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Supreme Court will take up case on porn age verification laws in Texas
https://19thnews.org/2024/07/supreme-court-porn-id-law/
Experts say the precedent set by ‘porn ID laws’ will have broader effects on freedom of speech.
https://19thnews.org/2024/07/supreme-court-porn-id-law/
Experts say the precedent set by ‘porn ID laws’ will have broader effects on freedom of speech.
Man I’m so paranoid. Why do I feel like it’ll be something stupid like claiming encryption is unconstitutional or that freedom of speech only applies to words that come out of a physical person’s mouth?
I'm kinda with you on this. It seems like quite a number of the cases they're taking on are to make their mark on condoning fascism and oppression.
The law requires web-based age verification on sites with at least one-third of their content devoted to adult sexual material. Now the Supreme Court will solicit arguments and briefs about the case.
My hot take is that it won't fly, but that Texas can also potentially revise the law to make it pass.
The problem is that this is targeting websites serving non-porn material if the site also serves porn. Like, there's porn on Reddit, for example. But this doesn't say "we restrict access to minors just to porn", but "we restrict access to the website", where someone like Reddit can do finer-grained filtering. It's hard, I think, to argue that this is the "least restrictive means" to solve the issue.
For a law that that restricts speech to pass the First Amendment, it has to pass strict scrutiny, and "least restrictive means" is one requirement of this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny
In U.S. constitutional law, when a law infringes upon a fundamental constitutional right, the court may apply the strict scrutiny standard. Strict scrutiny holds the challenged law as presumptively invalid unless the government can demonstrate that the law or regulation is necessary to achieve a "compelling state interest". The government must also demonstrate that the law is "narrowly tailored" to achieve that compelling purpose, and that it uses the "least restrictive means" to achieve that purpose. Failure to meet this standard will result in striking the law as unconstitutional.
The standard is the highest and most stringent standard of judicial review and is part of the levels of judicial scrutiny that courts use to determine whether a constitutional right or principle should give way to the government's interest against observance of the principle. The lesser standards are rational basis review and exacting or intermediate scrutiny. These standards are applied to statutes and government action at all levels of government within the United States.
The ACLU lawyer references a "reasonable" criteria, and apparently that's one element of the "rational basis" review, so I'm guessing that they're attacking it on those grounds.
The only thing is that corporations need encryption and I don't think they want to disobey their corporate masters.
Oh that's easy. Encryption is only legal when communicating with a business that is registered with the IRS and not when doing peer to peer. There, we've hopelessly broken digital privacy while letting the US government determine who gets to exist online.
Honestly if it meant everyone got kicked offline I might take that exchange. Turns out access to the entirety of human information and misinformation is a pretty good way to go extinct (at least at the rate we are going).
Conservatives not only aren't fans of the IRS, they want to slash its budget. So that may not be what they want either.
they can't do the latter, or that would mean corporations can't pump infinite money to politicians
The christian fascist court will rule in favor of zombie jesus. That's how a cult works. We need some real judges in these positions, not some fascists.
Finally some push back from the federal government against some of the awful laws put in place by our state gov!
You have a lot of faith in a court who just legalized bribery and made the president immune to punishment.
Both. Within the last week.
They're altering the fabric of our rule of law to protect Trump. Bribery? It's cool as long as it's AFTER the politician carries out the request. President does anything illegal (including killing a political rival (sorry, Traitor!) or selling state secrets to Russia for example.... as long as it's "official" (and SCOTUS rules what is and isn't "official") - it's all good.
If Trump wins we are one Reichstag Fire away from a complete fascist dictatorship and frankly it may not even take that. Trump already "liked" a couple of posts suggesting military tribunals and firing squads for Biden, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and anyone else he finds disloyal or having persecuted him... And he's said he'll be a dictator on day one. If someone tells you who they are, believe them.
We've permitted bribery for years with that alternate name of lobbying, nothing new really there.
The official acts thing is far more troubling particularly since as I understand it they left the declaration of what is 'official' ambiguous saying the lower courts would have to decide on each case. If so it opens a door for years of infighting as different districts decide their preferred person was working as president or candidate in any given action.
Kind of. "Gratuities" are legal, bribery is not, and presidents are immune for prosecution for acts undertaken as part of their duties.
A "gratuitity" must be made after the fact, which is still totally a type of bribery, but it isn't the same as making all bribery legal as a blanket rule.
Presidents are now immune to prosecution, but only regarding official acts. The court refused to rule on what an official vs unofficial act is, basically meaning that they'll decide whether something is legal or not when they feel like it. The obvious problem here is how heavily stacked the supreme court is, but they also didn't just come out and say "fuck it, presidents have absolute power."
Edit: To be clear, both of these rulings are absolutely fucking terrible. If our courts had any appropriate amount of oversight, the blatant corruption on display would be enough to see the court disbarred and indicted. They're just not quite as bad as people describe on Lemmy.
Bribery: SNYDER v. UNITED STATES
Kavanaugh writing for the majority:
The question in this case is whether §666 also makes it a crime for state and local officials to accept gratuities—for example, gift cards, lunches, plaques, books, framed photos, or the like—that may be given as a token of appreciation after the official act. The answer is no.
The official act was a $1.1 million contract. The "token of appreciation" was a $13,000 check. At trial it was argued that the payment was for consulting services, but presumably the jury did not believe that.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf
Presidential immunity: TRUMP v. UNITED STATES
At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is also entitled to immunity. At the current stage of proceedings in this case, however, we need not and do not decide whether that immunity must be absolute, or instead whether a presumptive immunity is sufficient
The court takes a very broad view of core constitutional conduct
In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives
Trump is therefore absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.
But it nevertheless contends that a jury could “consider” evidence concerning the President’s official acts “for limited and specified purposes,” and that such evidence would “be admissible to prove ... " The Government’s position is untenable in light of the separation of powers principles we have outlined.
Like everyone else, the President is subject to prosecution in his unofficial capacity. But unlike anyone else, the President is a branch of government, and the Constitution vests in him sweeping powers and duties.
You must not be paying attention of you think this court will do anything other than validate Texas laws