{"id":524,"date":"2002-04-17T00:52:44","date_gmt":"2002-04-17T08:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2002\/04\/17\/supreme-court-does-good\/"},"modified":"2019-11-27T08:04:06","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T16:04:06","slug":"supreme-court-does-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2002\/04\/17\/supreme-court-does-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme court does good"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:16129,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.1007thebuzz.com&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260208140400\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.1007thebuzz.com\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-14 04:25:42&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-29 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05:29:45&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:16273,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.cia.gov\\\/terrorism&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20060712000721\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.cia.gov\\\/terrorism\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-14 05:29:47&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-14 05:29:47&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:16274,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.k-1.com\\\/Orwell&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/k-1.com\\\/Orwell&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:16275,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.amazon.com\\\/exec\\\/obidos\\\/ASIN\\\/0451524934\\\/djwudicom-20&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260314061503\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.amazon.com\\\/exec\\\/obidos\\\/ASIN\\\/0451524934\\\/djwudicom-20&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.amazon.com\\\/exec\\\/obidos\\\/ASIN\\\/0451524934\\\/djwudicom-20&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:16276,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.privacyinternational.org\\\/bigbrother&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20080517084813\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.privacyinternational.org\\\/bigbrother\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-14 05:30:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-14 05:30:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>The radio at work was trained to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.1007thebuzz.com\/\" title=\"100.7FM The Buzz\">The Buzz<\/a>, a local talk-radio station, and I heard a good talk show tonight that carried with it some extremely good news &#8212; apparently the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.supremecourtus.gov\/\" title=\"US Supreme Court\">Supreme Court<\/a> today <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2002\/LAW\/04\/16\/scotus.virtual.child.porn\/index.html\" title=\"CNN: Supreme Court strikes down ban on 'virtual child porn'\">upheld a ruling<\/a> declaring the 1996 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politechbot.com\/docs\/cppa.text.html\" title=\"CPPA text\">Child Pornography Protection Act<\/a> unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nI was <em>extremely<\/em> happy to hear about this ruling. While I&#8217;m sure the CPPA was written with good ideas behind it, it was so incredibly broad in its wording that it could have been used to stifle and outlaw all sorts of works. While there are already many other laws forbidding child pornography, the CPPA went on to declare works that used adults to portay minors as illegal. The declared intent was to try and crack down on situations such as computer artists superimposing a child&#8217;s head onto an adults body to create &#8216;virtual&#8217; child porn that would be legal without the CPPA, because it didn&#8217;t actually involve children, or using adults that look young to create &#8216;pesudo-&#8216;child porn. However, the declaration was written so broadly that going by the letter of the law, it also outlawed everything from recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oscars.com\/\" title=\"The Oscars\">Academy Award<\/a>-winning films <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00003CWL6\/djwudicom-20\" title=\"Amazon: American Beauty\">American Beauty<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B000063TNH\/djwudicom-20\" title=\"Amazon: Traffic\">Traffic<\/a> to any filmed version of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shakespeare.com\/\" title=\"Shakespeare.com???\">Shakespeare<\/a>&#8216;s &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/the-tech.mit.edu\/Shakespeare\/romeo_juliet\/\" title=\"The entire play for Romeo and Juliet\">Romeo and Juliet<\/a>&#8216; (including either <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B000060OFT\/djwudicom-20\" title=\"Amazon: Romeo + Juliet\">Baz Lurhmann&#8217;s<\/a> recent version or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0792165055\/djwudicom-20\" title=\"Amazon: Romeo and Juliet\">Franco Zeffirelli&#8217;s<\/a> classic version), to many works of art, to documentaries or films invovling child abuse &#8212; basically, any number of good and worthwhile works.<\/p>\n<p>This decision, though, declares that the CPPA was too broad in its wording and fell foul of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freedomforum.org\/templates\/document.asp?documentID=3924\" title=\"First Amendment text and commentary\">First Amendment<\/a>. In my mind, a necessary and accurate ruling, though predictably enough, apparently the right-wing contingents are already frothing at the mouth over this, and John Ashcroft has already been quoted criticizing the Supreme Court&#8217;s ruling, saying that, &#8220;this morning the United States Supreme Court made our ability to prosecute those who produce and possess child pornography <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/sections\/wnt\/DailyNews\/scotus_porn020415.html\" title=\"ABCNEWS.com: Virtual Child Porn Law Rejected\">immeasurably more difficult<\/a>&#8230;.&#8221; One of the more common arguments offered up by those dissapointed by the ruling is that it should be obvious that the government wouldn&#8217;t be targeting films like those I mentioned above, so we shouldn&#8217;t be worried that technically, they&#8217;re included in the CPPA&#8217;s definitions. However, because they were covered by the CPPA they <em>were<\/em> technically illegal, and it would be a very small step for us to end up in a climate where films like those would end up being targeted and outlawed. By striking down the CPPA, the Supreme Court has made an important step in protecting the rights gauranteed to us by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nara.gov\/exhall\/charters\/constitution\/conmain.html\" title=\"Text and info about the Constitution\">Constitution<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nara.gov\/exhall\/charters\/billrights\/billmain.html\" title=\"Text and info about the Bill of Rights\">Bill of Rights<\/a>, a step that&#8217;s all the more important in todays world were too many people seem all to prepared to voluntarily give up those rights in support of the &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cia.gov\/terrorism\/\" title=\"CIA terrorism site\">War on Terror<\/a>&#8216; or any other hot-button topic.<\/p>\n<p>In a world where we seem to be all-too-swiftly moving closer and closer to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.k-1.com\/Orwell\/\" title=\"Orwell bio and commentary\">George Orwell<\/a>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0451524934\/djwudicom-20\" title=\"Amazon: George Orwell '1984'\">1984<\/a> dystopia, complete with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.privacyinternational.org\/bigbrother\/\" title=\"The Big Brother Awards\">Big Brother<\/a>, it&#8217;s nice to see at least some branch of our government helping us to take a collective step back from the brink of the abyss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The radio at work was trained to The Buzz, a local talk-radio station, and I heard a good talk show tonight that carried with it some extremely good news &#8212; apparently the Supreme Court today upheld a ruling declaring the 1996 Child Pornography Protection Act unconstitutional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}