text:
Consent Counts Mission Statement
Mission: To decriminalize consensual BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Dominance/submission, sadomasochism) in U.S. law by ensuring that consent will be recognized as a defense to criminal charges brought under assault laws and other statutes.
Unlike most other sexual issues (rape, for example), BDSM activities—a "scene", a dungeon party, a Dominant/submissive or Master/slave relationship—can result in a criminal prosecution and conviction even where the activity is entirely consensual. It's important to remember that most BDSM activities are treated as violence and not sex. This is not speculation; in 2010, NCSF's incident response help line received 204 requests for help concerning criminal prosecutions.
NCSF's research of cases throughout the United States revealed that not a single appellate court decision has allowed consent as a defense to a BDSM-based criminal prosecution for assault, sexual abuse, etc. Even where a state law allows the consent defense in cases that do not involve "serious bodily injury," appellate courts have ruled that the use of nipple clamps or hot wax produces "serious bodily injury".
The realization that our communities are at risk of criminal prosecution led to the launch of the "Consent Counts" initiative in 2006 at a Leather Leadership Roundtable at NGLTF's Creating Change. At this Roundtable and one held subsequently at the Leather Leadership Conference, decriminalization of consensual BDSM was determined to be the number one priority of the BDSM/Leather/Fetish communities. It was subsequently determined that NCSF would take a leadership and coordinating role. This is, with the related initiative to change the way BDSM is viewed by psychiatry in the DSM criteria, NCSF's most important project.
Our "Consent Counts" initiative is multi-faceted. We have researched the statutes, court decisions and relevant law review articles in all 50 states, and the results of that research are available on the NCSF website. We are presenting programs and holding meetings with our communities across the country, to build understanding of the issues and to develop consensus on an effective approach to nationwide activism. A national discussion guide has been created to facilitate local discussions to assist in the drafting of a community-wide statement on consent at LLC at Seattle 2013 with the goal of decriminalization and to promote local and national activism. This aspect of our initiative also includes an EOP focused on Frequently Asked Questions about the criminal law issues and on Best Practices by which individuals and groups can reduce the likelihood of prosecution and—equally important—enable us to argue more effectively that what we do is mutually pleasurable erotic activity (not violence) and
that care is taken to ensure consensuality and avoid excessive stimulation or unintended harm. In addition, NCSF has published primers for both alleged victims and for those accused of consent violations.
The activism aspect of "Consent Counts" will be equally multifaceted. We have already begun reaching out to law enforcement, to legislators and to educators. In the coming year, we will be presenting continuing legal education (CLE) programs to lawyers, working with bar associations and law student groups, and participating selectively with "friend of the court" briefs in legal cases. Further down the road is the development of grass roots activism to change state laws and law enforcement practices.
In all of this, we need your help. You can report BDSM-related criminal investigations and prosecutions to NCSF. Your local groups can host "Consent Counts" presentations and discussions on activism strategies and on community practices that can help avoid criminal problems. As we go forward, we are seeking volunteers for various forms of activism and educational outreach. And, of course, your continuing donations to the NCSF Foundation (tax-deductible) and NCSF are essential for making this project effective.
Incident Reporting & Response Testimonials
Every year, NCSF helps hundreds of people, events, groups and businesses that are being persecuted for their association with the BDSM, swing and polyamory communities.
NCSF is here to help you -- the SM, swing, and polyamory communities. If you have a problem with discrimination, persecution, or harassment because of your sexual expression, please contact NCSF for assistance.
NCSF is not legal aid, nor do we offer specific legal advice for individuals. NCSF is a resource for the members of the kink, poly and Lifestyle communities and for people seeking information about them. NCSF provides publicly available information on kink and nonmonogamy for consenting adults. We advocate on behalf of the BDSM, swing and polyamory communities.
The following are statements from events, businesses and individuals NCSF has helped.
Why You Should Care
Because your sexual expression...
- Can result in discrimination, prosecution, and even violence against you
- Can cause you to lose your children
- Can cause you to lose your job or your income
- Can lead you into a maze of antiquated laws and regulations you never even knew existed
- Is arbitrarily criminalized by state and local authorities
- Is used by the radical right to marginalize minority groups
- Can result in the invasion of your privacy by the government, both within your own home or in educational, social and group environments
IR Criteria
The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF)'s Incident Response (IR) Program uses three primary criteria for taking a case:
- The issue must openly, directly, and specifically relate to BDSM, swing or poly activities between consenting adults; in other words, the problems you face must relate to or be caused from your involvement in BDSM, swing or poly without question.
- The issue must be one whose outcome or precedent could affect not just the individual filing the complaint, but potentially a significant number of people with the same, or similar, problem.
- The incident needs to have a reasonable chance of a successful resolution: usually indicating that the individual filling has not also been found guilty of a crime other than behaviors currently considered illegal relating to BDSM, swing or poly.
NCSF in the News
For more information and current press releases.
S&M! Lewd Ken dolls! Worhington's wild weekend.
The Other Paper (Columbus, Ohio)
February, 12, 2009
Despite Right Wing Pressure, Straight BDSM Gathering Goes Forward
The Boston Edge
February 10, 2009
Interview with Susan Wright, Spokesperson for the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom
Kasidie Magazine
October 2008
Shrinks: Kinky Sex is a Mental Disorder
Mom Logic
September, 19, 2008
For some, Gitmo interrogation techniques are a real turn-on
New Jersey Star-Ledger
August 2008
Leather Scene Not as Gay as Imagined: Many gay folk in the bondage S/M scene relate more to the leather community than the LGBT community
By Bill Schoell
NY Blade
August 08, 2008
Man on video in R. Kelly trial: He did what?
By Rex W. Huppke
Chicago Tribune
June 8, 2008
Daddy do-right; The Sexies Awards
By Dan Savage
Detroit Metro Times
March 5, 2008
Death shines light on dangers of sex play
By Carly Weeks
Globe and Mail
February 28, 2008
Bound and Flagged: Members of Seattle kink community face discrimination in custody battles
By Jason Simms
The Stranger
February 21, 2007
When three's no crowd
By Rachel Breitman
Gay City News
October 25, 2007
Media, critics get whipped into frenzy by Leather Fest
By Jefferson Siegel and Lincoln Anderson
The Villager (NYC)
October 10 - 16, 2007
Pollard denied access to papers; Justices refuse to hear appeal
By Guy Taylor
The Washington Times
March 21, 2006
Arts Briefly: Justices reject photographer's appeal
By Ben Sisario
New York Times
March 21, 2006
Foes of Anti-porn Law Prep Appeal To Supreme Court
By Fresia Rodriguez Cadavid
Technology Daily
August 22, 2005
Spanking Jessica Cutler: Capitol Hill attorney sues Washingtonienne for exposing his kinks
By Rachel Kramer Bussel
Village Voice
May 31, 2005
Nothing wrong with sex
UCLA Daily Bruin
Feb 14, 2005
Waltham sex boutique aims to attract couples
By Joshua Myerov
Boston Globe
October 14, 2004
Sex, art & politics takes on John Ashcroft
By Susan Wright
San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia
August 30, 2004
Iowa State U.: Iowa State Board of Regents next to receive Cuffs appeal.
By Morris L. Manning
The America's Intelligence Wire
June 1, 2004
Iowa State U.: Members of Iowa State U. bondage group appeal assault verdict
By Tom Barton
The America's Intelligence Wire
May 3, 2004
East Carolina U.: Club focusing on fringe sexuality denied East Carolina U. association.
The America's Intelligence Wire
April 8, 2004
Iowa State U.: Group wants Iowa State U. Cuffs charges dropped.
The America's Intelligence Wire
By Tom Barton
February 23, 2004
Kenner police heavy-handed
The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)
October 20, 2003
Sex club is shut down: Restraining order targets 'private' fetish group in Lakewood
By Ann Schrader
Denver Post
May 21, 2003
Queen of Pain, Dominatrix: I'll whip courts over sex rap
Philadelphia Daily News
August 27, 2003
Slap leather, S&M lovers: 'Thunder' to peal soon
By Ann Schrader
Denver Post
June 1, 2003
Controlling clubs a zoning matter
By Peter Ward
The Sun (Lowell, MA)
December 28, 2002
A taste of the whip for Saddam: U.N. weapons inspector Jack McGeorge's leadership role in the Washington S/M scene isn't a liability, says a friend -- it'll help him distinguish between fantasy and reality.
By Kerry Lauerman
December 3, 2002
Monitor irons out kinks with UN
By Joe Williams
NY Daily News
November 30, 2002
U.N. begins searches in Iraq
By Maggie Farley, John J. Goldman And John Hendren
Los Angeles Times
November 28, 2002
No background checks on applicants: Critics say U.N. inspectors are inexperienced
By James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post
November 28, 2002
Cendant, sex lobby communicate but don't make up
Lodging Hospitality
October 1, 2002
Cendant spars with sexual freedom lobby
Lodging Hospitality
August 1, 2002
Bound by a boycott
The Advocate
May 28, 2002
Sex-Oriented convention opens today despite effort to ban it
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
April 27, 2002
What is going on in that ballroom?
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
April 25, 2002
Senator will try to block sadomasochism seminar
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
April 22, 2002
Senator wants sex seminar outlawed, says event is 'absolutely dangerous'
Belleville News-Democrat (St . Louis, MO)
April 22, 2002
Hotel will host seminar, despite objections from Southern Baptists...
