Spin Control Alert (LI Newsday, 2/12/96)

[Declan B. McCullagh]

Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 14-Feb-96 Re: Spin Control Alert (LI
.. by Sten Drescher at 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