BDSM RTV MEDIA NEWS!!!!


09 october 2009


Supreme Court Hearing Wildlife Image Arguments Today(crush videos with small animals)


Source: www.chattanoogan.com - The Chattanoogan, USA


Tuesday morning the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in the matter of U.S. v. Stevens (No. 08-769). The case involves a 1999 law designed to prevent cruelty to animals. The argument, however, concerns a definition of cruelty that has been characterized - accurately - as "overbroad" in its application.


In 2004, a Virginia documentary video producer, Robert Stevens, received a three-year prison sentence from a Pennsylvania district court for selling videos that contained scenes of hunting with dogs. The 1999 law was the basis for the conviction. It was later overturned on appeal.

When the court gavels into session, government attorneys will ask that the Supreme Court carve out a new exception to the Constitution's free-speech mandate. Those attorneys will argue that the exception is in a "noble cause" - preventing cruelty to animals.

For the record, the law was drawn in response to what was, at that time, a growing underground video industry: crush videos. In those sexual-fetish videos dominatrix women were stepping on and killing small animals ("crush"). At the time of its passage, "crushers" were estimated to be a million-dollar market-and growing.

Congress being Congress, that narrow law was broadened to include a variety of acts under the heading of "animal cruelty".

The last time the Supreme Court was asked to create an exception to free speech of this magnitude, it ruled that child pornography did not deserve free speech protections.

Author and documentary producer Robert Stevens was convicted of breaking the law after selling three videotapes of pit bulls to undercover agents. His three-year sentence was tossed after a federal appeals court said the law violated the First Amendment.

Granted, the videos showed pit bulls in action. In one, they're catching wild boars during hunting trips. A second showed dogfighting in Japan (it's legal there) and the third included dogfighting footage shot here in the 1960s and 1970s. The videos, Stevens argued in his defense, weren't done to advocate dogfighting, but to demonstrate the aggressiveness of the breed.

So the court will decide if the government overstepped its authority with the 1999 law barring "the creation, sale, possession of any depiction of animal cruelty with the intent to distribute and sell it."

Solicitor General Elena Kagan argues in her brief that the statue outlaws only a narrow category - "bloody spectacles of vicious animals forced to fight to the point of exhaustion or death". The law also forbids dog-hog fights and cockfights, activities Kagan argues are "far removed from the free trade in ideas that the First Amendment was designed to protect."

In her brief on behalf of Stevens, attorney Patricia Millett disagrees, saying "The notion that Congress can suddenly strip a broad swath of never-before-regulated speech of First Amendment protection and send its creators to federal prison, based on nothing more than an ad hoc balancing of the 'expressive value' of the speech against its 'societal costs' is entirely alien to constitutional jurisprudence and a dangerous threat to liberty."

Not surprisingly, the outdoor media is opposed to such a law, fearing that a Supreme Court ruling against Stevens could broaden to include hunting videos or images.

The American Society of Media Photographers, North America Nature Photographers, Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association, the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association, Texas Outdoor Writers Association and several hundred industry members and media have joined the Professional Outdoor Media Association in an amicus curiae brief in opposition to the law.

In a separate friend-of-the-court brief supporting Stevens, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) said the federal criminal statute was "unconstitutionally overbroad, because it criminalizes free speech protected by the First Amendment. [The statute] was enacted to combat animal cruelty. NSSF abhors animal cruelty and the unethical taking of game. The broad language of the statute, however, criminalizes lawful speech and, in the process, chills lawful commerce in that speech."

On the surface, the law looks noble enough - after all, none of us favors cruelty to animals. Unnecessary suffering of an animal is the antithesis of ethical hunting. But today's creeping encroachment of the government into all aspects of our lives makes even a seemingly well-intentioned law a reason for concern.

"The National Shooting Sports Foundation and its over 4,500 member companies oppose animal cruelty, which is illegal in every state, and stress that hunting scenes are not representative of criminal behavior. Hunting is a legitimate, licensed activity, and responsible hunters respect the animals they pursue and utilize," said Steve Sanetti, president of NSSF. "Such images assist novices with basic hunting and field dressing techniques and provide education about wildlife conservation and safe and ethical hunting."

If a law is designed solely to stop a specific act, it should be limited in its scope, language and intent.

Otherwise, the bycatch of a broadly-thrown net, while unintentional at the outset, may be significant and costly.