NBC illustrates in its brief, in recent times even the top leaders of our government have used variants of these expletives in a manner that no reasonable person would believe references "sexual or excretory organs or activities." See Br. of Intervenor NBC at 31-32 & n.3 (citing President Bush's remark to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the United Nations needed to "get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit" and Vice President Cheney's widely-reported "Fu@k yourself" comment to Senator Patrick Leahy on the floor of the U.S. Senate).

Brilliant. You can read the whole opinion here.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin angrily responded to the opinion by saying, "Today, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said the use of the words 'fu@k' and 'sh!t' by Cher and Nicole Richie was not indecent."

Except that the FCC Chairman's statement didn't "bleep" the bad words like I did.

Ironic.

--Junichi