Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 14-Feb-96 Re: Spin Control Alert (LI .. by Sten Drescher@grendel.te
DBM> (I assume your Bible argument is just posturing. No DBM> U.S. Attorney, political appointees they, ever will prosecute DBM> someone who puts the complete text of the King James Bible DBM> online.)
You assume wrong. While I certainly agree that no U.S. Attorney would voluntarily prosecute such a case, what happens when an athiest files charges against someone for carrying the Bible? IANAL, but couldn't the U.S. Attorney be forced to prosecute? Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so, since it has been reported (on this list by Tim Philp from a Toronto Star article) that the Bible has been removed from at least one Web site, presumably due to fear of prosecution.
Since you don't understand the way Federal criminal charges work, there's no reason I should take your argument seriously. (Hint: The *U.S. Attorney*, or an AUSA, files charges, not you, me, or a random "athiest.") As for this mythical Bible being removed, that is irrelevant to this discussion, which centers around a Bible being *prosecuted*. If I had a Bible on my web site (perhaps the TCM Vernacular Translation!) I'd remove it just to make a point. As I suspect the owner of the web pages did. Many of us have engaged in lofty rhetoric saying what *could* be prosecuted -- the Bible, and Catcher in the Rye, and other works of literature. Now that the law's passed, let's talk about what *will* be prosecuted. It will be material that U.S. Attorneys think will get them a conviction. NAMBLA materials, stories about pedophilia, paraphilia, and bestiality, and images of hardcore porn -- preferably gay porn -- that are available to minors. This law is dangerous because it is so overbroad that prosecutions can be made exceedingly selectively -- depending on what a US Atty thinks will offend a jury composed of folks from his area of the country. -Declan