The Unconstitutionality of the Communications Decency Act of 1996
The U.S. Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 on February 1, 1996. Title V of this Act was the Communications Decency Act, or CDA, whose main goal was to regulate pornography on the Internet. It was intended to be similar to the regulations that had already been passed allowing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate indecency on radio and Television (“Communications”). According to the Center for Democracy and Technology, the CDA prohibited “posting ‘indecent’ or ‘patently offensive’ materials in a public forum on the Internet – including web pages, newsgroups, chat rooms, or online discussion lists” (“Overview”). This could have potentially come to prohibit from the Internet some classic texts and other material which, although offensive to some, is protected in print under the First Amendment. It is also important to note that child pornography, which was a reason many supported the CDA, was already illegal under laws passed before the CDA (“Overview”). For these reasons, the CDA was challenged and ruled unconstitutional in a District Court in Pennsylvania, and the Supreme Court eventually upheld that decision (“Communications”).
In what could almost be considered a primary source, David L. Sobel of the University of Florida College of Law outlined many arguments against the CDA. His article in the Journal of Technology Law and Policy (University of Florida College of Law) was written after the March 21, 1996 decision in the Philadelphia, PA District Court but before the case ever went to the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union on June 26, 1997 (Sobel). It is interesting to note that many of Sobel’s ar...
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...cessed 6 November 2004. http://www.cdt.org/speech/cda/
“Communications Decency Act.” Wilkipedia Online Encyclopedia. Online. Accessed 6 November 2004. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act.
Sobel, David L. “The Constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act: Censorship on the Internet.” Journal of Technology Law and Policy (University of Florida College of Law). 1:1, Spring 1996. Online. Accessed 6 November 2004. http://journal.law.ufl.edu/~techlaw/1/sobel.html
Stevens, John Paul. “Opinion of the Court: Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.” Argued: March 19. 1997 --- Decided: June 26, 1997. Legal Information Institute. Online. Accessed 6 November 2004. http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/search/display.html?terms=CDA&url=/supct/html/histo rics/USSC_CR_0521_0844_ZO.html
There are many forces in the tragic play of Romeo and Juliet that are keeping the two young, passionate lovers apart, all emanating from one main reason. In this essay I will discuss these as well as how love, in the end, may have been the cause that led to the tragic deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Their strong attraction to each other, which some call fate, determines where their forbidden love will take them.
“I argue that it is personhood, and not genetic humanity, which is the fundamental basis for membership in the moral community” (Warren 166). Warren’s primary argument for abortion’s permissibility is structured around her stance that fetuses are not persons. This argument relies heavily upon her six criteria for personhood: A being’s sentience, emotionality, reason, capacity for communication, self-awareness, and having moral agencies (Warren 171-172). While this list seems sound in considering an average, healthy adult’s personhood, it neither accounts for nor addresses the personhood of infants, mentally ill individuals, or the developmentally challenged. Sentience is one’s ability to consciously feel and perceive things around them. While it is true that all animals and humans born can feel and perceive things within their environment, consider a coma patient, an individual suspended in unconsciousness and unable to move their own body for indeterminate amounts of time. While controversial, this person, whom could be in the middle of an average life, does not suddenly become less of a person
Constitutional Law was created as the chosen way to preserve the United States of America Constitution, ratified by Congress in 1783, in respect to its meanings, use, and enforcement, for free government, and equal justice under the law for all Americans. However, as times and generations have passed, the U.S. Constitution remains the supreme law of the land. Among the most contemporary and controversial elements are the challenges of evolving interpretations of the freedom of speech, and search warrants, which have both had a major impact on society. In particular, we explore speech not protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, as well as some circumstances when a search warrant is not required for a valid search. A conclusion is drawn and outlined based on research conducted to offer a concise in-depth observation of the above topics.
In William Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, imagery is found throughout as it is demonstrated in clothing, blood/murder, and finally lightness and darkness. It reveals different things about characters in play such as suspicion of Banquo and Macduff of Macbeth on how he became the King of Scotland, to Macbeth’s fear of losing the crown which revealed his evil side to commit murder to try and protect what he has wanted all of his life. Macbeth’s choices put his life in jeopardy. In life, there are little things people look over that may just open their eyes and see the world from a new
The following essay will examine the morality of abortion with specific reference to the writings of Don Marquis, Judith Jarvis Thompson, Peter Singer and Mary Anne Warren. I will begin by assessing the strength of the argument provided by Marquis which claims that abortion is impermissible because it deprives a being of a potential “future like ours,” and then go on to consider the writings of Singer, Thomson and Warren to both refute Marquis claims and support my assertion that abortion is morally permissible primarily because of the threat to the freedom and bodily autonomy of women extending the right to life to a foetus in utero would pose.
