From: greg@ideath.goldenbear.com (Greg Broiles)
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 94 20:10:40 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Oh No! Nazis on the Nets
Message-ID: <198LHc2w165w@ideath.goldenbear.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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"Perry E. Metzger" <uunet!lehman.com!pmetzger> writes:

> I'll remind you that the supreme court has held that text-only works
> can not be held to be obscene. You can write anything you want,
> including explicit descriptions of sodomizing dead children, and it
> can not be censored.

As I mentioned to Perry in E-mail, the above is incorrect. Pure text
can be obscene and hence unprotected by the First Amendment.  Kaplan v.
California, 413 U.S. 115, 118-119, 93 S.Ct. 2680, 2683-2684 (1973).
Others here (Mike Godwin?) can likely provide a much better discussion
of just where this fits into First Amendment law; Shepherds' reveals no
more recent decisions which modify the holding in Kaplan.


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--
Greg Broiles               ".. has bizarre Cyberanarchist theories relating
greg@goldenbear.com         to human punishment." -- L. Detweiler