A while back, shortly after Joe Biden snuck the RAVE Act into the Amber Alert bill, I wrote an e-mail to my congressmen (well, I composed it using one of those auto-generated e-mail senders on some drug-policy group’s website) expressing my opposition. Recently, I received a response from Senator Chris Dodd, defending his decision to vote for the law. I am not impressed. Excerpt:

I understand your concerns about this bill. However, like Senator Biden, I am deeply concerned with the growing popularity of Ecstasy and other “club drugs” among America’s youth. In addition, I do not believe that this bill is intended to shut down lawful activities such as “rave” parties. Rather, it targets unscrupulous and predatory event promoters and organizers who profit by placing our children at risk.

Oh, really, Senator Dodd? “Unscrupulous and predatory event promoters” like the Montana lodge owners who cancelled a benefit concert for two legitimate political advocacy groups because they were intimidated by federal drug-enforcement agents who threatened them with the RAVE Act’s promised $250,000 fine? “While the…event was advertised as a benefit concert for two local groups interested in drug law reform — not as a drug-taking orgy — it still attracted the attention of the DEA,” according to this article, which I posted about here.

Anyway, Dodd goes on:

Many have criticized Senator Biden’s legislation as unfairly victimizing legitimate promoters and property owners who sponsor events at which there is incidental drug use by patrons. In response, Senator Biden explained that his legislation specifically applies only to individuals who “not only know that there is drug use at their event but also hold the event for the purpose of illegal drug use or distribution.”

Well, that might have been Biden’s intent (actually, I doubt it, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, for the sake of argument), but even if so, that’s obviously not the intent of the drug-enforcement officers who Biden’s bill gives the power to restrict the constitutionally protected freedom of assembly. It couldn’t have been more obvious that this is what would happen, and now it’s happening. But my senator is still apparently clueless:

I…believe it is important to strike a balance which prevents illegal drug use but does not infringe on the ability of law-abiding individuals to hold, or participate in, otherwise harmless events such as concerts and dance parties. I would not support legislation if I believed it would stifle free expression or civil liberties. Please be assured that I will monitor the implementation of the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act to ensure that it is not being used against law-abiding event promoters and participants.

Sorry, Senator Dodd, but I’m not feeling remotely “assured.” Dodd’s letter was dated June 13; the Montana incident occurred in late May. Apparently he isn’t “monitoring the implementation” closely enough.

I will, of course, be writing back to Senator Dodd eventually, and when I do, I will post my letter here. In the mean time, if you would like to write to him, go here.

The Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of sodomy laws should be arriving any day now. (I posted on this topic, and had a hearty debate with some commenters, in April.)

Whichever way the decision goes, it will surely have a big impact on the mood of Sunday’s huge gay-pride parade in New York City — which, by the way, I’m planning to go to. Becky and her friend Shannon are coming to town, and we want to watch the festivities. (Hey! We’re straight, but not narrow!)

Dick Gephardt thinks a president can overturn the Supreme Court with an Executive Order.

Dick Gephardt is a dumbass.

Craig Stern, a frequent commenter on this website, is threatening to sue a town government in Tennessee over an ordinance, as Craig explained it to me, “that I find to be unconstitutional.” (I love the humility of Craig’s wording there.) Anyway, he’s posting updates on his exploits on Relic Forums. (His nickname is “malignus.”)

I’m at a Kinko’s near Rockefeller Center, by the way, hence the ability to blog without the cell phone. But now I must stop, lest I spend a fortune!

The awful RAVE Act, snuck unethically through Congress a few months ago as an amendment to the irrelevant but enormously popular Amber Alert bill (thanks, Joe Biden), is now being used — predictably — to curtail the lawful activities of legal political groups who happen to support marijuana legalization:

An agent of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) used threats of RAVE Act prosecutions to intimidate the owners of a Billings, Montana, venue into a canceling a combined benefit for the Montana chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and Students for Sensible Drug Policy last week. …

“He freaked me out,” Kelly told DRCNet. “He didn’t tell us we couldn’t have the event, but he showed me the law and told us what could happen if we did. I talked to our trustees, they talked to our lawyers, and our lawyers said not to risk it, so we canceled,” she said. “I felt bad. I knew the guys in the bands.”

Hmm… can you say “chilling effect”?

“The right of the people peaceably to assemble,” anyone? And how about the right “to petition the government for a redress of grievances”?

InstaPundit is right. Shame on everyone who has a hand in this outrageous debacle, both on the legislative end and the enforcement end.

Let’s hope the outrage will build in the blogosphere. If blogs are really the Mice that Roared, we should be able to make a difference on this issue, too.

Apparently the First Amendment does not apply in Florida, where a judge has ruled, on privacy grounds, that a former boyfriend of a former Miss Vermont cannot publish anything about her on his website — not her name, not her title, nothing. He’s even barred from linking to her website, a prohibition that a Cardozo law professor calls “kooky.”