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
April 7, 2002
One more faction whips Congress
The American Enterprise
March 1, 2002
Group with unconventional tastes draws ire over gathering
By Burt Constable
Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)
February 7, 2002
The erotic web offensive
By Annalee Newitz
January 14, 2002
New suit targets obscenity law
By Julia Scheeres
December 12, 2001
Tough Love: Inside the city's growing sadomasochistic scene
Philadelphia Daily News
July 10, 2001
Kinky find a cause in 'Paddleboro'
By Amy Pagnozzi
Hartford Courant
March 9, 2001
Lawsuit targets last scraps of Net-obscenity law
By Sam Costello
December 20, 2001
New Suit Targets Obscenity Law
By Julia Scheeres
December 12, 2002
1976 case seen a key to Attleboro sex party charges
By Cindy Rodriguez
Boston Globe
July 17, 2000
N.Y. woman charged in Mass. spank party
By Leo Standora
NY Daily News
July 13th 2000
Safe, sane and consensual' is rule for sadomasochists
By Stacy Downs and Dawn Bormann
The Kansas City Star
June 16, 2000
NCSF Profile
An interview with Leigha Fleming, then-interim Executive Director of NCSF.
On Our Backs
Tristan Taormino interview former NCSF Executive Director Judy Guerin.
Case summary of Nea vs. Findlay
|March 31, 1998
|June 25, 1998
|Freedom of Speech -- Whether a law requiring the National Endowment for the Arts to consider "general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public" before awarding grants to artistic projects is impermissibly viewpoint-based and unconstitutionally vague.
|8-1; No, the law does not violate the First Amendment.
In 1990, Congress amended the statute governing the National Endowment for the Arts to require that the NEA chairperson consider "general standards of respect and decency for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public" when awarding art grants. Four artists Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes and Tim Miller, known collectively as the "NEA 4" sued in federal court, claiming the so-called "decency clause" violated the First Amendment and forced artists to engage in self-censorship in order to obtain NEA funding.
The trial judge ruled in favor of the "NEA 4," ruling that the decency clause was both unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit affirmed for "essentially the same reasons as the district court." The 9th Circuit determined the decency clause was void for vagueness and for violating the First Amendmentâs general prohibition against content- and viewpoint-based discrimination.
|Legal Principles at Issue:
|A bedrock principle of the First Amendment is that government may not prohibit speech just because it finds the speech offensive or disagreeable. Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989). Sexual expression which is indecent but not obscene is also protected by the First Amendment. Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. Sable, 492 U.S. 115 (1989). The First Amendment protects against viewpoint discrimination above other forms of content discrimination. Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819 (1995). When the government promotes a particular program and defines the limit of a program, it can fund speech that promotes its goals, even to the detriment of other goals. Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1991). "There is a basic difference between direct state interference with a protected activity and state encouragement of an alternative activity consonant with legislative policy." Maher v. Roe, 432 U.S. 464 (1977).
|Legal Basis for Decision:
|The decency clause only requires the NEA to consider "general standards of decency and respect" rather than directly precluding certain categories of speech. The nature of arts funding requires a certain level of content-based judgment. Because the NEA 4 did not allege "discrimination in any particular funding decision," the Court determined that it had not been presented with a grant denial on the basis of viewpoint.
|This Case is Important Because:
|The Court did not express its usual heightened concern over viewpoint discrimination, because the statute only instructs the NEA to consider "decency and respect" rather than to make funding decisions based solely on those grounds. The decision seems to afford an opportunity for content- and even viewpoint-based laws to be ruled constitutional, as long as they do not directly target certain types of speech.
|"The terms of the provision are undeniably opaque, and if they appeared in a criminal statute or regulatory scheme, they could raise substantial vagueness concerns." (J. OâConnor)
"Finally, although the First Amendment certainly has application in the subsidy context, we note, that the government may allocate competitive funding to criteria that would be impermissible were direct regulation of speech or a criminal penalty at stake." (J. OâConnor)
"The decency and respect proviso mandates viewpoint-based decisions in the disbursement of government subsidies, and the government has wholly failed to explain why the statute should be afforded an exemption from the fundamental rule of the First Amendment that viewpoint discrimination in the exercise of public authority over expressive activity is unconstitutional." (J. Souter)
|Writing for the Majority:
|Justice O'Connor
|Justice Scalia
|Writing for the Dissent:
|Justice Souter
Communications Decency Act Lawsuit
Plaintiffs Barbara Nitke ("Nitke"), the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom Foundation (collectively, "NCSF") respectfully submit this memorandum is support of their motion for a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the obscenity prong of the Communications Decency Act, Section 502 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (codified at 47 U.S.C. §223(a)(1)(B)) (the CDA), and in opposition to the motion of defendants John Ashcroft ("Ashcroft"), Attorney General of the United States and the United States of America (collectively, the "Government") to dismiss the complaint herein.
Plaintiffs have filed this civil action pursuant to Section 561 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Act of Feb. 8, 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-104, Title V, Subtitle C §561, 110 Stat. 56), and have requested, pursuant to that section, that a three judge district court be empaneled as set out in 28 U.S.C. §2284. On April 1, 2002, by order of the Hon. John M. Walker, Jr., Chief Circuit Judge, plaintiffs' request was granted, and a three-judge court, comprised of the Hon. Robert D. Sack, C.J., the Hon. Richard M. Berman, D.J., and the Hon. Gerard E. Lynch, D.J., was convened to hear and determine this action.
Plaintiffs now move for the issuance of a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the CDA, asserting its facial unconstitutionality, while the Government conversely moves to dismiss on the grounds that the statute is plainly constitutional. An examination of the governing caselaw establishes beyond cavil that the Government's motion must be denied, and the plaintiffs' motion should be granted.
It is well established that the regulation of expressive content in each medium must be assessed for First Amendment purposes by standards tailored to that medium. Despite this long standing position, the Government argues for a mechanistic, cookie-cutter application of obscenity precedents arising in physically-sited media, well situated for a geographic community analysis, to a medium which is equally sited in and accessible from every jurisdiction, whether metropolis or hamlet. Absent the harms which the geographic interpretation of "local community standards" was created to address, the Government nonetheless asserts that the standard should be applied in a manner that concededly will transform the local community standards from a shield into a sword. This result has been characterized by the Supreme Court as creating a content-based restriction of speech of unprecedented breadth.
The Government would have this Court hold, contrary to the concerns expressed by the United States Supreme Court in Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 877-878 (1997), and by a clear majority of the Justices in Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U.S. ___ (May 13, 2002), that the placing of expressive materials on the Internet should be treated as a simultaneous physical distribution of those materials to each community within all 50 states with Internet access. Such a holding would transform the Internet from a free-ranging, open forum into a forum in which only speech that is inoffensive under the most prudish standard is safe from fear of prosecution. As much speech considered obscene in some communities would be found non-obscene in others, the Government's approach would allow for prosecution in the most restrictive community of speech which is fully protected throughout the vast majority of the United States and abroad. This result would chill much protected speech, and would destabilize the regime of Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), under which each community was permitted to define for itself the required level of decorum for sexually-themed speech, but not for neighboring or even far-flung communities which may have dramatically different norms.
Accordingly, the complaint is not subject to dismissal, and plaintiffs have demonstrated the traditional requirements for the issuance of preliminary relief : (1) the prospect of irreparable injury inflicted by deprivation, however brief, of First Amendment rights; (2) the required showing of likelihood of success on the merits; and (3) a balance of equities favoring relief.
Plaintiffs Have Asserted And Demonstrated The Requisites For Entry of A Preliminary Injunction
In support of their motion for a preliminary injunction, plaintiffs "must establish irreparable injury, and either (a) a likelihood of success on the merits, or (b) a sufficiently serious question going to the merits, with a balance of hardships tipping in favor of the party requesting a preliminary injunction." Tunick v. Safir, 209 F.3d 67, 70 (2d Cir. 2000). Where, as here, the plaintiffs seek to "stay governmental action taken in the public interest pursuant to a statutory or regulatory scheme," they must show "irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction and a likelihood of success on the merits." Id.; see also, Latino Officers Association v. City of New York, 196 F.3d 458, 462 (2d Cir. 1999) (granting injunction); Bery v. City of New York, 97 F.3d 689, 694 (2d Cir 1996)(granting injunction); Metropolitan Council , Inc. v. Safir, 99 F. Supp.2d 438, 442 (S.D.N.Y. 2000) (citing cases; granting injunction); Amandola v. Town of Babylon, 251 F.3d 339, 342 (2001) (granting injunction and awarding judgment as a matter of law to plaintiffs). In this case, "because violations of First Amendment rights are presumed irreparable, the very nature of plaintiffs' allegations satisfy the requirement that [they] show irreparable injury." Tunick, 209 F.3d at 70 (internal quotations and citations omitted); quoting, Bery, 97 F.3d at 694; citing, Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976); Amandola, 251 F.3d at 342. As the Supreme Court made amply clear in Elrod, "[t]he loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury." This strong recognition of the fragility of speech rights in the face of governmental actions has led the Second Circuit to repeatedly hold that "a rebuttable presumption of irreparable harm arises in First Amendment cases." Id.; citing, Tunick, 209 F.3d at 70; Beal v. Stern, 184 F.3d 117, 123 (2d Cir.1999); Bery v. City of New York, 97 F.3d at 694.
The Court in Amandola acknowledged that in other cases the Courts in this Circuit have required the plaintiffs establish "an actual chilling effect" by competent testimony. Id.; see also, Pugh v. Goord, 184 F. Supp.2d 326, 332, n. 3 (S.D.N.Y. 2002) (Lynch, J.). In the instant case, the accompanying declarations of Barbara Nitke, Arthur C. Danto, Howard Rheingold, Candida Royalle, Robert and Carleen Thomas and Susan Wright present just such testimony of actual and potential chill of speech, as further set forth at Point III, based on their own individual observations and/or experiences. As these declarations establish, the speech of several speakers has actually been impacted by the prospect of prosecution. Ms. Nitke's work, for example, has been well received in some communities, but challenges the standards of others. (Nitke Decl. at ¶¶14-17). In addition to Ms. Nitke, many of the members of NCSF have websites, and have legitimate grounds to fear that the application of the most restrictive community standards to their speech could result in a colorable prosecution of their speech. (Wright Decl. ¶¶at 9-13). Moreover, as established by the testimony of Professor Danto, a sufficient divergence of views as to the proper quantum of value to be accorded artistic works exists such that the absence of clarity, along with the Government's claim to a roving commission, deprives the artist or commentator of a safe harbor in dealing with sexual themes on the Internet.
