From: Lee Tien <tien@well.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 23:47:29 +0800
To: Deborah Stewart <cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: Bomb Making Info to be Illegal
In-Reply-To: <199706251817.LAA23297@black.colossus.net>
Message-ID: <v0300780dafd7afb0c3cf@[163.176.132.90]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/enriched

 Free speech meant little for more than a hundred years of American history.  

What we think of as the First Amendment slowly came into being starting in the early 1900s.  

E.g., Justice Brandeis' great quotes in Whitney v. California were from his dissenting opinion; when movies first came before the Supreme Court in Mutual Film, they were *not* protected by the First Amendment and that wasn't overruled until 1952!


Lee

PS:  "obscenity" and "child pornography" are not protected speech, but "pornography" is not a legal category.  "Indecency" is a category, and it is protected speech -- the problem is that the government has a compelling interest in controlling minors' access to indecent material.


At 3:34 PM -0700 6/25/97, Deborah Stewart wrote:
[snip]
>
>What's not clear to me, and I wish someone would explain, is how the SC
>managed to find pornography not similarly protected speech.  Arms and
>munitions can be as arousing for some (e.g., Dr. Strangelove) as sex is for
>others.
>
>
>--Steve