The power the Supreme Court has today stems from the case of Marbury v. Madison: a hearing
Schultz, David, and John R. Vile. The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America. 710-712. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale Virtual Reference Library, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. .
Warren begins her argument by explicitly defining a human person as someone who is a “full-fledged member of the moral community” (Timmons 385). Warren believes that this community consists of all and only people that possess the ability to express the five qualities that were previously mentioned as opposed to all human beings that possess the genetic code of humanity. Being a member of this community entitles a person to have full moral rights, including the rights of life and happiness, which must be respected. Warren justifies that the five qualities are sufficient criteria of determining the apparent “personhood” of a being by stating that such principles of humanity would be used when attempting to study alien life forms on distant planets. Despite discernable differences in physiological and (potentially) cultural development, these alien beings may demonstrate enoug...
Hall, Kermit L, eds. The Oxford guide to United States Supreme Court decisions New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Exercising the freedom of speech has two sides: the speaker and the listener. Censorship is unfair to both sides. When it takes away the speaker’s Constitutional freedom of expression, it simultaneously revokes the listener’s right to develop an informed opinion based on unobstructed truth. This opinion has been supported by the courts. In 1982, an informal agreement between several broadcasters from major media outlets known as the Code of Broadcaster Conduct, which banned “depictions of sexual encounters, violence and drug use, as well as excessive advertising,” was nullified because it was a violation of First Amendment rights (“Broadcast Decency”). Excessive censorship is viewed as unnecessary by both the American public and by the government that endorses it.
Caplan, A., & Arp, R. (2014). The deliberately induced abortion of a human pregnancy is not justifiable. Contemporary debates in bioethics (pp. 122). Oxford, West Sussex: Wiley.
The criterion for personhood is widely accepted to consist of consciousness (ability to feel pain), reasoning, self-motivation, communication and self-awareness. When Mary Anne Warren states her ideas on this topic she says that it is not imperative that a person meet all of these requirements, the first two would be sufficient. We can be led to believe then that not all human beings will be considered persons. When we apply this criterion to the human beings around us, it’s obvious that most of us are part of the moral community. Although when this criterion is applied to fetuses, they are merely genetic human beings. Fetuses, because they are genetically human, are not included in the moral community and therefore it is not necessary to treat them as if they have moral rights. (Disputed Moral Issues, p.187). This idea is true because being in the moral community goes hand in hand w...
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, mainly known as Mark Twain, was an American autho who shaped the country through his literary works. Twain’s childhood influenced his best works by giving him great stories and the right experience. His early life was key in developing his writing. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was shaped by his early experiences. Huck and Jim’s adventure illustrates the irony of the “peculiar institution” in the South. Ten years later, Twain wrote Puddn’Head Wilson, which further explored slavery. Mark Twain’s early life paved the way for his future success and influenced his best works, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Puddn’Head Wilson.
McCarthy, M. (2005). THE CONTINUING SAGA OF INTERNET CENSORSHIP: THE CHILD ONLINE PROTECTION ACT. Brigham Young University Education & Law Journal, (2), 83-101.
Imagine yourself to be a typical parent in this century. With very little time on your hands, your schedule is jammed tight: meals to fix, kids to get ready to school, getting yourself ready, a job to go to, pick up the kids, bills to pay, food to buy, etc. On one particular day, one of your children notifies you that once again they are going to the library to finish a school paper. No harm in that right? However, perhaps you would think differently if you knew your child wasn’t going to the library to merely finish his report, but to also look at pornography he had been introduced to on the internet. This is not only a reality at your local libraries, but also the topic of a long time debate in this country over responsible information access and censorship which has centered around the electronic access of documents. Society has proven intolerant of anything that hints of censorship due to the history of those who have tried to impose forms of extreme censorship–like Mcarthism, Hitler, and the like. The age of the 1960's and 1970's brought forth an era of liberation from restrictions and limitations within our own country.