Because plaintiffs have, under either standard, established irreparable injury, the sole question remaining is whether they have established a clear likelihood of success on the merits. As courts within the Second Circuit have noted, "the issue of irreparable injury merges with the question of success on the merits." Metropolitan Council, Inc., 99 F. Supp. 2d at 443; following, Latino Officers Ass'n, 196 F.3d at 462; Beal, 184 F.3d 117, 123-124 (2d Cir. 1999); see also, Tunick, 209 F.3d at 70. As will be seen in the succeeding sections of this memorandum, plaintiffs have established a clear likelihood of success on the merits of this action, and thus the requested injunction should be granted.
Speech Regulations Evolved in Traditional Media Do Not Perfectly Translate To the Internet
The starting place for evaluation of the CDA under the First Amendment is a recognition of the simple fact, repeatedly recognized by the Supreme Court, that each medium of expression "must be assessed for First Amendment purposes by standards suited to it, for each may present its own problems." Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 557 (1975); Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. at 868. Thus, it is not sufficient to flatly state that obscenity is not protected speech under the First Amendment. That truism, established since Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957),1 does not resolve the questions of definition.
The nature of the Internet creates difficulties in applying concepts evolved in more physically limited media; problems which the Supreme Court and other courts, as opposed to the Government, have recognized as impacting upon the application of such content-based regulations as involved herein. Thus, in Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. at 851, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the battery of Internet communication devices "constitute a unique medium-known to its users as cyberspace-located in no particular geographic location but available to anyone, anywhere in the world, with access to the Internet." See Voyeur Dorm, L.C. v. City of Tampa, 265 F.3d 1232, 1236-1237 (11th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 152 L.Ed.2d 115 (2002) (declining to apply local zoning ordinance governing adult entertainment establishments to premises where internet content is generated because "the public offering occurs over the Internet in 'virtual space'"); Gucci America, Inc. v. Hall & Assocs., 135 F. Supp.2d 409, 421 (S.D.N.Y. 2001) (Berman, J.) (Noting that "there are crucial differences between a 'brick and mortar outlet' and the online Web that dramatically affect a First Amendment analysis," distinguishing trademark law's application to Internet)(quoting and approving as "no doubt true" observation to the same effect in ACLU v. Reno, 217 F.3d 162, 169-170 (3d Cir. 2000), cert granted sub nom. ACLU v. Ashcroft, vacated other grounds, 535 U.S. ___, No. 00-1293 (May 13, 2002) (internal citation omitted)); Cyberspace Communications, Inc. v. Engler, 55 F. Supp.2d 737-743-744 (E.D.Mich. 1999), aff'd, 238 F.3d 420 (6th Cir. 2000) summ. judg. granted same grounds, 142 F. Supp.2d 827 (E.D.Mich. 2001) (same).
The application of existing constitutional principles to the Internet medium is a functional, not a formal one. Indeed, the evolution of the "borderless world of the Internet raises profound questions concerning the relationship among the several states and the relationship of the federal government to each state." Swedenburg v. Kelly, 2000 WL 1264285 (September 5, 2000) (Berman, J.) (quoting American Libraries Association v. Pataki, 969 F. Supp. 160, 168 (S.D.N.Y. 1997)); PSINET, Inc. v. Chapman, 167 F. Supp.2d 878, 887-891 (W.D. Va. 2001) (applying Commerce Clause analysis to Internet to strike down state statute regulating adult websites). In short, the mere enunciation of settled principle does not automatically resolve the questions of application of these principles to the new medium at hand.
The Government seeks to analogize this new medium of expression to the ban on obscene "dial-a-porn" upheld in Sable Communications v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115 (1989). However, that case involved a facial challenge to the very concept of regulating commercialized obscenity over any interstate medium, in that case, telephone communications. In view of the individualized nature of telephone communications, and the readily identifiable location of callers-in, the Court found it appropriate that commercial providers be held to the standard of the area comprising the market from which they solicited and accepted calls. 492 U.S. at 125-126. Under those circumstances, the statute was held not to create a "national standard" of what is obscene, in violation of the Court's rule in Miller. Id. The Court explicitly ruled that in Sable that the "cases before us do not require us to decide what is obscene or what is indecent, but rather to determine whether Congress is empowered to prohibit transmission of obscene telephonic communications" to the various locales, each of which is equipped with its own local community standards. Plaintiffs herein, unlike those in Sable, do not claim a global immunity from the application of obscenity law to this new medium.
This case, as opposed to the facts in Sable, genuinely poses a problem of definition. In a manner rather reminiscent of its argument in Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844 (1997), soundly rejected by the Supreme Court in that decision, the Government herein ignores the problem, rotely intoning that just as mailing books or magazines to another state subjects the mailer to the local community standards of the destination, dissemination through the Internet subjects the speaker to any and all communities which can access the speech. (Government memo at 13, quoting Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 106 (1974)). Unlike the books and telephone calls at issue in Sable and Hamling, the Internet "is wholly insensitive to geographic distinctions, and Internet protocols were designed to ignore rather than document geographic location." Cyberspace Communications, Inc., 55 F. Supp.2d at 744 (citing Pataki, 969 F. Supp. at 167, 170). See Reno, 521 U.S. at 851.
This contrast and its implications were the basis of the opinions of a clear majority of the Supreme Court in Ashcroft v. ACLU. In that case, the Government's argument, reiterated here, that the rulings in Sable and Hamling apply to the Internet to foreclose a facial challenge to community-standard based regulation, was explicitly rejected by the opinions of a majority of the Supreme Court. Thus, Justice O'Connor opined that "I agree with Justice Kennedy that, given Internet speakers' inability to control the geographic location of their audience, expecting them to bear the burden of controlling the recipients of their speech, as we did in Hamling and Sable may be entirely too much to ask, and would potentially suppress an inordinate amount of expression." (Ashcroft v. ACLU, O'Connor, J., slip op. at 2). Justice Kennedy, joined by Justices Souter and Ginsburg, similarly rejected the application of those precedents: "In striking down COPA's predecessor, the Reno Court identified this precise problem, and if the Hamling and Sable Courts did not find the problem fatal, that is because those cases involved quite different media. The national variation in community standards constitutes a particular burden on Internet speech." (Ashcroft v. ACLU, Kennedy, J., slip op. at 7). Justice Breyer similarly distinguished Sable and Hamling, finding that "To read the statute as adopting the community standard of every locality in the United States would provide the most puritan of communities with a heckler's veto affecting the rest of the nation. The technical difficulties associated with efforts to confine Internet material to particular geographic areas make the problem particularly serious." (Ashcroft v. ACLU, Breyer, J., slip op. at 2).2 Justice Stevens likewise denied the applicability of Sable and Hamling to the Internet. (Stevens, J. dissenting, slip op. at 5, 6-7). While other factors split the Justices, a clear majority of six Justices rejected the argument, made again by the Government here, that Sable and Hamling control as to the Internet.
Rather, the six Justices who declined to join the opinion of Justice Thomas each opined that, upon an appropriate showing, enforcement of geographic local community standards to speech on the Internet under an obscenity theory would violate the free speech rights of content providers. In Point III, the various factors set forth in establishing the appropriate showing at least according to five of the six justices are discussed in the context of the sweeping prohibitions of the CDA. That showing, and the inherently overbroad and vague sweep of the CDA, plaintiffs submit, warrant the entry of the order which they seek.
The CDA's Reliance On Geographic "Local Community Standards" in Defining Obscenity on the Internet Renders the Statute Overbroad
The CDA, as it presently stands, bans materials which are deemed to be "obscene" from the Internet. Although couched as a provision for the protection of minors, the CDA by its terms has been authoritatively held to burden much adult speech. The CDA is codified at 47 U.S.C. §223, and prohibits the "knowing transmission of any ... communication which is obscene or indecent ... knowing that the recipient under 18 years of age."3 In Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844 (1997), the Supreme Court authoritatively found that the section above quoted would burden communications between adults, stating that "Given the size of the potential audience for most messages, in the absence of a viable age verification process, the sender must be charged with knowing that one or more minors will view it." 521 U.S. at 876. Thus, the Court concluded, "these limitations must inevitably curtail a significant amount of adult communication on the Internet." 521 U.S. at 877. See also Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. at ___, (Thomas, J.) slip op. at 4 ("existing technology did not include any effective method for a sender to prevent minors from obtaining access to its communications on the Internet without also denying access to adults"); (quoting Reno); see also, PSINET, Inc. v. Chapman, 167 F. Supp.2d at 887-890. This fact remains true whether the section of the statute applied is the indecency prong at issue in Reno, or the obscenity provision at issue here. See e.g., PSINET, (similar state statute invalid as to both obscene and harmful to minors speech).
Thus, the question before this Court is not whether the CDA limits speech directed at adults by adults in the interest of protecting the interests of children; that question has been litigated and resolved. Nor is the question whether obscenity, long deemed speech outside the protective ambit of the First Amendment, has somehow acquired a talismanic immunity based upon the fact that it is disseminated over a new medium. Plaintiffs have not alleged that it does. Rather, the question is whether the application of the CDA's unelaborated use of the word "obscenity" in the absence of a further statutory definition, creates a definition of obscenity that would unconstitutionally "restrict[] substantially more speech than is justified." Ashcroft, 535 U.S. at ___, (Kennedy, J., concurring) at 1 (citing Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 615 (1973)). Plaintiffs submit, with respect, that the statute does just this, and is as a result violative of the First Amendment rights of the plaintiffs.
In Ashcroft, the Supreme Court rendered no one opinion disposing of the principal question raised herein: does the application of local geographic community standards to determine patent offensiveness and prurient appeal in a federal obscenity Internet statute render that statute overbroad? However, in that case, four of the opinions, adhered to by a clear six-member majority, reaffirmed the constitutionally problematic nature of such regulation under the First Amendment, as originally asserted in Reno, 521 U.S. at 877, and stated that an obscenity provision like that in question here was subject to facial challenge.