The ruling also prohibits the ex-boyfriend, Tucker Max, from disclosing, digitally or verbally or by any other means, “any stories, facts or information, notwithstanding its truth, about any intimate or sexual acts engaged in by” himself and the ex-Miss Vermont, Katy Johnson. (emphasis added)

Yup, you read that right: a judge has ruled that this guy is not allowed to talk about his sexual history with this woman, even if what he’s saying is true. He’s been legally barred from discussing his own sex life!

The court-ordered prohibition of speech, verbal or written, before it occurs (or is published) is known, in First Amendment circles, as a “prior restraint.” Prior restraints are supposed to be virtually nonexistant in this country, reserved for only in the most extreme cases, such as news articles that would divulge the exact location of troops at war or the identities of CIA informants overseas — in other words, situations where, if the information is published, someone will surely die.

Prior restraints are not supposed to be used to protect reputation, damage to which can be repaired (or at least compensated for) through libel or invasion-of-privacy litigation after the fact.

InstaPundit’s Glenn Reynolds (himself a law professor at Tennessee) has nothing but scorn for this ruling, and I agree whole-heartedly.

Don’t get me wrong. For all I know, Tucker Max is probably a total scumbag, and although I can’t now read what he wrote about Katy Johnson — he removed it from his site in compliance with the order by the thought police, er, court — I probably would disapprove of it. But guaranteed freedoms have to apply to everyone, not just the people we approve of.

Morally, people shouldn’t deliberately hurt other people by publishing private information without their consent, unless they have some sort of very good reason to do so. But legally, this ruling is bulls**t.

Parental advisory: explicit lyrics! This post, although purely political in nature, nevertheless might offend some people who are squeemish about sexual issues. It is therefore not intended for readers under the age of 18!

In the context of a conversation about Rick Santorum and the potential ramifications of the Supreme Court sodomy case, I wrote the following in an e-mail to Andrew:

I would rather live in an America without laws against bestiality and incest than in an America with laws against consensual sex between two gay people.

Now, there’s a thought experiment I never expected to be engaging in.

(more…)

We all know about Al Gore’s (admittedly blown-way-out-of-proportion) claim that he invented the Internet. Well, now the Nashville Tennessean — Gore’s one-time employer — is claiming to have invented the phrase “A.M.”

The Tennessean, a newspaper with a daily circulation of 186,106, is suing a small, 15,314-circulation paper in Rutherford County, Tennessee, the Daily News Journal, because the DNJ wanted to publish a section with the phrase “A.M.” in its title, which the Tennessean says it has, uh, trademarked.

Uh-huh. Yeah, and I trademarked the dot-com in my website name, BrendanLoy.com. In fact, I have the dot trademarked. (I’m still waiting for those royalties to begin flowing in.)

(Thanks to HobbsOnline, via InstaPundit, for the link. Circulation figures here.)

Joe Biden and others are trying to sneak the awful RAVE Act into law via the much less awful Amber Alert law. Check out Becky’s column on the topic. (Becky’s column, by the way, shows up on Google News when you search for “RAVE Act,” which is kind of cool.)

UPDATE: Apparently Congress already passed it. Or at least, they passed the Amber Alert law. I’m not sure if they passed the RAVE Act portion or not, but I suspect they did.

The Pledge of Allegiance has been ruled unconstitutional in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii — that is, throughout the Ninth Circuit Federal Appellate Court District — because of a ruling today by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court said that because the pledge contains the words “under God” (added by a particularly pious postwar Congress in the mid-50’s), it violates the First Amendment’s ban on a government establishment of religion. Sounds good to me… but how will they react in Idaho?

The ruling does not take effect for several months, allowing time for appeals… and time for religious conservatives from Orange County, California, to Orange County, Florida to get themselves all wound up into high dudgeon. Prepare for a barrage of righteous criticism of West Coast liberals, Bay Area atheists, “activist” judges who make “unpatriotic” rulings, and so on. Also prepare for a total lack of recognition of the irony that the Bush Administration is fighting a war against ultra-conservative religious extremists abroad while promoting an agenda of ultra-conservatism and government-endorsed religion at home.

But for now, let’s bask in the glory of this unique day in American history, when somebody saw the light — not of God, necessarily, but of reason. In the words of Judge Alfred T. Goodwin: “A profession that we are a nation ‘under God’ is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation ‘under Jesus,’ a nation ‘under Vishnu,’ a nation ‘under Zeus,’ or a nation ‘under no god,’ because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion.”

And lest anyone think “under God” was really intended as a neutral, non-threatening, not-specifically-Christian phrase, here’s a quote to chomp on: “Millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.” Those are the words of President Dwight D. Eisenhower as he signed the bill adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954.