Re: CDT and the Threat of Gov't Intervention

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

At 12:56 -0700 12/3/97, Tim May wrote:
>This is a wedge to demolish free speech, this "accuracy in labelling"
>business. Religions could be forced to "accurately label" their messages.
>Speech could be shut down while courts debate whether "misrepresentation"
>occurred. As the saying goes, "What is truth?"

[BTW, I recommend "Rationales and Rationalizations: Regulating the
Electronic Media," which Bob edited. --Declan]

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Subject: RE: FC: Mandatory vs. Voluntary Ratings,
   Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 7:24:07 -0500
   From: "Robert L. Corn-Revere" <rcr@dc1.hhlaw.com>
     To: declan@well.com

Excerpted from Robert Corn-Revere, Television Violence and the Limits of
Voluntarism, 12 Yale Journal on Regulation 187 (Winter 1995):

     What if the government decided that the practice of religion was in
some way contrary to the national interest?  Suppose it concluded that
religion is the opiate of the masses, that the "seventh day of rest" is a
drag on the national economy, that TV evangelists bilk the uneducated of
their meager earnings or that sectarian disputes contribute to social unrest
and violence.  An unlikely scenario, certainly, but what if it happened?
     Government officials could give speeches setting out these positions,
to be sure, but could they do more?  Would it be permissible, for example,
for key lawmakers to threaten punitive legislation if the National Council
of Churches did not announce plans to close up shop?  Could top
Administration officials stage back-room meetings with church leaders to
jawbone for change that would be consistent with the new policy?  And, at
the end of all this, could the President appear in a Rose Garden ceremony
with the heads of the major denominations and minor sects to announce that
 -- for the good of the nation -- the parties had voluntarily agreed to phase
out religion in America?
     Of course this could never happen.  Americans would never tolerate such
a frontal assault on cherished First Amendment freedoms.  But what of the
third and fourth clauses of the First Amendment, which command that
"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press?"