FSC PREPARES FOR BOARD NOMINATIONS
CANOGA PARK, CA -- Free Speech Coalition has announced its nominations schedule for individuals interested in serving on the FSC Board of Directors for 2006. The Board, which is elected by the membership, is comprised of 13 members who each serve two-year terms. This year, seven seats are open. Board directors whose terms have expired are allowed to run again. Nominating ballots will be mailed to members October 17, with a return deadline of November 11. Final ballots will be mailed November 15, with a return deadline of December 6. The 2006 Board will be announced at the January FSC membership meeting in Las Vegas.
__________________________________________________________

UTAH INTERNET LAWSUIT UPDATE
       SALT LAKE CITY, UT -- The state has filed a response to a challenge of a law which would require anyone creating or hosting Internet content in Utah to rate their own content for its suitability for minors. Also under the law, Internet service providers in Utah would be required to block registered content to Utah customers upon request. Criminal penalties would result for anyone failing to rate their own content.
       In the state’s response, Assistant Attorney General Jerrold Jensen asked federal Judge Dee Benson to dismiss the case. In addition he asked her to find that 11 of the 14 plaintiffs do not have cause to file suit. Jensen said the 11 should be dropped from the lawsuit, since they are not subject to the law or have no realistic expectation of being penalized. If the judge goes along with that, many of the major plaintiffs, such as the American Booksellers Foundation, the ACLU, and the Publishers Marketing Association, could be out of the case, leaving only two small Internet service providers operating in Utah, Mountain Wireless, CSolutions Inc. and an artist remaining as plaintiffs. As to these remaining plaintiffs, Jensen says he hopes to work things out with them through negotiations with their attorneys without needing Judge Benson to rule.
       Despite Jensen’s plans to salvage it, however, Utah’s Internet law is on a dubious footing. Many observers have suggested that it is constitutionally flawed. According to an Associated Press story, federal courts have struck down Internet adult entertainment-blocking laws in Arizona, New Mexico, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.
     As the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) points out, the technical mechanisms for blocking adult entertainment will almost invariably lead to the blockage of innocent web sites that are wholly unrelated to the web sites targeted by the law. Similar blocking orders in Pennsylvania were declared unconstitutional in CDT v. Pappert after the court determined that the orders led to the blocking of more than one million innocent web sites
       Furthermore, says the CDT in a lengthy position paper, requiring content providers to label their content will be found to be unconstitutional under the First Amendment because speakers cannot constitutionally be required to self-evaluate their speech and declare it to be “harmful to minors.”
From The Associated Press, 8/23/05
http://kutv.com/utahwire/UT­InternetPorn-en/resources_news_html
And from Matt Canham, Salt Lake City Tribune, 8/24/05
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2967810
And from a Center for Democracy and Technology analysis, 3/7/05
http://www.cdt.org/speech/20050307cdtanalysis.pdf
__________________________________________________________

APPEAL FILED IN NITKE CASE
NEW YORK, NY -- Photographer Barbara Nitke and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) have filed an appeal of the July decision by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Nitke v. Gonzales, 01 Civ. 11476). The case is a challenge of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, (CDA) which criminalizes the transmission of obscenity to minors on the Internet (although it is a defense under the law if measures are taken to prevent access by minors, such as requiring credit cards or other age verification technologies).
      The appeal is based on the contention that a three-judge panel of the court applied an incorrect legal standard for determining whether protected material was improperly banned under the CDA. The court also erred, according to Nitke and NCSF, by finding that many local communities do not have pre-determined standards of obscenity that can be verified -- and then ruling the plaintiffs failed to prove what those standards are.
      Nitke and NCSF claim that the “community standards” language in the definition of obscenity as set forth by the Supreme Court in Miller v. California (1973) cannot be accurately applied to the Internet and, therefore, should not be used to determine what is obscene on the Internet.
      Ironically, the District Court panel seemed to agree with many of Nitke’s main points: Yes, Nitke and others that deal with alternative sexualities risk prosecution. And yes, her speech and the speech of others has been inhibited by the CDA. And yes, the CDA contains provisions that ban speech and images from the Internet that any local community in the U. S. could deem obscene, even though that speech would be fully protected elsewhere.
      But that was not enough for the court. The panel refused to enjoin enforcement of the CDA, saying that Nitke and NCSF failed to present sufficient evidence on the “total amount of speech that is implicated by the CDA” and the amount of protected speech that is “inhibited” by the act.
     “As an artist, I can only do my work in a free society and that’s what this challenge is about,” said Nitke. “We’re fighting for the continued right of American artists to do their work and share it with others on the Internet.”
From an NCSF Press Release, 8/22/05
http://www.gaywire.net/newswire/index.cgi?Func=show&File=20050822-164746
__________________________________________________________