Justice O'Connor stated that the failure of the plaintiffs in that case left open the prospect that "[i]n future facial challenges to regulation of obscenity on the Internet, litigants may make a more convincing case of substantial overbreadth." (O' Connor, J., concurring, slip op. at 2). She continued: "Where adult speech is concerned, for instance, there may in fact be a greater degree of disagreement about what is patently offensive or appeals to the prurient interest." Id. Thus, the statute at issue, upon the appropriate factual showing of variation, "would potentially suppress an inordinate amount of expression." Id.
Justice Breyer who would apply a narrowing saving construction to COPA, explicitly concluded that quot;[t]o read the statute as adopting the local community standards of every community in the United States would provide the most puritan of communities with a heckler's Internet veto affecting the rest of the Nation." (Breyer, J., concurring, slip op. at 2). Like Justice O'Connor, he concluded that the technical difficulties of controlling the destination of speech via the Internet rendered this problem "particularly serious." Id.
Justice Stevens, dissenting in Ashcroft, stated that, "[i]n the context of the Internet, however, community standards become a sword rather than a shield." (Stevens, J., dissenting, slip op. at 1). He went on to find that, under the approach laid out in the CDA, "the community that wishes to live without certain material not only rids itself, but the entire Internet of the offending speech," in a manner inimical to the First Amendment. Id. at 11.
Along the same lines, Justice Kennedy opined that "[t]he national variation in community standards constitutes a particular burden on Internet speech," (Kennedy, J. concurring, slip op. at 7). Prior to declaring COPA unconstitutional on these grounds, Justice Kennedy, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Souter, sought clarification of factors potentially limiting the scope of the statute: (1) the scope of the definition of community; (2) any statutory specification as to what the "work" to be judges as a whole is; (3) any limitations on venue that could reduce the number of potentially applicable community standards; and (4) evidence as to the factual divergence of local community standards between jurisdictions, to ascertain that indeed speech would be subject to contrary rules under the statute. Upon such a showing, Justice Kennedy opined, "the ultimate conclusion" that this burden on Internet speech is unconstitutional "may prove correct."
Below, plaintiffs first address the absence of a definition of obscenity under the CDA, and the resultant breadth of the statute's application of the "default" definition to the Internet. Then, plaintiffs establish the failure of the drafters to narrow the statute's scope by either limiting the universe of speakers subject to it, or by defining what constitutes a "work" subject to its prohibitions in the context of the Internet. A similar failure to limit the statute's sweep by means of any venue restrictions follows. Finally, plaintiffs discuss the First Amendment consequences of this statute's undisputed holding all speech to the standards of the most puritan community in the Nation, the factor most important to each of the six justices.
1. The CDA's Obscenity Provision and the Miller Test
As acknowledged by the Government, the CDA does not contain a definition of what transmissions are "obscene." (Government memorandum of law ("Gov. Memo.") at 17). The parties agree that the silence of Congress in delineating the scope of the term obscene leaves as the Court's only guidance in understanding what Congress sought to proscribe the permissive language of the Supreme Court in describing the range of materials that could fall within the unprotected class of speech deemed obscene in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973). As Chief Justice Burger wrote for the majority in Miller, the basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Id. (Internal quotation marks and citations omitted); Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. at ___, slip op. at 10. As subsequently enunciated, this standard can apply to federally defined obscenity regulation. Hamling, 418 U.S. at 118. Moreover, subsequent decisions have made clear that, in the context of traditional so-called "bricks-and-mortar media," the local community standards applied are geographical in nature. Ashcroft v. ACLU slip op. at 11, n. 7 (Thomas, J. for plurality), citing, Pope v. Illinois, 481 U.S. 497, 500 (1987). Consistent with this, both parties acknowledge and all of the justices in Ashcroft held, both the appeal to prurient interest prong and the patently offensive prong of the definition are "question[s] of fact to be decided by a jury applying contemporary community standards." Id. It is the absence of content and context to define what that community standard is that renders the CDA overbroad as to speech that may be deemed obscene under the most restrictive community standard in the Nation.
2. The CDA Applies to All Internet Speakers and Speech
The CDA's "open-ended prohibitions," as the Supreme Court has twice noted, "embrace not only commercial speech or commercial entities, but also all nonprofit entities and individuals posting" on the Internet. Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. at ___, slip op. at 4 (quotation marks omitted), quoting ACLU v. Reno, 521 U.S. at 877. This observation, made by the Court in the context of the indecency provision, is equally true for the obscenity provision, which is, after all, included in the same sentence. Moreover, the CDA does not limit its coverage to any specific kind of online communication, but applies to all online communications, wholesale or retail.
That the sweep of the CDA does not distinguish between commercial purveyors of pornography and artistic explorers of sexual themes, or even spouses corresponding via e-mail eliminates one of the "crucial" potential narrowing factors, the limitation of targeted speech to commercially purveyed materials, cited by a three of the six justices rejecting the Government's argument herein in Ashcroft v. ACLU. (Kennedy, J., joined by Souter and Ginsburg, J.J., slip op. at 2-3, 10-11).
Likewise, the CDA does not address the thorny question of applying to the Internet the requirement under Miller that the works in question be "judged as a whole." As Justice Kennedy, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer pointed out, the "notion of judging work as a whole is familiar in other media, but more difficult to define on the World Wide Web. It is unclear whether what is to be judged as a whole is a single image on a Web page, a whole Web page, an entire multipage site, or an interlocking set of Web sites." Id. at 3, 11-12. By extrapolation, it is even possible-although not compelling-that the Web must itself be viewed as a "single, integrated system," and thus possibly the work itself. Id. at 11, quoting ACLU v. Reno, 31 F. Supp. 2d at 483, 484.
Because the nature of the work effected is not defined, speakers on the Web can find themselves held accountable based upon either too focused or to expansive a view as to the "work" at issue. A single photograph from a Website, ripped from the context that gives it its artistic value, may be hard-pressed to escape prosecution; a Website itself not obscene may find itself held accountable for the speech of those who link to it. Under the CDA, prosecutors and triers-of-fact are accorded no guidance in determining the correct answer. Thus, the statute imperils the broadest possible category of online speech. Id.
3. The Venue Factor
Most importantly, the CDA does not address venue in explicit terms. Thus, as Justice Kennedy noted in the context of COPA, "prosecution may be proper in any district in which an offense was begun, continued, or completed." Id. at 12, quoting, 18 U.S.C. §3237(a). Thus, "it seems likely that venue would be proper where the material originates or where it is viewed." Id. (citing 18 U.S.C. §3237(a), 47 U.S.C. § 231(a)(3)). As the overwhelming majority of online speech may be viewed from anywhere in or outside of the Nation that has access to the Internet,4 the Government here is able to forum shop around the United States, or even, potentially, offshore possessions. Because, as Justice Kennedy noted, the choice of venue may be determinative of the choice of standard," the "more venues the Government has to choose from the more speech will be chilled by variation across communities." Id. At 12. Indeed, the Government here asserts just such unlimited venue, requiring speakers to be prepared to defend themselves before the most puritan tribunals to be found. (Gov. Memo. at 22-23). This contention, vitally necessary to sustain the CDA, would transmute local community standards from a means of protecting local diversity of cultural climate into a means of stifling it-turning the purpose of Miller on its head.
4. Material Obscene in One Jurisdiction May be Protected in Another
It cannot be contested, and has recently been reaffirmed, that "[p]eople in different States vary in their tastes and attitudes, and this diversity is not to be strangled by the absolutism of imposed uniformity." Miller, 413 U.S. at 33; Ashcroft v. ACLU, Kennedy, J., slip op. at 7. It "is neither realistic nor beyond constitutional doubt for the Congress, in effect, to impose the community standards of Maine or Mississippi on Las Vegas and New York." Ashcroft, op cit. As demonstrated below, the actual evidence of such variation that plaintiffs will present establishes that material deemed acceptably non-obscene in some jurisdictions may nonetheless be prosecuted in others.
To the contrary of the Government's assumption that any errors or chilling effect here is negligible, it is well-established that material that is not obscene under each and every one of Miller's three prongs is fully protected speech under the First Amendment, and chilling such speech violates the First Amendment, despite the disapproval by some of the message conveyed therein. Reno, 521 U.S. at 874 (citing Sable, 492 U.S. at 126); United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group 529 U.S. 803, 807 (2000). Indeed, material that is allegedly "obscene" is and has long been recognized, to be "presumptively under the protection of the First Amendment." Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U.S. 496, 504 (1973); New York v. P.J. Video, Inc., 475 U.S. 868, 871-874 (1986) (noting, id. at 874, that such materials are "presumptively protected"; following Roaden); United States v. Jasorka, 153 F.3d 58, 59-60 (2d Cir. 1998) (noting that in obscenity cases, specially careful examination of proof by magistrate required prior to issuance of a warrant because "of the danger that constitutionally protected materials may be suppressed and because of the subtlety of the inquiry required to distinguish obscenity from protected matters"; following P.J. Video); Fort Wayne Books, Inc. v. Indiana, 489 U.S. 46, 63 (1989) (materials allegedly be obscene are "materials presumptively protected by the First Amendment."); see also United States v. Any and All Radio Equipment, 93 F. Supp. 414, 421 (S.D.N.Y. 2000) (following Fort Wayne Books, distinguishing seizure of equipment from seizure of expressive materials alleged to be obscene).
On behalf of the CDA, the Government claims that only speech that is "utterly lacking in any literary, artistic, political or scientific value in any community" stands in peril from this statute (Government Memorandum at 24). This is simply incorrect; as the Government's prior correct encapsulation of Miller establishes, speech which "flunks" the prurience and patently offensive prongs of Miller can only be saved if it has "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." (Gov. Memo. at 17, quoting Miller, 413 U.S. at 24). Indeed, the very next sentence of the Miller opinion makes clear that the Government's representation as to the scope of speech that may fall prey to the CDA is untenable: "We do not adopt as a constitutional standard the utterly without redeeming social value test of Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. at 419." Id. (emphasis in original), citing, Kois v. Wisconsin, 408 U.S. 229, 231 (1972).
