From: mcb@net.bio.net (Michael C. Berch)
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 94 16:53:44 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Gun conversion info banned
Message-ID: <199403050052.QAA24822@net.bio.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Mike Godwin writes:
> > "labeling for an unlawful medical device" -- the Orgone Accumulator.  
> > Likewise FDA seizures of Scientolgy literature in the '60s as "labeling 
> > for an unlawful medical device" -- E-meters.  Then there are the moves 
> > against vitamin literature in recent FDA raids.  I don't think the courts 
> > have ever faced the specific issue of regulatory censorship.
> 
> These cases are pre-Brandenburg v. Ohio. In Brandenburg, the Supreme Court
> held that mere advocacy of illegal conduct is Constitutionally protected.

But the Court has upheld various police-power suppressions of
advertising material, etc., even after Brandenburg (1969, right?) under
the "commercial speech" exception, like Pittsburgh Press v Human
Relations Comm.  413 U.S. 376 (1973). [Glommed from my 1979 Con Law
textbook.]

This is a doctrine that commercial expression is less Constitutionally
protected than political and literary expression for historical and
public policy reasons.

I don't know what the present state of the commercial speech exception
is, but it has definitely been a nasty stain on First Amendment jurisprudence
since Valentine v Chrestensen in 1942.

--
Michael C. Berch
mcb@net.bio.net / mcb@postmodern.com