US high court weighs dog fight video vs free speech

[Duppers]

Source: AFP (Amer Free Press)

(AFP) – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON — Members of the US Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared to give short shrift to a bid from the administration of President Barack Obama to exempt shows of animal cruelty from freedom of expression rights.

Only one judge, the conservative Samuel Alito, appeared willing to uphold a law passed by Congress in 1999 that prohibited the sale of videos featuring animal cruelty under the same terms as child pornography.

The law was used in 2005 to convict Robert Stevens to three years in prison, after he sold videos of pitbulls fighting in non-organized fights.

An appeals court later overturned that ruling and called the law into question, by arguing that the offending videos were indeed covered by the first amendment of the US constitution which guarantees freedom of expression.

The government then brought the case to the Supreme Court, asking its nine members to uphold an exception to the first amendment.

But many justices appeared to give the government's argument short shrift.

"You're concerned with dog fighting, ask the Congress to write something on that," Justice Stephen Breyer told the government lawyer, who described the case as "very small."

The newest member of the court, justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned the government's claim that there was a "robust market" for dog fighting videos.

The court's decision is not expected for several weeks.


Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jh1HZq87xjAlEcmFEMs5tiavjZVQ

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WTF?

These judges cannot agree to ban the sale of tapes that film something illegal????

Breyer described the case as "very small."

I do not understand.

[joeybee12]

1. Not much to this article...it seems the justices are saying a specific law

cannot be applied here, whcih makes sense, but yet is also saying the videos are covered under freedom of expression...if so, where's the limit? A video of a murder?

[Duppers]

2. indeed

Yep. It seems strange to me that there has to be a specific law banning the sale of film of something that is already illegal.

[mike_c]

3. how about news footage of any crime?

Is that illegal? Of course not. Filming a crime is not itself another crime, nor should selling films of crimes be criminal. Child porn is exempted because the act of filming it is synonymous with commission of the crime, i.e. the film makers are by definition complicit (unless they're filming through the window and have no connection whatsoever to the actual production, in which case they're journalists, or something similar).

[Thickasabrick]

4. I don't see why that doesn't apply to dog fighting or kitty stomping.

If you are filming it, aren't you complicit?

[mike_c]

5. but by the same token, a news photographer who films a bank robbery...

...and sells the footage to the eleven o'clock news would be complicit in the robbery. Or would Green Peace be complicit in the murder of whales for filming illegal whaling?

I agree with what seems to be the court's response that the better solution is simply to outlaw distribution of dog fighting films EXCEPT for artistic or journalistic purposes, rather than to seek an exception to the first amendment.

[Thickasabrick]

6. Ok...I'm kinda seeing it. But it's not like you have drive by dog

fights, or drive by kitty stomping. You have to have access to the people who are doing them in order to film them - I totally get the robbery, whales thing. I guess I'm just frustrated. There has to be a way to prevent doing that to dogs and kittens, and be able to target the people who would distribute that type of "porn".

Thanks for the discussion!!

[Duppers]

8. Got it. But agreeing with what Thickasabrick says, this is a type of porn.

Enjoying such a perversion is sick and I think some porn laws should apply. I read, somewhere, that some people are sexually aroused by watching such violence. Dogfighting, I think, falls into that catagory. Dog snuff porn, if you will.

The viewing and sale of these films, other than for documentary purposes, only adds more money to this despicable practice.


(Yep, if I lived in Spain, I'd work with the opposition to bull fighting too.)

[Duppers]

9. to paraphrase a quote..

I cannot define the difference between violence-porn and documentary film, but I know it when I see it.

[Duppers]

14. well, that's what I was talking about.

Documenting something vs. filming it for "pleasure" can easily be discerned.



To paraphrase am old Supreme Court Judge quote... I cannot define the difference between "violence-porn" and documentary film, but I know it when I see it.

[cstanleytech]

13. That not to mention

there might well be a whole new rash of appeals for possessing child pornography.

[Vidar]

7. Sccalia's a defender of free speech if it involves cruelty rather than love.

[tomm2thumbs]

10. morality is subjective and can be judged about all things, not any one thing

I would hope that at some point people will rise up against this anything-goes-for-money but if you look at all the wars and brutal killing & torture that are committed in morality's name, there is obviously no end to what people will let occur on their watch.

Whether the FCC can determine what constitutes watchable morality is one thing but the slippery slope will have to be navigated and dealt with on very specific levels if there is ever going to be a rule on what constitutes acceptable behavior on television and radio. No doubt 'at the state level' doesn't apply any longer with pay-for-cable shows having no holds barred.

There will always be people who like to dance over the line and get away with it. Examples abound. For instance, did you know there is acceptable genital nudity on YouTube in the form of doctor exams, for instance. (search 'speculum examination' if you don't believe it) So where does a genuine doctor's exam turn into a porn video? I don't think the Supreme Court knows and I don't think there will ever be an answer to this question.

My guess is the Supreme Court will say it infringes free speech but that cable other video outlets are there to regulate what they allow their paying customers to see and pressure needs to be applied to them. Does a flash of Janet Jackon's medallion-covered nipple amount to a lesser evil than dogs fighting another to the death in a bloody match? That is how obscene our world can be because there needs to be some level accountability for what is shown at some point.

[flvegan]

11. I'm simply shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

Dog fighting is perfectly fine to film and profit from the sales of the film. But a 17 year old flashes her tits to a camera for "Girls Gone Wild" and the world comes to an end.

[Duppers]

12. another thread...

I posted this thread before finding/ reading this one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4092246#4092254