So the test for obscenity is the Miller test? Sounds about right. Your answer was extremely helpful, and as a Social Studies teacher will help me give better answers in History and Government classes. Ignorance fought; Thanks!
(Ooops. I hope the prohibition (censorship?) against homework doesn’t apply to teachers.)
I should note that a lot (if not most) of pornography today would likely be considered “obscene” and thus not protected by the First Amendment. The fact the goverment (federal or state) has not acted in response is simply a matter of priorities and maybe even changing social standards.
George W. Bush’s Attorney General, John Ashcroft, famously spent thousands of dollars covering up the naked breasts of a statue, The Spirit of Justice, in the Justice Deparment Building. He was a social conservative and took special interest in pornography cases, and directed his Justice Department accordingly. He was supposed to give a speech announcing his plan to prosecute online pornography, but the speech (and the plan) was cancelled because of more pressing events that occured on the day of the planned speech: the 9/11 attacks.
That’s exactly why Al Gore invented the Internet! 
As much as I hate the puritanism of many in America, I heard John Ashcroft did this because every time he gave a speech the media would always take pictures with the two breasts above his head. Two boobs above your head does not make for a great photo op!!
By definition, we don’t know.
Even under Kilbride? Also, I read somewhere that one prong does use national standards, so that people in conservative communities aren’t in trouble for being a bit less conservative than their neighbors (which bothers me about the Miller test, I gotta say), though Wikipedia does not seem to currently bear me out.
Are you referring to the Ninth Circuit case of US v. Kilbride? (Constitutional law is not my area of expertise). If so, the Kilbride panel did not (and as a lower court, could not have) overturn Miller. What Kilbride did, from my understanding, is redefine the meaning of “community standard” in light of the expanded reach of the internet. Other circuits have not agreed with this view, however. And not to mention that the convictions of the defendants in Kilbride were ultimately affirmed.
Why didn’t he just move the loction where he gave speeches, then?
No, it’s because of his wacko personal views that he wasted our tax money on this.
Quite. It was also the same spot from which Attorneys General of both parties had been delivering speeches for years. If Edwin Meese wasn’t bothered by the location it hardly seems logical for Ashcroft to be bothered.
I lived in MO at the time. He (Ashcroft) was dangerously religious right. Popular in MO for that, but dangerous to society nonetheless.
This sounds similar to the shouting-Fire-in-a-crowded-theater exception to me. Basically, SCOTUS is saying Freedom of Speech doesn’t give you the right to shout “White Power!” in a crowded lunchroom.
The strangest example I’ve ever seen of government censorship is in Arkansas. If you say out loud “hey let’s go skinny dipping” then you’ve committed a crime in Arkansas. Handing out flyers extolling the virtues of skinny dipping is also a crime.
Arkansas 5-68-204(c) states “It shall be unlawful for any person, club, camp, corporation, partnership, association, or organization to advocate, demonstrate, or promote nudism, or for any person to rent, lease, or otherwise permit his land, premises, or buildings to be used for the purpose of advocating, demonstrating, or promoting nudism.”
I don’t disagree with your characterization, but concerning this incident, apparently he wasn’t the first Attorney General to object. Richard Thornburgh (Reagan’s AG after Meese) used curtains on a rental basis. Perhaps after people had a good time with Meese discussing a report on pornography while standing in front of a bare boob (singular - the statue only depicts one breast uncovered). Most would have known very well that an art deco statue is very remote from “pornography”, but they can hardly be faulted for letting that get in the way of a good gag.
According to a source quoted by wiki, Monica Goodling was the one who actually ordered it. It may have been at the behest of her boss, but it’s possible that it could have been on her own hook, too.
I’m not as outraged by the flag thing as Eugene Volokh is, or at least not for all of the same reasons. Primarily, if you’re living in the U.S., you’re going to see the flag and its imagery a lot, and you kinda need to suck it up. But it’s also popular among xenophobes and white supremacists, and I can see why the motives of a white person wearing a U.S. flag shirt to a Cinco de Mayo celebration might be questioned.
Moreover, I’m 36, but it’s my understanding that a couple of generations ago patriots would generally have found flag shirts in poor taste.
Has there been a test case?
I bet they could legitimately ban “demonstrating”, but I doubt seriously that a court would allow a ban on advocating or promoting.
But what gives that guy the right to be the spokesperson for our community standards? He’s a weirdo and I don’t agree with his views! I’m part of the community too - why wasn’t I consulted?
Suppose I live in a community. I’m generally ok with depictions of full-frontal nudity, but the family who lives in the house directly east of me oppose it. The elderly spinster who lives two houses down feels that anyone showing a bare elbow in public should have to register for life as a sex offender, while the single 25 year old guy who lives at the end of the block jacks off all day to midget bukkake. What are the standards of our community? I need to get some porno DVD’s screened to confirm that I can legally distribute them here - do we hold a blockwide vote for each one?
IIRC, the “yelling Fire in a crowded theatre” quote was used to justify imprisoning those urging draft resistance during the debate over WWI, and Justice Holmes later regretted it as one of his worst decisions. SCOTUS said Schenk by distributing flyers urging draft-age men to resist the draft, constituted a “clear and present danger”
Basically - “when a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.”
He later suggested “In subsequent cases, when it appeared to him that the Court was departing from the precedents established in Schenck and companion cases, Holmes dissented, reiterating his view that expressions of honest opinion were entitled to near absolute protection, but that expressions made with the specific intent to cause a criminal harm, or that threatened a clear and present danger of such harm, could be punished”. Funny how a quote justifying a strong denial of constitutional rights has become the defining phrase for free speech limits.
To get back to the OP - Censorship is the government (or some authority) forbidding the publication of certain information, or providing penalties for doing so. In the USA, this is quite limited.
Intimidation, self-censorship, restraint over fear of consequences - these all play a role in limiting information flow, but they rarely fully block the escape of this information.
Also, news outlets report what they think their viewership will be interested in. This is “meeting the market demand” rather than censorship. I doubt that the Alawite school children being bombed was 'censored". A better analogy - during the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping, a black girl about the same age also went missing (Minneapolis?). yet, Smart got all the publicity, the only reason the other case was mentioned at all was to demonstrate the “racist bias” of the media. In a way, they are only reflecting the community’s bias. It’s bad, it’s unfortunate, but it’s not censorship. (See, and I remember Smart but not the other girl’s name)
And don’t forget that it was at a school, where the officials were trying to prevent ethnic clashes between students on Cinco de Mayo, which had happened in the past at that school. There’s a lot of context to that decision.
Completely unrelated, but the extent/severity of sporting injuries are covered up in the media. I’ve always thought that it was because of the sports books in Vegas. Also, you don’t hear about NHL concussions: they’re “upper body injuries.”
I get the NY Times and the reasonably good San Jose Mercury News, so I can see how many news items never make it to the Merc. That’s not censorship or conspiracy, it is limited news budget. Due to cost cutting most papers have done away with their foreign correspondents and use the wire services instead. That limits the number and scope of the stories,
Plus I’m sorry to say there Middle East atrocity exhaustion has set in. Many of the bombings in Pakistan don’t make it into the paper either.
We just finished a sex discrimination case here involving a VC fund. It got daily coverage in the Merc, sporadic coverage in the Times, and probably no coverage besides the verdict anywhere else. Sexism? No, lack of impact to most of the world.
That has nothing to do with the media, the teams are only required to release limited injury information and the NHL is the worst of the lot. Granted, beat reporters often know more than they write, but they have long standing relationships with some players and have to be careful what they choose to publish or lose the players as a source.