The Government's argument that the only speech "that even the most cautious Internet content provider would withhold from publication" would work a "de minimis impact on protected, yet utterly valueless, pornographic speech" (Gov. Memo. at 24) is belied by the very authorities the Government relies upon to establish the proposition. Fort Wayne Books v. Indiana, 489 U.S. at 60 is not to the contrary, but merely upheld the application of state-defined obscenity statutes, which were appropriately limited in scope as required under the First Amendment as establishing predicate acts under the state RICO statute. 489 U.S. 57-58 (holding that the statute in question "is closely tailored to conform to the Miller standard" and the petitioner did not raise "any alleged defect in the underlying obscenity law." Id. Here, by contrast, the appropriate scope of the obscenity law on this new medium is the very issue to be decided. In delineating the scope of protection, it is crucial to note that much speech of literary, artistic, political or scientific value may fall beneath the censor's lash because its seriousness of intent may not measure up to the level deemed by the finder of fact to be sufficiently serious. As the Court reaffirmed in Playboy Entertainment, "the line between speech unconditionally guaranteed and speech which may be legitimately regulated, suppressed or punished is finely drawn," and any "[e]rror in marking that line exacts an extraordinary cost." 529 U.S. at 817.
5. The Serious Literary, Artistic, Political or Scientific Value Prong Does Not Save the CDA
The Supreme Court has not held, as the Government urges the Court to find, that the application of a "reasonable person" standard to the inquiry of whether material involved is of sufficient value to resist categorization as "obscene" is sufficient to cure the overbreadth of the statute. As the principal Supreme Court decision relied upon by the Government, Pope v. Illinois, 481 U.S. 497, 500-501 (1987), simply reversed a conviction, and remanded for harmless error analysis, an obscenity conviction based upon the application of the local community standards to this third prong of the Miller test, the contention rests wholly upon the citation to lower court, outside of circuit authority. The Supreme Court has twice declined to follow this logic, with ample reason.
A similar claim was made and properly rejected in Reno, where the application of Miller's "patent offensiveness" prong as a test for indecency was argued to sufficiently withstand a vagueness and an overbreadth challenge. As the Supreme Court explained, "Just because a definition including three limitations is not vague, it does not follow that one of those limitations, standing by itself, is not vague. Each of Miller's additional two prongs ... critically limits the uncertain sweep of the obscenity definition." 521 U.S. at 873. Here, of course, two of the three prongs relied upon in the definition are subject to overbreadth and vagueness challenge; the Government asserts, absent support in law and logic, that the one remaining prong uninfected by the taint complained of is sufficient to salvage the statute. Such a contention, for the reasons set forth by the Court in Reno, must fail.
Moreover, a majority of the Court in Ashcroft declined to join Justice Thomas' opinion to that effect, each indicating that an overbroad application of the local community standard prongs of the Miller definition to obscenity regulation of the Internet would establish a First Amendment violation. Ashcroft, 535 U.S. at ___, (O'Connor, J., concurring slip op. at 2 ), (Breyer, J., concurring, slip op. at 2), (Kennedy, J., concurring, slip op. at 5, 7-8, 10); (Stevens, J., dissenting, slip op. at 10). While the Government argued this exact point in Ashcroft (see Government Reply Brief on Petition for Writ of Certiorari in Ashcroft v. ACLU, Exhibit B to the Wirenius Declaration, at 4), that argument failed to command a Court, and should be rejected here.
Factually, as attested to herein by Professor Danto in his declaration, the "existence of serious literary, artistic, or political social value of speech requires evaluation of the content of a speech that calls for subjective value judgments in a manner not entirely predictable by a reasonable speaker." The difficulty of this analysis has led to much controversy as to the presence or lack of such value in the context of various works of art. (Id.) Such conflicts can be seen even in the context of the Supreme Court's review of obscenity convictions. In Jenkins v. Georgia, 418 U.S. 153, 156-157 (1974), a divided panel of the Supreme Court of Georgia had affirmed the finding that the acclaimed film Carnal Knowledge was obscene under Miller, finding not only that the film appealed to the prurient interest and was patently offensive, but also that it lacked the serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value needed to avert an adjudication of obscenity.5
By not employing any of the available potential means of narrowing the universe of speakers impacted by the statute's scope, the CDA entirely fails to ameliorate the extreme breadth of its prohibition. Thus, the sole remaining question of overbreadth analysis here is whether the variety of community standards is such that the application of the local standards in any district where the Government might choose to bring a case would result in the chilling of a substantial body of speech protected in other communities.
6. The Nature and Variety of Communities
In establishing the required showing to satisfy the concerns of four members of the Supreme Court, the last element required to be established by plaintiffs at trial is the existence of a substantial variance as to standards amongst different communities. Justice Kennedy's opinion especially sought such proof in order to determine the constitutional validity of COPA, because in that case the Government asserted, and the plaintiffs denied, that Congress had established a national standard as to what sexual speech was considered to appeal to the prurient interest of minors and would be patently offensive as to minors. As Justice O'Connor noted, a simple obscenity provision such as that remaining in the CDA, raises a far more problematic question for the Government: does the variation among what is considered prurient and patently offensive for consenting adults to be exposed to create a substantial overbreadth? Plaintiffs, in seeking to establish that they are clearly likely to prevail on the merits have adduced sworn testimony in the form of declarations as follows:
- Robert and Carleen Thomas, long time residents of the San Francisco Bay area, testify that they disseminated via the Internet material that law enforcement determined was wholly unobjectionable for consenting adults in the areas in which they resided. Under the local community standards of the district the United States chose to prosecute them within, the Western District of Tennessee, these materials were deemed to be patently offensive and prurient in nature;
- Candida Royalle has almost 20 years' experience as a director and producer, with the hazards of nation-wide distribution amongst community standards, and testifies to the variety of local community standards throughout the nation;
- Arthur C. Danto, Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy at Columbia, testifies, both in general and in the specific context of the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, considerable regional variation from community to community exists in the standard of what is considered offensive or prurient;
- Barbara Nitke, plaintiff herein, testifies that her work which has been well-received by sex-positive, artistically oriented communities has been greeted with hostility in more traditionally minded locales, and that, in 2001 when she sought advice as to posting her speech on the Internet, she was cautioned that she could face prosecution under less receptive community standards; and
- Susan Wright, Policy Director of plaintiff NCSF, testifies that the speech of members of NCSF have been targeted for harassment on the grounds that some local communities deem their speech "offensive" and "prurient."
This testimony establishes the variety as to local community standards, providing the evidence which Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter and Ginsburg sought as an element of a facial challenge. Combined with the broader holding of Justice Stevens, and likely concurrence of Justice Breyer, a majority of the Supreme Court in Ashcroft, would be "clearly likely" to find the CDA and its application of local community standards to the Internet unconstitutional on this showing. Accordingly plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction should be granted.
The CDA's Obscenity Provisions Are Unconstitutionally Vague
Plaintiffs have asserted that the obscenity provisions of the CDA will chill and would actually subject to criminal liability an inordinate amount of constitutionally protected expression. They have pleaded, alternatively, that the obscenity provision of the CDA is unconstitutionally vague. The CDA, as above argued, and as conceded by the Government, does not specify what the applicable "local community standard" is. Indeed, the CDA does not define "obscene" in the context of the Internet, but the plaintiffs and the Government have extrapolated from prior caselaw and the traditional definition of obscenity in the context of federal regulation of obscenity that the statute applies the local geographic community standards of any community from where the material may be accessed. (Gov. Memo. at 18). However, alternate theories of what "community" standards should apply to the Internet have been proposed, and plaintiffs have pointed out no fewer than six equally feasible possible approaches to constructing a community standard. (Complaint &182;32). Two of the Justices of the Supreme Court have suggested in Ashcroft that a nation-wide standard could apply to the Internet, a sort of rough sense of the Nation's views of what is appropriate for adults on the Internet. (Ashcroft, supra, opinions of O'Connor, J. and Breyer, J.). Other courts have suggested, as has expert Howard Rheingold, that specific communities, by membership affiliation or by a computer online provider, or even a specific bulletin board-specific standard might provide a viable approach to community online. United States v. Maxwell, 45 M.J. 406, 426 (1996); Rheingold Declaration.
Plaintiffs simply urge that, in the event the Court deems the CDA to mean something other than the "most restrictive" standard (which the Government has argued, and plaintiffs have alleged) applies, that the failure to explain what such a standard is fails to provide meaningful notice as to what conduct is forbidden by the statute. Where a content based regulation, such as the CDA, is vague, it "raises special First Amendment concerns because of its obvious chilling effect on free speech." Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. at 871-872 (striking CDA's indecency provision as vague). Moreover, the fact that the CDA is a criminal statute, bearing the concomitant stigma of conviction, the risk of imprisonment, and the prospect of discriminatory enforcement, poses special First Amendment concerns. Id.; citing Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 494 (1965).
Additionally, as noted above at page 15, the utter lack of specification of what the work that is to be taken as a whole in the context of the Internet is raises problems of definition that a speaker should not be forced to confront for the first time in a criminal trial. Ashcroft, (Kennedy, J., concurring, slip op. at 11); Playboy Entertainment, 529 U.S. at 817.
