Effects of S.314 (Communications Decency Act)

[Samuel Kaplin]

On Wed, 8 Feb 1995, Robert Rothenburg Walking-Owl wrote:

> > Last I heard, the Supreme Court had never made a ruling on this. They 
> > copped out and left it up to "Community Standards." This is partially why 
> > the AA bbs case was sucessfuly prosecuted in another state.
> 
> I beg to differ. Remember the "Seven Dirty Words Case"? (I think WBAI/Pacifica
> v. US, year?...). WBAI-FM in NY played George Carlin's "Seven words you can't
> say on television" skit and was taken to court. The court ruled that there
> were some obscene things which could be censored, but other things were
> indecent so could at most be relegated to late night hours (and they've
> struck down laws banning indecency 24 hours... I think some stations are
> suing with the claim that such relegation constitutes censorship).
> 
> Don't remember their exact formulation, which isn't very exact anyway.
> 

The question is: What is obsene? What the community in NYC considers 
obsene is sure a lot different than what the community in Elk River 
Minnesota considers obsene. (They've been trying to eject their one XXX 
bookstore for years now while NYC has the American Museum of Pornography 
at 42nd Street ;) ;) :) ) As you can see, obsenity depends where you are 
geographically located, at least according to our highest court. If 
community standards say it is obsene then it is. They never legally 
defined what constitutes something as being obsene or an obsenity.

Sam