At 12:11 PM -0400 7/21/01, Declan McCullagh wrote:
This state of affairs creates a mild problem (to go back to the recent topic of discussion on cypherpunks) for those who strongly believe in the First Amendment when applied to nonprofit or not-for-profit speech but less so when it comes to speech that's part of a commercial transaction.
For instance, a guy ranting on Usenet, they say, should have free speech rights, but the tobacco companies or pharmaceutical companies can properly be muzzled. Let's hope Dmitry, a budding capitalist, doesn't fall into that same commercial-speech-can-be-regulated catchall.
There should be no restrictions on the speech of the ranter on Usenet. There should be no restrictions on the speech of a political campaigner. Ergo, both the Republican and Democrat versions of "campaign reform" are slam dunk violations of the First. There should be no restrictions on the speech of a tobacco or pharmaceutical or any other company. Ergo, restrictions on advertising...you all know the drill. The cigarette advertising restrictions of the 1960s were a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Not even the so-called commerce clause of the Constitution gives government the power to stifle the speech of a cigarette seller. Sadly, this and many other restrictions (sometimes bringing in "interstate commerce" in farfetched ways as an excuse) were not challenged. Or the courts refused to face up to the real issues. Now we are in a precarious position of having many forms of speech, many utterances, subject to various laws. We are not very far away from banning actual utterances which are in support of unapproved-of activities. Advertising, advocating illegal substances, hate speech, dislike speech, speech harmful to children and companion animals, the list goes on and on. "You can urge your friends to vote for John McCain in 2004, but if you spend more than the amount that McCain-Feingold says you may spend you are a felon." Free speech is for whisperers, it seems. So much for "Congress shall make no law..." --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns