alongside some poor old guy who got busted for urinating in a parking lot at 3 in the morning in the morning. He got drunk and got busted for indecent exposure, that's a sexual crime. Or you got some 21-year-old kid who had sex with his high school girlfriend who is under 18 and that's statutory rape and that's sexual crime. And they're all just thrown together. We make these distinctions between first, second, third degree sex
dressed in long dresses. It was considered indecent to show your ankles. It wasn't just a dress.
And she's got this bloomer suit that allows her freedom. It was still considered indecent . It's not that their perceptions, their aesthetics had changed.
But no wish? The deferral all three wishes? That was almost indecent . 'You ask for nothing?' Zumurrud Shah roared.
The problem with annoy.com was that if the CDA was constitutional, Clinton then was subject to criminal prosecution for violating both the prohibition on posting indecency and the online communication of quote "indecent material with intent to annoy." So, we mounted a two-pronged attack. First, we filed a brief amicus curiae, a friend of the court brief in the United States Supreme Court, in the ACLU suit. And there, we attacked the constitutionality of the CDA itself. Second, we filed our own suit against Attorney General
because ordinary citizens could communicate with each other directly, not as the passive recipients of programming directed at them by broadcasters and commercial sponsors, the government has to step in to police indecent material. In my view, the perverse result of that would be that the more democratic the medium free of commercial censors, the greater the government's right to regulate the medium. But Stevens
prohibition speech that the First Amendment protects at least among adults. And trying to protect children from indecent material, Stevens said the government may not reduce the adult population to quote "only what is fit for children." The level of internet discourse cannot be limited to that suitable for a sandbox. Since there are alternative
First had come the book, which he had entitled The Varieties of Religious Illusion. The book had brought Cass an indecent amount of attention. Time Magazine, in a cover story on the so called new atheists, had singled him out as the only one among them
than the infamous Sedition Act of 1798. It had two provisions--two main provisions. One made it a federal crime to communicate anything quote "indecent " online, knowing that the communication was to a minor, somebody 17 years of age or younger. The term "indecent "
everybody does dumb things in college everybody does dumb things in high school everybody knows about it and everybody says yeah they were young would ever know right but since it was on the subway and it was an indecent thing that she didn't take responsibility for it's put to the
The thing is that we know that these words correspond to certain moral dimensions. So for example, if someone tells us that something is indecent , that corresponds to the moral dimension of purity. But if someone tells us that this scenario is violent, that tells us that this scenario has something to do with the moral dimension of harm.
Let's put it like that. Man in his 50s, convicted for the possession of 3,000 indecent images of children.
Hail Mary argument that wait a minute. We have another interest, not just the interest in protecting children but we have an equally significant interest in quote "fostering the growth of the internet as a communications medium." The government argued that the easy availability of indecent material on the internet was quote "driving countless citizens away from the medium because of the risk of exposing themselves or their children to harmful material."
The CDA was thus given a decent burial. And the most democratic means of communication ever invented allowed to flourish. Well, in light of Reno v. ACLU, Clinton Fein's case on the annoy provision looked like a slam dunk. The Supreme Court had proclaimed an indecent online speech couldn't be made criminal. And in our case, the government couldn't even argue that it had a need to protect children.
But with a bicycle, you didn't need that. So this woman is threatening to the social order, not only because she is indecently displaying the shape of her calf, but because she can go where she wants to go.
You have to put that in. They've earned it. The most ridiculous one which there were, very, very shockingly, no takers-- the indecent proposal. I'm going to read this because this is ridiculous.
So that was really a fascinating thing to learn, and I'm still learning about all of the differences of Umm Kulthum's music. And you're actually, I mean, in your last show, "Indecent ," which was on Broadway recently-- yes. You were incredible.
And so, because these men were threatening to rape, at least what appeared to be, other men, my dad said, well, these men wanted to have sex with men. with women, became inflamed with lust, one for another, and committed indecent acts with other men.
One made it a federal crime to communicate anything quote "indecent " online, knowing that the communication was to a minor, somebody 17 years of age or younger. The term "indecent " was not defined at all. The other provision made it a crime to quote "display" on the internet anything quote "patently offensive" if it was quote "available” to a minor,
as virtually everything is of course. Violation of either of these provisions was punishable by two years in prison. The ostensible purpose of the CDA was to shield children from exposure to indecent online material. Every politician, of course, wants to protect America's children from smut.
But instead of graciously conceding that the annoy provision was unconstitutional, Janet Reno's underlings came up with a shameless interpretation of the law that would rescue it. The government now claimed that the law didn't mean what it said. It did not, in fact, outlaw indecent communications at all. The government said the provision prohibiting quote "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent communications was limited to obscene communications."
it. The government now claimed that the law didn't mean what it said. It did not, in fact, outlaw indecent communications at all. The government said the provision prohibiting quote "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent communications was limited to obscene communications." Therefore, the government said since Clinton Fein wasn't in the business of putting obscene material online, the law didn't apply to him and his case should be dismissed. Lemme remind
communications were available all over the country, he remained at risk of prosecution elsewhere where other courts might read the law to mean what it actually said. All internet users would be living under a cloud, and an uncertain cloud, of a law that on its face made indecent , annoying communications a felony. So, we took the case on direct appeal to the Supreme Court. And on April 19th, 1999, the court handed down what had to be the shortest
court interpretation binding nationally. It was now the law of the land. So, in practical terms the litigation got Clinton Fein what he needed, the ability to communicate material that might be considered indecent and to annoy recipients without fear of criminal prosecution. What he didn't get but deserved was a ringing affirmation that the CDA annoy provision violated the First Amendment.
Our main attack was on a provision of the CDA that it was different from the ones in ACLU case. It was an update of the old federal obscene telephone call statute. As part of the CDA, Congress made it a crime, also punishable by two years in prison to say online anything quote "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent with intent to annoy another person." Clinton himself was annoyed and he wanted to annoy the politicians and prudes who egged him on. So, he launched a website called annoy.com , which he announced was
a genius/an asshole." The problem with annoy.com was that if the CDA was constitutional, Clinton then was subject to criminal prosecution for violating both the prohibition on posting indecency and the online communication of quote "indecent material with intent to annoy." So, we mounted a two-pronged attack. First, we filed a brief amicus curiae, a friend of