Vol. VI, No. 43, September 17, 2004 -- A Member Service of the Free Speech Coalition
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Free Speech X-press is researched and edited by Kat Sunlove and Layne Winklebleck.
Copyright 2004 Free Speech Coalition. Permission to reprint granted to FSC members; please give credit.
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VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR FSC MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
http://www.freespeechcoalition.com
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WELCOME TO OUR NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR!
The Board of Directors of FSC is pleased to announce that on October 4th, Michelle Louise Freridge will take the helm of Free Speech Coalition as Executive Director. She will be replacing Kat Sunlove, who returns to her work as FSC’s Legislative Affairs Director, after serving over ten months as the Interim Executive Director.
A Valley resident, Ms. Freridge brings strong fund-raising experience to her position, with several years’ experience in grant-writing for non-profits, program management, event coordination and membership development. With a Masters in Public Administration, Michelle has overseen a $1.7 million dollar budget and has recent experience in staff supervision. Her background includes several years in the Army Reserves and volunteer work with People’s Interest Research Group and advocacy work on the City of San Diego Human Dignity Ordinance.
“She wowed us with her dynamic presentation at the interview,” said Sunlove, who served on the selection committee. “We are very optimistic that Michelle will provide the kind of leadership and energy that FSC must have going forward. I look forward to working with her.”
Welcome aboard, Michelle! Let’s all give her our support and assistance in any way we can.
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HEALTH AGENCY FINES ADULT COMPANIES
LOS ANGELES, CA – Acting on a complaint filed by an unidentified adult industry worker, California’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) enforcement unit has fined two Van Nuys adult production companies, Evasive Angels and TTB Productions, $30,560 each for allowing actors to engage in unprotected sex. The companies, both owned by the same person according to Cal/OSHA, were cited for violating the state’s blood borne pathogen standard, a regulation that requires employers to protect workers exposed to blood or bodily fluids on the job. The citations also accuse the companies of failing to notify authorities, as the law requires, when actors contract HIV on the job. Cal/OSHA said the companies failed to have a written injury prevention program and failed to report a workplace accident within eight hours, as required.
It remains to be seen whether the citations are enforceable, since Cal/OSHA is charged with protecting the health of “employees.” Most adult industry workers are viewed as “independent contractors,” a designation based logically on the fact that the performers often contract with many companies for short-term engagements.
“It doesn’t matter what Cal/OSHA wants. It’s a matter of Cal/OSHA’s authority,” said FSC Chair Jeffrey J. Douglas. “The state agency has regulatory power over employees but not over contractors.”
From Caitlin Liu and Eric Malnic, L.A. Times, 9/17/04
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-porn17sep17,1,6264957.story?
coll=la-headlines-california
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TECHNOLOGICALLY NAIVE LAW STRUCK DOWN
PENNSYLVANIA -- Judge Jan DuBois of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has invalidated Pennsylvania’s “Internet Child Pornography” law. The law provided that the state Attorney General or any county district attorney could apply to a local judge for an order declaring that certain Internet content may be child pornography, and requiring any ISP serving Pennsylvania citizens to block the content. The problem with this approach to fighting child porn is that the technical design of the Internet forces most ISPs to comply with the blocking orders by also blocking a significant amount of wholly innocent web site content. Expert testimony on this was persuasive to Judge Dubois, who said that the “Act cannot be implemented without excessive blocking of innocent speech in violation of the First Amendment.”
The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office, however, maintains that the cited technological shortcomings are simply untrue. “We argued in court that the technology does exist to block individual sites that contain child porn,” said Sean Connolly, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general, Jerry Pappert, “and if other sites were blocked by the ISP, then the ISP was doing something wrong.”
The law was passed in 2002 by the Pennsylvania legislature without any investigation into how the law would impact Internet communications. From there the situation rapidly deteriorated as a result of the heavy-handed approach of Attorney General Pappert, who proceeded to bypass the law’s already inadequate court procedures by simply issuing secret orders to ISPs to block content. During 2002 and 2003, the Attorney General secretly issued, without court approval or opportunity for appeal, almost 500 blocking orders. The orders had the effect of blocking access to more than one million innocent web pages that had no relationship with child pornography, according to the Center for Democracy and Technology, which challenged the law along with the ACLU of Pennsylvania and Plantagenet, Inc., a Pennsylvania ISP.
Sean Connolly said his office was reviewing the decision and might appeal. “We’re disappointed with the court’s ruling,” he said. “This law was designed to block access to child pornography. We believe it has worked well in Pennsylvania.”
From Tom Zeller Jr., The New York Times, 9/11/04
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/11/technology/11filter.html?pagewanted=all
And from a Center for Democracy and Technology post, 9/10/04
http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_10.14.shtml
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FILTERS NIXED FOR UNIVERSITY COMPUTERS
AUSTIN, TX – An Electronic Media Standards Task Force, formed last year after 10 university employees were investigated for viewing Internet pornography while at work, has filed a report opposing filters within the University of Texas system.
“Pornography is not illegal,” said task force head Mike Godfrey. “We should not be making moral judgments based on its use.”
The task force expressed concern that automatic filtering systems may deny students and faculty access to valuable information.
“People do study pornography for academic purposes,” Godfrey said.
The report emphasized that the university should make clear that use of university computers is limited to tasks related to the university’s mission or personal activities that don’t have a cost associated with them. Illegal and commercial activities, as well as creating a hostile work environment, would still be prohibited by the task force’s recommendations.
From Jeff Berg, Xbiz.com, 9/15/04
http://www.xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=5222
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CLUB LOSES LICENSE -- BASED ON A PROMISE
LAS VEGAS, NV – Over the last two weeks we have followed an interesting municipal court solicitation case which had taken on a high profile due to a one time promise by the Treasures exotic dance club owners attorney Mark Fiorentino that the club would surrender their highly lucrative liquor license without a fight if a Treasures dancer were ever convicted of prostitution. Well, there has been a conviction and the city council has now taken Treasures up on the promise, voting 5-0 to deny a permanent liquor license to the club, which has operated since September 2003 with a temporary liquor license.
If club owners Ali and Hassan Davari had not made their promise, the City Council would probably not have granted them the temporary license used to operate Treasures over the past year, said City Attorney Brad Jerbic. However, said Jerbic, “They set the standard. One conviction and we’re gone.”
According to Jerbic, the Davaris have a “long and troubled track record” in Texas, where they own six clubs and have paid more than $228,000 in fines.
But “nothing remotely close” to the Texas pattern has occurred at Treasures, Fiorentino argued. In fact, the club is unique in the Las Vegas erotic dance industry for measures to ensure compliance with the law, he said. Dancers receive training to comply with dance regulations. Internal enforcement officers patrol the club along with undercover investigators. Drug-sniffing dogs have been brought to Treasures to make sure there’s no drug use. With more than 100 dancers working the club at one time it is impossible to monitor all activity, Fiorentino said. But Treasures is no worse than any other club in Las Vegas, he said.
From Michael Squires, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 9/16/04
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Sep-16-Thu-2004/news/24780986.html
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