The Government argues that this vagueness challenge is "foreclosed" by the judgment of the three-judge panel in Shea v. Reno, 930 F. Supp. 916, aff'd mem. 521 U.S. 1117 (1997). The Court in Shea rejected a vagueness claim analogous to the overbreadth challenge herein presented, stating that it "appears to raise questions of overbreadth rather than vagueness." 930 F. Supp. at 938. In view of the factual showing before that panel, and the main holding of the three judge panel, which was to strike the statute on overbreadth grounds, the panel declined to resolve the vagueness/overbreadth challenge. Id. Moreover, the affirmance in Shea upheld the judgment, not the opinion, of the three judge panel. That summary affirmance endorses only the logic employed by the panel necessary to its ultimate conclusion: that the CDA's indecency provision was overbroad. See Mandel v. Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 176 (1977) (judgment, not dicta, of three judge panel as affirmed summarily by Supreme Court, entitled to deference); 640 Broadway Renaissance Co. v. Cuomo, 740 F. Supp. 1023, 1029 (S.D.N.Y. 1990) (same).
In the instant case, to follow the logic of the Shea panel would be to ignore the reasoning of a majority of the Supreme Court in ACLU v. Reno, which found the CDA vague as well as overbroad, in open rejection of the language from Shea relied upon by the Government. 521 U.S. at 871. Moreover, it would ignore the reasoning of the six justices in Ashcroft as described in Point III. The Government's argument based on the panel's ruling in Shea, which is inconsistent with Reno itself as well as with Ashcroft, sets form against function, and shows just how meritless the Government's argument that the statute is not overly vague is. This Court should follow Reno, not the contrary dictum in Shea, and strike the statute as both vague and overbroad.
For the foregoing reasons, plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court deny the motion to dismiss in toto, grant plaintiffs' cross-motion for preliminary relief, and set an expeditious discovery and trial schedule.
Dated: Carle Place, New York
May 24, 2002
Respectfully submitted,
Attorneys for Plaintiffs
One Old Country Road
Carle Place, N.Y. 11514
(516) 873-9550
1 The concept that obscenity fell within the class of "low-value" speech outside the protections of the First Amendment dates to Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), in which it is expressed as dictum in a case scrutinizing a disorderly conduct conviction under a different class of "low value" speech, so-called "fighting words." Ex Parte Jackson, 96 U.S. 727 (1877) did not involve a general ban of the kind the Government seeks to find within it, but merely denied the facility of the federal mails to materials deemed "lewd" or "obscene." Far from upholding a generalized obscenity prohibition, the Court explicitly declared that Congress was free to not participate in the distribution of materials deemed by it to be immoral, but stated that "[i]f , therefore, matter be excluded from the mail, its transportation in any other way cannot be forbidden by Congress." Id. at 733.
2 Justice Breyer engaged in a "saving construction" of the purported "national community standard" enacted in COPA, a standard even attempted by Congress in the CDA. After the language quoted, he found that application of even similar local community standards of what is harmful to minors to the Internet posed "special difficulties" which "potentially weaken the authority" of Sable and Hamling in which those difficulties did not arise. Id.
3 The complaint, at 7, quotes the section above encapsulated, 223(a). The CDA, at §507, further amended section 223; as summarized by the conference committee report, "a new section 223(d) is added to prohibit the use of a telecommunications device to make or make available an obscene communication." Senate Conference Report No. 104-230 (Feb. 1, 1996) (Schilling Declaration at Exhibit C) at 187; Ashcroft v. ACLU, slip op. at 3. As the Supreme Court has construed the section relied upon in the complaint as discussed above, the plaintiffs have not relied upon this effectively cognate provision as establishing their cause of action. However, should the Court read section (d) to sweep differently than the cited section, the complaint should not be dismissed, but at most amended, although the citation of a wrong theory of recovery or statute does not render a pleading insufficient. Nothrop v. Hoffman of Simsbury, Inc., 134 F.3d 41, 46 (2d Cir. 1997).
4 This statement is based on the fact that e-mail or BBS or list postings are directed to the recipient's e-mail account, which may be accessed by the recipient from a remote location, or through a remailer service, and not merely their home computer. Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. at 851-852 (various internet fora), 855-856 (impossibility of identity, address or age verification through e-mail address).
5Because the Supreme Court reversed the factual findings as to prurience and patent offensiveness, it did not explicitly address the third prong; however, the Court's discussion strongly suggests that the film would have been rescued under that test as well. 418 U.S. at 158-159.
Conducting SM Related Legal Research
It is extremely important for members of NCSF constituent communities to understand the laws that may affect us.
The law is interpreted – sometimes to our favor, and sometimes not. For example, while the NCSF firmly believes that consensual SM activity between adults is legal, there are those that have a differing opinion and will intentionally interpret the law in an unfavorable way. Therefore, it is extremely important for the SM-Leather-Fetish communities to have an understanding of the laws that may affect us. Knowing relevant laws will greatly assist our communities in safely organizing and maintaining SM-Leather-Fetish activities and functions.
There are numerous laws, ordinances, and regulations at all levels of government - federal, state, regional, county and city. It's not easy to locate all of the laws that may affect us, but it's very important. You should make every attempt to thoroughly research your laws if your activities may come under the scrutiny of law enforcement or local authorities. In addition, NCSF recommends that thorough legal research should include consultation with a knowledgeable attorney, state Attorney General, local prosecutor, or other legal authority, familiar with the current interpretation of the law for the jurisdiction in question.
Obviously, it is impossible to provide a comprehensive list of every law and its interpretation for every jurisdiction, so this material is designed to give the reader a basic understanding of legal research and the tools to get started.
Research Realities
The question "Is SM legal in my state?" is not an appropriate research question. What we call "SM" includes a wide variety of behaviors, attitudes and acts without common legal terminology. For example, a state may not specifically prohibit "bondage" or "mummification", but every state has laws against holding someone against his/her will. The key term is not "SM" but rather "consent." Therefore, the better question to research might be "What types of consensual sexual expression are allowed under state and local laws?" or "How is consent defined by statutory and case law in the state?"
In many jurisdictions, only procreative consensual intercourse between married heterosexual couples in the privacy of the home is "legal." Therefore looking at all laws pertaining to sex may be a good place to start. Of course, sex laws are usually selectively enforced. And they can be contradictory: a local jurisdiction may recognize gay couples, but the state makes sodomy between people of the same sex a felony, then again, it doesn't enforce the law against anyone.
Finally, remember that if "they" want to get you, they'll look through everything including if your dog has the appropriate license or they will dig up laws that haven't been enforced in 30 or 100 years.
Statutes and Case Law in our Legal System
When people talk about "what the law says" or "what the law is," they are typically referring to statutes (sometimes called codes). When disputes arise over the meaning of statutes, state and federal courts issue court opinions that interpret the statutes -- this is "case law." In addition, numerous federal and state agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the IRS and the various Secretary of State's offices, issue regulations that cover the legal areas that the agencies control (such as environmental law, federal taxes and corporations law).
Researching Federal vs. State Statutes
States make the law in most of the areas related to alternative sexual practices, such as child custody, marriage, divorce, public indecency, assault, kidnapping, weapon violations, etc. A few areas now involve both state and federal statutes, including employment regulation. (Note: state laws usually give way to federal laws that address the same issue.)
Finding Relevant Statutes
There are two main ways to find a particular state or federal statute: (1) at a library or (2) on the web. We recommend using government websites to locate the applicable laws, where and when available, and as a preliminary research method. This should be followed up with hardcopy research at the library. You can locate relevant statutes on the internet by doing a keyword search or by browsing the table of contents. Not all states allow you to do a keyword search, but for the ones that do, you simply enter a few terms that relate to the subject you're looking for.
Searching Statutes
To do a good search you need to anticipate the words used in the statutes you are searching. Example: if you are looking for a statute that defines weapons in reference to the transportation of weapons on public highways, you might choose to use the search term "transport." If that search pulled up hundreds of statutes, you may try narrowing the search. You could try adding the words "weapon" and "public." Or, if your search doesn't pull up any statutes, you can try to broaden the search by using fewer or more common search terms.
Browsing Statutes
Browsing the table of contents of statutes is often a better way to find laws on your subject because it lets you look first at the general subjects (Titles, or sometimes Divisions). From there you can move to particular topics (Chapters, or sometimes Articles), and then to the precise statutes you need (Sections). By browsing, you also get a general idea of all the statutes there are on a specific subject.
Read Related Statutes / Ordinances
If you are interested in a particular area of the law (for example, adult entertainment regulations), you need to read all relevant statutes on that subject. If you don't, you may miss an important statute that contradicts the law you have found.
Example: A regulation may not specifically prohibit flagellation on the premises of an adult business, but a different regulation prohibits flagellation in instances where the adult business serves alcohol. Once you find a relevant statute/ordinance, you should continue searching until you are convinced that you've found every statute/ordinance that may affect that particular issue.
Understanding Statutes / Ordinances
Some statutes are clearly written, while others are very difficult to understand. Exceptions to the statute, "whereases" and cross-references to other statutes can make it very hard to understand what a statute means. Here are some rules to use when interpreting a statute:
• Read the statute several times.
• Pay close attention to all the "ands" and "ors." The use of "and" to end a series means that all elements of the series are included, or necessary, but an "or" at the end of a series means that only one of the elements need be included.
• Assume all words and punctuation in the statute have meaning. It's tempting to skip words you don't quite understand and ignore awkward punctuation. Don't do it.
• If the statute is but one of a number you are studying, interpret it to be consistent with the other statutes if at all possible.
• Interpret a statute so that it makes sense rather than lead to some absurd or improbable result.
• Track down all cross-references to other statutes and sections and read those statutes and sections.
Making Sure the Statutes are Up to Date
Many state statutes on the web are not up to date, but the state website will usually tell you the year that the collection was last updated. If the statutes are out of date, you'll need to find out if any statutes you're interested in were amended or repealed by the legislature since the posting date. You can do this by doing a search of all the bills passed in the state since the posting date. These bills should be available on the state legislature's website.
The Importance of Case Law
When disputes arise over the meaning of statutes, judges are called on to interpret the statutes. Judges' interpretations of those statutes -- called "opinions", "decisions", or "cases" -- are as important to understanding what the law is as the words of the statutes itself. So once you find a statute that seems to address your situation, consider taking the next step and see how the courts have interpreted it.
