[53154] in Cypherpunks
Re: Witch Hunts
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Declan B. McCullagh)
Tue Apr 2 09:51:58 1996
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 09:33:19 -0500 (EST)
From: "Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com, Bruce Zambini <jlasser@rwd.goucher.edu>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960331160359.9821B-100000@rwd.goucher.edu>
Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 31-Mar-96 Witch Hunts by Bruce
Zambini@rwd.gouche
> effective, critical technique. (This is, in fact, one reading of De
> Sade's "pornography" -- an interesting counterexample to what was
> trumpeted on _Both_ sides of the recent Firing Line debate: that
> pornography or obscenity is, whether or not protected, devoid of any
> intellectual content.)
That's not entirely true. The ACLU's position, as provided by Ira
Glasser at the debate, is that pornography is not a legal term d'art,
that it is presumptively protected by the First Amendment, and
furthermore that sexually explicit images are not necessarily harmful to
minors.
The difference between "porn" and "obscenity" is intellectual content.
-Declan
(Not speaking for the ACLU)