SUPES CONSIDER MANDATORY LIBRARY FILTERS
       LOS ANGELES, CA -- The County Board of Supervisors has unanimously passed a measure sponsored by Supervisor Michael Antonovich which instructs county counsel and the county librarian to draft a proposal for how to block sexually explicit Websites from the county’s 84 library branches. Any such blocking would obviously involve imposing mandatory software filters for all library computers. At present the county has a policy of allowing adults to choose between filtered and unfiltered Internet access.
        The supervisors were responding to the outrage of Lorrie Holguin, who complained that a man viewed adult entertainment in clear view of her 4-year-old daughter in the Santa Clarita library branch.
       “I had no idea that this was legal and this could happen,” said Holguin. “I was shocked when they told me there was nothing they could do about it.”
       Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said filtering software often fails to block out truly obscene Web sites while preventing access to educational sites. He said he prefers the existing policy of allowing adults to chose between filtered and unfiltered access so as not to impose on First Amendment rights. Eliasberg said the county could be taking more practical steps to protect children, such as arranging computer terminals in such a way that unfiltered computer screens can’t be viewed easily by others.
       The county counsel and the county librarian have until August 30 to draft ways of blocking explicit Websites.

From Ryan Oliver, The Daily Journal, 8/22/05
www.dailyjournal.com, (URL not available­subscription required)
Thanks to FSC supporter L.K. for the news alert.
__________________________________________________________

STORE OPENING CREATES CONTROVERSY
       JACKSON COUNTY, IN -- Protestors and county officials are pulling out all stops in an effort to shut down a Lion’s Den Superstore that opened here recently. Protestors, operating 24-hours a day, carry signs in front of the store, some threatening exposure of customers going into the store, including shooting videos of them.
       “It’s had a big effect, and we’ve had people that when they see the signs or they think we’re taking a picture of them going in there, they just kind of turn around and go back out,” said protester Don Hall.
       In the meantime, the Board of Commissioners has filed suit to shut the store down based on an ordinance passed just a few days before the store opened. The ordinance was transparently drafted specifically to stop the opening, in response to heavily attended commissioner meetings in August which were focused on the store.
       The hastily drafted and approved ordinance requires, among other things, that adult businesses apply for permits prior to opening. Distance requirements also would apply to the Lion’s Den, since it is located within 1,000 feet of residences.
       Lion’s Den employee Sandy Summers said the protesters don’t bother her.
       “They have a right to be out there as well as we have a right to be here,” she said. “We’re a legal business, and everything that we have inside is protected­and we ourselves are protected­by the First Amendment.”
From The Louisville Channel, 8/22/05
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9055524
And from Ben Zion Hershberg, The Courier-Journal, 8/23/05
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050823/NEWS02/508230364
__________________________________________________________

EXOTIC DANCE CLUBS GIVE UP LEGAL FIGHT
       SAN ANTONIO, TX -- Six prominent exotic dance clubs here have decided to abandon their three-year legal battle with the city over a controversial “human display ordinance.” The law requires topless dancers to keep a distance from customers, restricts the use of private rooms and requires dancers to register with the city and wear “stripper badges,” to prove they have done so.
       The solution, the clubs have decided, is to ask dancers to put on pasties. Dancers with pasties won’t be covered under the human display ordinance. They will be able to touch customers and perform lap dances at the tables. As one dancer put it, it’s more profitable for a dancer with pasties to perform a lap dance than for a topless dancer to stay three feet away from clients.
From Jim Forsyth, WOAI News, San Antonio, 8/25/05
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=EA85501B-31D9-4EE4-A322-EA7AA5CF1A51
__________________________________________________________

WAS IT SOMETHING OUR SIGN SAID?
       LONGVIEW, TX -- City cops here recently raided Video Zone, a video and DVD store, seizing between 5,000 and 6,000 videos and DVDs for “evidence.” Then they called in a city truck with a crane and pulled down the very large sign above the store which had announced “Largest Selection in East Texas, Adult Movies, XXX.”
       Sergeant Shaun Pendleton of Longview PD claimed an investigation had been going on “for some time” into the store, which police said was selling sexually explicit material without a sexually oriented business license, as required by a city ordinance. The investigation, which concluded with the purchase of two sexually explicit DVDs by undercover officers, determined that the buying and selling of sexually oriented DVDs and videos had become a principal part of Video Zone’s business.
       The sign above the store, which was hauled away as evidence, does seem to support the charges, although one does wonder if a photo of the sign might not have sufficed.
From Katherine Sayre, The News Journal, 8/24/05
http://www.news-journal.com/news/content/news/stories/2005/08/24/20050824LNJVideoStoreRaid.html
__________________________________________________________

UpComing Events

AUG 23-27, – Annual Gentlemen’s Club Expo, Madalay Bay Resort, Las Vegas, NV http://www.exoticdancer.com/expo.php

AUG 31-SEPT 5, – Southern Decadence, New Orleans, LA, http://www.southerndecadence.net/

SEPT 2-4, – Qwebec Expo 2005, Montreal QC, http://www.qwebec.com/

SEPT 5-9, – FSC Industry Retreat

SEPT 26, – Sin City Golf Classic Tournament, Las Vegas, NV http://www.sincitychamberofcommerce.com/sin_city_chamber_golf_classic.htm

SEPT 29, – FSC Membership Meeting, Warner Center Marriott, Woodland Hills, CA, 818-348-9373

OCT 5-9, – 13th Barcelona International Erotic Film Festival http://www.ficeb.com

OCT 9, – Tampa Show 2005 Caravan Of Stars http://www.tampashow.com/