The U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court is the highest federal court in the country, and its opinions are the final word on what the law means. The Supreme Court can decide what a legislature meant when it wrote a law, or it can even overturn (revoke) a federal or state statute if it finds it unconstitutional.
Recommended Topics to Research
There is no common legal terminology for "SM" per se because SM includes a wide variety of behaviors that have not been categorized. So look for laws governing sexual behavior generally, including prostitution, rape, sexual assault, sodomy, etc. Other terms such as "flagellation" and "sadomasochistic abuse" may bring up some statutory, regulatory or case law, particularly when searching a large, cross-referenced database. Here are some keywords that may assist you in your research:
Adult Entertainment
False Imprisonment
Selected Basic Legal Terms:
Annotated Codes - Publications that combine statutes with cases that interpret the statutes.
Bill - What a statute is called when it is introduced in Congress or a state legislature prior to becoming a law. An assigned number is used to refer to a bill. The number has two parts: HB (House Bill) or SB (Senate Bill) depending on where it was introduced, and the number that identifies the particular bill. Example: SB1137
Case Law – is an opinion from the state and federal courts that interpret statutes.
Chapter - A term that identifies a group of related state or federal statutes that have been gathered together within a particular Title or Code. Example: Virginia Statutes, Title 18.2, Chapter 4 is "Crimes Against the Person"
Citation - Is a reference to a statute that describes where it is published. Example: the federal citation "42 USC 1021" tells us that this cited federal statute can be found in Title 42, Section 1021 of the United States Code
Code - In general, "Code" refers to the main body of statutes of the jurisdiction. Example: the Arizona State Code
Ordinance / Regulation – A law at the local (city or county) level.
Statutory Schemes – Are groups of statutes that relate to one particular subject. Example: all of the federal statutes that make up Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (which forbids employment discrimination and sexual harassment) are known as a statutory scheme because they are all related to each other
Title - In the federal system and in some states, "Title" is used to denote a collection of state or federal statutes by subject matter, as in Title 42 of the U.S. Code for civil rights statutes.
Recommended Websites – Places to Start
ACLU's Legal Research Resource
Cornell Univ. Legal Information Institute's Law References Page
Georgia State Univ. Meta-Index for U.S. Legal Research
Guide to Internet Legal Research
Recommended Websites – Specific Topics
ACLU's State & Local Laws Protecting Lesbians and Gays Against Workplace Discrimination
Alternatives to Marriage Project
Dr. Bernardo Attias' "Sexuality, Consent, and the Law in the US"
Policy Emphasis
1. NCSF recommends thoroughly researching your local laws and ordinances including alcohol beverage regulations.
2. Each situation is unique - there are no blanket rules or tactics that will work in every situation. Decisions concerning law enforcement related issues must be decided based on all available information at the time.
Disclaimer: The material presented is not offered as legal advice. Many options are suggested for dealing with law enforcement and other authorities. The best course of action for you to take in a given situation is dependent on that situation and is entirely up to the parties involved. No single option is always going to work. Remember that situations, laws, and attitudes will vary from place to place and from time to time.
@ NCSF 2001-2002 3-10-02 www.ncsfreedom.org
NCSF and Barbara Nitke File Amicus Brief in "United States vs. Extreme Associates"
May 26, 2005 - New York, NY - The obscenity case against Extreme Associates was dismissed by a Federal judge in Pittsburgh, PA, in January, 2005. But the battle isn't over yet: U. S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. NCSF and Barbara Nitke have joined the fight challenging the constitutionality of obscenity laws by filing an Amicus Brief in the appeal.
In his historic decision on Extreme Associates, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Lancaster ruled that obscenity laws are unconstitutional as applied to this prosecution based on the Supreme Court decision "Lawrence v. Texas" which abolished sodomy laws. "Lawrence v. Texas" said in effect that the government can no longer use "public morality" as a rationale for suppressing what adults may legally do in private.
The NCSF and Nitke Amicus Brief supports Judge Lancaster's opinion and makes the following points:
- The government cannot pick and choose which subjects of speech it wants to regulate and limit. Under this argument, the government should not be allowed to restrict SM pornography more strictly than vanilla pornography.
- Obscenity is judged by "local community standards" which cannot be applied on the internet because that means the most restrictive community in the U.S. could impose its view of obscenity on the entire internet.
- As a result of "Lawrence v. Texas" the government can no longer criminalize private "activities" such as consensual sodomy. Therefore, the government cannot be allowed to criminalize "speech" (words and images) regarding those activities. What justifies this attempt by the government to ban speech which discusses and describes activities which are now legal?
Read more information on the NCSF and Barbara Nitke Communications Decency Act lawsuit.
Justices Pass on Internet Obscenity Case
March 20,2006 | WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court turned back an appeal on Monday from a photographer who claimed a federal decency law violated her free-speech rights to post pictures of sadomasochistic sexual behavior on the Web.
Justices affirmed a decision last year by a special three-judge federal panel upholding the 1996 law which makes it a crime to send obscenity over the Internet to children.
The court could have used the case to set online obscenity standards. The subject of children and indecency has gotten more attention recently.
Last week the government renewed its crackdown on indecent television by proposing nearly $4 million in fines for controversial broadcasts.
The Supreme Court appeal was brought by photographer Barbara Nitke, whose work is featured in the book "Kiss of Fire: A Romantic View of Sadomasochism," and by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.
Material that is obscene is not protected by the First Amendment, but Nitke's lawyer contends her work is art that is not obscene.
Justices were told by attorney John Wirenius of New York that if they turned down the case, "many more Internet users will likely face the constitutionally unsupportable choice faced by Ms. Nitke: either to censor her published images or risk prosecution."
The law requires that those sending obscene communications on the Internet take reasonable actions to keep it away from children, like requiring a credit card, debit account or adult access code as proof of age.
The Bush administration had urged justices to stay out of the case.
The case is Nitke v. Gonzales, 05-526
NCSF's 2014 Roundup
NCSF's 2014 Roundup 2014 has been a year of progress for NCSF and for people who are kinky and nonmonogamous. The national conversation about gay marriage, consent, and even Fifty Shades of Grey are transforming mainstream attitudes. The change in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5 stating that BDSM is a healthy form of sexual expression has also had a significant impact on both the courts and public opinion about kink. Education Outreach Project The NCSF Board Members and presenters gave Education Outreach Project workshops and tabled at 36 events in 2014 (compared to 22 in 2013), with a…
National Coalition for Sexual Freedom: Are you ready for the Fifty Shades of Gray Movie?
Does your media agency have resources for these special interest pieces? Contact the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom for interviews and information on kink and open relationships. NCSF is the national advocate for consensual adult sexual expression. Why kink? There has been a significant interest in BDSM sparked by the wildly successful Fifty Shades of Grey. Similar topics appeared in recent TV Shows from CSI to House to Desperate Housewives, and even animated shows such as American Dad. Furthermore many people, married and otherwise, are discovering and practicing non-monogamy. From polyamory to swinging to open relationships, a notable percentage of the public are shifting their relationship parameters in an honest…
Media Kit
50 Shades of NCSF Palm Cards
GayLawNet Joins Forces with NCSF
NCSF's Kink Aware Professionals joins forces with GayLawNet NCSF has expanded the reach of its Kink Aware Professionals by collaborating with GayLawNet, which now offers a way for lawyers in their database to self-identify as Kink Aware Professionals: gaylawnet.com/attorneys/ussolc.html "Whenever someone can't find a lawyer in NCSF's KAP list, I always refer them to GayLawNet," says Susan Wright, spokesperson for NCSF. "Many of their gay-friendly lawyers are eager to work with kinky people, and the GayLawNet database is huge." NCSF recently started an outreach campaign to the lawyers who have listed themselves on GayLawNet to let them…
Tides Awards NCSF $1,500 Grant
NCSF Receives Grant Award NCSF is proud to announce the receipt of a $1,500 grant awarded by Tides Foundation. About Tides #TidesProject "Since 1976, Tides Foundation has worked with over 15,000 individuals and organizations in the mutual endeavor to make the world a better place. These include foundations, donors, corporations, social investors, nonprofit organizations, government institutions, community organizations, activists, social entrepreneurs, and more. We break down the walls between entrepreneurs and their efforts to bring positive change to their communities. We are all about new ideas, innovation, and providing the tools to make these great ideas a reality." NCSF is…
NCSF Mental Health Survey
NCSF Mental Health Survey Please take the NCSF Mental Health Survey! We would like to know more about your BDSM practices, mental health and relational violence experiences: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FZ2XDMP NCSF is working with researchers at Sam Houston University's Department of Psychology and Philosophy who will compare our responses to two other sample populations – one college-aged and the other LGBT. NCSF will use these results to help with our advocacy, benefiting both existing and developing programs. Specifically, the study's results will assist in educating law enforcement, legal and psychological professionals about the practices and mental health of BDSM practitioners. The survey…
Military Court Accepts NCSF's Amicus Brief
Military Court Accepts NCSF's Amicus Brief in Support of Consensual Nonmonogamy April 24, 2014 – Washington, DC – The Navy and Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals has accepted NCSF's amicus ("friend of the court") brief advising the court that prosecutors are avoiding the Supreme Court decision, made in Lawrence v. Texas, that moral judgment is not a basis for criminalizing consensual sexual conduct, and that consensual sex should only be criminalized if that conduct is injurious or goes against a valid societal interest. In the appellate case, it was argued that the activities were "public" even though the sexual…
Ombudsman Committee Established
NCSF Appoints Members of the Ombuds Committee June 3, 2014 - NCSF is proud to announce these appointments to the Ombuds Committee: Desmond Ravenstone, James Huesmann and Bjorn Paulee. The Ombuds Committee handles complaints and concerns regarding the conduct of NCSF officers and staff, and the operations of NCSF institutions. The NCSF Ombuds Committee shall be established as an Advisory Committee, as per NCSF bylaws, to review Coalition administration and activities, assuring ethical and effective fulfillment of NCSF's mission and goals. Board Member Fil Vocasek is the Board Liaison to the Ombuds Committee. NCSF thanks the three members…
NCSF Files Amicus Brief in Military Court
NCSF Files Amicus Brief in Support of Consensual Nonmonogamy March 26, 2014 – Washington D.C. – NCSF has filed an amicus brief in a military case involving a marine who engaged in a consensual threesome and because of that was convicted of adultery, attempted consensual sodomy and indecent conduct, a "crime" based solely on undefined sexual conduct inconsistent with "common propriety." In its brief, NCSF points out that military law is out of sync with U.S. Constitutional law and societal mores, especially when it comes to consensual sexual behaviors. Dick Cunningham, NCSF's Legal Counsel who prepared and filed…
- Dealing with Assault - understand your rights and options when it comes to consent violations.
