Fed appellate judge remarks re anonymity, free speech on the net

The Daily Journal, a LA/SF legal newspaper had an article today (9/12) about
a lunchtime address given by Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski last Monday
at an Internet Law Symposium in Seattle.

The article quotes Kozinski as saying "I have a severe problem with
anonymous E-mailers . . . You don't have a right to walk up to somebody's
door and knock with a bag over your head." The article says Kozinski likened
anonymous E-mail to menacing someone.

Kozinski also suggested that computer-generated or morphed images of
children involved in sexual acts may not be protected under the Constitution
because of ongoing trauma to the child, while computer-generated or morphed
images of adults would be protected. 

The article says that Kozinski was skeptical that he or other federal judges
necessarily agreed with the 3rd Circuit's ruling in _ACLU v. Reno_ (finding
the CDA unconstitutional). 

Kozinski is considered relatively conservative and relatively libertarian,
as 9th Circuit judges go. 

Copies of the Daily Journal should be available at larger newsstands in CA;
interested parties might try DeLauer's on Broadway near 14th St in Oakland
if you're in my neck of the woods. (They usually have extras for the
preceding week or so.) Also try Barnes & Noble in Santa Monica or the
newsstand whose name escapes me in Westwood, if you're down there. 

(Also in today's news, the 9th Circuit upheld a CA statute forbidding sales
of material considered "harmful to minors" from vending machines.)

 
--
Greg Broiles                |  "We pretend to be their friends,
gbroiles@netbox.com         |   but they fuck with our heads."
http://www.io.com/~gbroiles |
                            |

On Thu, 12 Sep 1996, Greg Broiles wrote:

> 
> (Also in today's news, the 9th Circuit upheld a CA statute forbidding sales
> of material considered "harmful to minors" from vending machines.)
> 

Oh, well, that just narrows it down really well.  Might as well just take 
out all of the machines now, because you could make a case that just 
about ANYTHING out of a vending machine is "harmful to minors".  Soda 
machines? Caffeine and sugar.  Snack machines?  Sugar again.  Those 
machines in supermarkets that give little toys?  A child *could* swallow 
one and choke.  And on and on and on.  

Even if this statute is meant only to apply to cigarette machines, which 
would seem to be the case given all of the anti-cig stuff going on now,
what good will it do?  I have never (in 20 years living in CA) seen a 
cigarette machine out where a child could get something from it, only 
inside a pool hall or another adult-only establishment.  Another one of 
those bills to "selectively enforce" things, perhaps?  Sheesh.



---

Zach Babayco

zachb@netcom.com  <----- finger for PGP public key
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/4127