RE: ITAR double standards?

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 6:54 AM 3/26/96, blanc wrote:
>From:   Timothy C. May
>
>>You're a felon? For real?
>>
>
>Yes.
>.................................................................
>
>Ah, yes  -   Tim the Indecent, vis-a-vis X-onomous signatures.
>Sheut.  I thought maybe you'd done something really interesting.
>

Oh, I may have done some pretty juicy things that are felonies in some
states (maybe even states I was living in at the time)...plus I know a
whole lot of folks who feloniously violate our nation's "dietary laws"
nearly every day (eating the wrong things seems to be the common
denominator). Similarly, various popular sexual practices--even some
mentioned favorably in the Bible--are felonies in many U.S. states.

I've kept the CP list copied on my replies to Blanc because it makes a
larger point: every time the nation felonizes a new set of common
behaviors, it risks making more and more people felons and thus reduces
respect for the law (the real law, about real crimes). This happened during
Prohibition (for you foreigners, this was America's experiment with
outlawing alcohol consumption), when the law was flouted by even cops and
elected officials (in "speakeasies") and when the La Cosa Nostra really got
its big boost.

Not being one who worries about his standing amongst "the neighbors," I
casually mentioned to one of them that I doubted I'd have to serve on jury
duty, due to being a felon. He looked appropriately surprised; I haven't
bothered to tell him that while I'm indeed a felon under the Communications
Decency Act (Fuck Exon), I haven't yet been charged nor have I been
convicted. (One is a felon when one has committed a felony....look it up.
One is a _convicted_ felon when one has been convicted. But the felony has
still happened.)

The dictionary doesn't make it clear what happens to the status of a felony
when the law is changed and the act is no longer a felony. (If the CDA is
overturned, then I guess my actions in saying "Fuck Exon" will no longer be
felonies. But as it stands now, they are indeed felony vioations of the
CDA. Hence, I am a felon.)

--Tim May




THE X-ON CONGRESS:  INDECENT COMMENT ON AN INDECENT SUBJECT, by Steve
Russell, American Reporter Correspondent....You motherfuckers in Congress
have dropped over the edge of the earth this time... "the sorriest bunch
of cocksuckers ever to sell out the First Amendment" or suggesting that
"the only reason to run for Congress these days is to suck the lobbyists'
dicks and fuck the people who sent you there," ....any more than I care
for the language you shitheads have forced me to use in this
essay...Let's talk about this fucking indecent language bullshit.