- Is this Assault - Guide for determining wheither a consent violation can legaly be considered assault
- Drawing the Line – Some things your group or club can consider when trying to determine if a member should be disciplined or banned
- Dealing with Consent Incidents – Guide for groups in dealing with consent incidents
- Liability Issues for Groups or Events - Some of the ways a criminal or civil court case can impact your group when a consent violation happens at your play party or event
- Sample Consent Policy - Sample Consent Policy for groups involved in BDSM-Leather-Fetish, swinging, and polyamory lifestyles
- Trauma Pamphlet - Trauma is an injury caused by an outside, usually violent event or experience.
- Power Exchange Statement
- Consent Statement Summary
- Consent Counts Statement
- Consent and its Discontents: AASECT 2016
- Consent Legal Cases
- State by State Assault Laws


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Stewart Baker Deploys Shakiest Analogy Yet To Defend The NSA's Collection And Storage Of Non-Targeted Communications
from the so-bad-I-think-it-gave-me-cancer deptStewart Baker, once again defending the poor, downtrodden NSA from the latest leak, has given us reason to add another post to the long list of "Stuff Stewart Would Like Google To Forget."
Baker addresses the latest leak -- the one published by the Washington Post that shows the NSA is harvesting communications from non-targets at a 9-to-1 ratio to actual targets. According to Baker, this is all no big deal because any
The story* is built around the implied claim that 90% of NSA intercept data is about innocent people. I think the statistic is a phony. Especially in an article that later holds up US law enforcement practice as a superior model.*I've add a link to the actual story Baker's complaining about because he clearly can't be arsed. Apparently, this is how certain bloggers subtweet.
In his explanation of how Sturgeon's Law relates to the NSA's national security aims, Baker gives the example of an unnamed law enforcement agency poking into his email account during an investigation.
Suppose I become the target of a government investigation. The government gets a warrant [ed. note: lol] and seizes a year's worth of my email. Looking at my email patterns, that's about 3500 messages. About twenty percent – say 750 –are one-off messages that I can handle with a short reply (or by ignoring the message). Either way, I'll never hear from that person again. And maybe a quarter are from about 50 people I hear from at least once a week. The remainder are a mix — people I trade emails with for a while and then stop, or infrequent correspondents that can show up any time. Conservatively, let's say that about 200 people are responsible for the portion of my annual correspondence that falls into that category. In sum, the total number of correspondents in my stored email is 750+200+50 = 1000. So the criminal investigators who seized and stored my messages from me, their investigative target, and 1000 people who aren't targets.So, in this example 99.9% of everything was irrelevant, but the agency doesn't know that until it's looked through all of it. Fair enough. But what does law enforcement do with the irrelevant information? (Don't answer that.) In a perfect world, the government/law enforcement agency disposes of the irrelevant data. That's what the laws governing search warrants and the minimization provisions governing the NSA's collections direct these agencies to do. But what does the NSA actually do with this 90% irrelevant information?
Back to Gellman's article:
Many other files, described as useless by the analysts but nonetheless retained, have a startlingly intimate, even voyeuristic quality. They tell stories of love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes. The daily lives of more than 10,000 account holders who were not targeted are catalogued and recorded nevertheless.Even the "searching my email" analogy doesn't hold up. The NSA searches a ton of proverbial email inboxes -- without a warrant -- simultaneously.
The NSA treats all content intercepted incidentally from third parties as permissible to retain, store, search and distribute to its government customers. Raj De, the agency's general counsel, has testified that the NSA does not generally attempt to remove irrelevant personal content, because it is difficult for one analyst to know what might become relevant to another.
If a target entered an online chat room, the NSA collected the words and identities of every person who posted there, regardless of subject, as well as every person who simply "lurked," reading passively what other people wrote.And, unlike the targeted search Baker alludes to, nothing is regarded as irrelevant because the agency can't even determine what might or might not be worth keeping. In a targeted, warranted search, law enforcement generally has an idea of what it's looking for. With the NSA, it's "collect it all" because something might prove to be relevant later and besides, look at our shiny new storage space!
"1 target, 38 others on there," one analyst wrote. She collected data on them all.
In other cases, the NSA designated as its target the Internet protocol, or IP, address of a computer server used by hundreds of people.
The NSA's deliberate collection of non-targeted communications is more analogous to law enforcement grabbing Baker's friends' and family's email as well --- even though they're not listed on the warrant -- simply because these all intersect with his account at some point -- and then holding onto it for x number of years simply because one analyst says it might be relevant to the investigation at some undetermined point.
The government can actually get in trouble for doing exactly the thing Baker claims is no big deal (and built on "phony statistics"). Just last month, the Second Circuit Court ruled that the feds held onto data unrelated to their stated investigation for too long, violating the plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights. When the NSA does this to American citizens not currently targeted by counterterrorism investigations, it's doing the same thing. Only in the NSA's case, it does this on a massive scale, unimpeded by the limitations of specific warrants. One order nets the NSA nearly 90,000 targets and, apparently, the communications of nearly 800,000 others, if the ratio holds.
Baker's analogy doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny, and he willfully ignores the NSA's long-term storage of irrelevant communications to make his point. He claims Barton Gellman's being dishonest, but who's really applying the most spin here?
Filed Under: communications, nsa, privacy, section 702, stewart baker, surveillance, targets

subset: commoncrawl


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I want to understand this whole process of
port forwarding.
I read so many things but failing to understand the very basic concept of port forwarding it self.
What I have:
a freebsd server sitting at my home.
netgear router
This is what I am trying to achieve:
to be able to access freebsd server from a windows machine over internet to be able to open a webbrowser and access internet.
I also want to access this freebsd box from a ubuntu machine that I have.
It will be great if someone can please help me.
Edit:0 here is the netgear router setup that I did for portforwarding.


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VANCOUVER, B.C. -- The Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday fired head coach Alain Vigneault, along with assistants Rick Bowness and Newell Brown, in the wake of a disappointing first-round playoff exit.
"We have made the very difficult decision to relieve Alain Vigneault, Rick Bowness and Newell Brown of their coaching duties today," Canucks general manager Mike Gillis said. "Alain, Rick and Newell worked tirelessly to lead this team to great on-ice success. I am personally grateful to each of them and their families for their commitment to the Canucks and the city of Vancouver and wish them continued success in future."
Vigneault had been at the helm since June of 2006, taking over for Marc Crawford. Despite leading Vancouver to 30-or-more wins in six straight seasons and guiding the club to a club-record 54 wins and a Stanley Cup Finals appearance in 2011, the Canucks faltered in the opening round of the postseason the last two years, losing a five-round decision to the Kings last year and being swept by San Jose earlier this month.
Vancouver ended this lockout-shortened campaign with a 26-15-7 record and won the Northwest Division.
The 52-year-old native of Quebec departs the franchise with a 313-170-57 regular-season record and 33-31 postseason mark. He won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL's top coach in 2007 after helping the Canucks to 49 wins and a playoff series victory and was a finalist two other times.
Bowness previously served as head coach for Winnipeg, Boston, Ottawa, Phoenix and the New York Islanders, and had been on Vigneault's staff since 2007.
Brown joined the staff in August of 2010, after five seasons as an assistant with the Anaheim Ducks.


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Hollywood Park Real Estate
Often overlooked by the immense appeal of neighboring Land Park, Hollywood Park offers nearly all the same amenities (since its affluent counterpart is essentially across the street) but with considerably less pretension.
Comprised of approximately 1,100 older, ranch style homes, Hollywood Park has been noted as the perfect neighborhood for first-time buyers. And with three schools found within the close-knit community (Leonardo da Vinci, Hollywood Park Elementary, and St. Robert School), it's ideal for families. The fact that the Sacramento Zoo and Fairytale Town are within walking distance is also a huge plus for those with kids.
The area is a throwback to what neighborhoods used to be. Small homes with original, craftsman details; plenty of trees; landscaped yards; and a dedicated neighborhood association, define the area and strengthen its sense of fellowship. Events include community cleanups, neighborhood bike-tune up, annual plant exchange, and large community-wide garage sale event.
Bordered by Freeport and Fruitridge, there are no shops within the boundaries of this eclectic neighborhood, but numerous restaurants, coffee shops and stores outline the borough, including Hollywood Hardware. This family-owned business (since 1948) is one of the identifying markers of the neighborhood (with a hammer-shaped neon sign on its roof) and offers exceptional, old school wares and customer service. In fact, the words used to describe this independent shop most aptly apply to Hollywood Park itself – retro, friendly, unique, and comfortable.
Search for Homes in Hollywood Park, CAView all Hollywood Park listings
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Can I repeat a class?
Students can repeat a class. Frequently asked questions regarding the campus course undergraduate repeat policy can be found at Repeat Policy: www.fullerton.edu/admissions/resources/FAQ.ASP?category=Undergraduate. Graduate students can find information on repeating courses under Graduate Studies Academic Standards: http://www.fullerton.edu/admissions/currentstudent/regulations.asp
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