Offhand, a program is under construction in BIG BAD GOVERNMENT – figuratively speaking.
Most recent was the convoluted policy to tax books that runs counter to the spirit of the so-called Florence Agreement – as if it were not meant to simply reaffirm the altruism – that the State is nothing but an agency so conscious of its multi-varied fund-raising projects.
After this book blockade, another modus operandi rears its ugly head – internet censorship – or we might just have to call it as the Great Thought Blockade. Whatever happened to that right of reply bill of recent memory?
Apparently, the sex video scandal struck the fuse, however accidentally, for Congress to implode as to explode the intellectual environment with policies or proposed laws intended precisely to police the internet – the ‘world wide web’. Not rather remotely, bureaucrats are manifestly predisposed to rally behind lost causes. The sex video scandal is one classic example.
The initial bundles of anti-sex video bills from both chambers of Congress seem to carry good intentions. But the other side of the blade, come to think of it, would in effect – cut against the more cherished freedoms enjoyed in democratic societies. Never mind the Chinese firewall – this is not China.
In reality, anti-sex video pills, call it that, are intended to be broad-spectrum antibiotics. They will kill every form of intellectual virus that navigates cyberspace. The bills, in general, make no pretentions of its objectives to, in fact – ban and block – all sex videos in the internet, especially those that did not have the permission of the concerned parties. It extends to all other cases of voyeurism.
Thus, if enacted into laws, they are designed to protect women as well as possibly children being victimized without their consent for transgressions in their privacy and upon their persons. As a consequence, no one shall film private moments or sexual congress of two consenting adults much less post them in the internet as pornographic materials.
This simply means that no one can ‘broadcast photos or videos of sexual acts without the consent of parties’. Certainly, the Upper Chamber’s version is even more comprehensive as it would include the mere capture of an ‘image of a person’s private area without written permission or consent’.
In all these proposed legislative measures, the single if possibly misleading requirement of consent is possibly contentious. It means simply that sexual acts or images approximating sex if not pornography may, in effect, still be allowed provided however, the parties have their tacit consent for these photos or sex videos to be posted in the web.
In other words, what would dispel whether photos, images, or videos are sex videos, forms of pornography, or acts of obscenity would depend on the all-too powerful act of parties consenting. If they do not consent, then we can call these stuff as sexual, obscene, and pornographic and therefore within the reach of law. But if they consent, we should cut the fingers trying to reach them, can we?
In the higher scheme of things, anti-sex video bills might break the ground for more stringent bills to be ‘constructed’ to the point, some of these policies or future laws will bring down the most cherished architecture of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
The moment our thoughts will be filtered, sanitized, maybe even banned or blocked, then the Great Thought Blockade has just begun.
From where I stand, all attempts to police the internet, filter the web, cripple free thought is bound to fail.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Click on this one with regards how another religiously-Catholic country is doing with rabbit-sexuality of Priests-turned-Politicians:
http://www.sonnypulgar.com/the-anatomy-of-moral-indignation/
ON THOUGHT BLOCKADES: This is a request for administrative openness (This relates to a DJB-request that blogthread initiators be given the right to delete or edit blogpost responses that they get).
MY REQUEST: to put ” EDITOR’S NOTE: portions of original entry have been removed or editted.” whenever
a blog post is editted. To illustrate,
edit this :
into
Similarly, if RedEyedMartian puts a blog-entry so full of expletives and other information deemed not printable, to put
” EDITOR’S NOTE: original entry has DELETED”
but to retain the blogger-ID, date and time.
Very good idea, UP n, it can be done…if we don’t have a Renato. Pero ang kulit ni Renato, kapag nag-edit si Nick baka hindi na siya makapag almusal at tanghalian. Isa pa, makulit din ako, o’ diba?
The practice of desaparecido : forced disappearance must be fought.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_disappearance
Aren’t Filipino blogs and pekeng-peryodikos has thought blockade? Oh, before I forget the religious, too has immense thought blockades.
We are mental hostages ….
I promised myself some furlough from FV but I did not promise that I won’t read FV. But reading Primer this time, I have to break from that self-imposed furlough just to clear something up.
Press freedom is not absolute. It is hedged by the concept of “clear and present danger doctrine”. You cannot go to public places to convince the people passing by to kill government officials because they are corrupt though we would love to see those people slitting the throats of corrupt government officials.
Commercial speech is qualified. You can advertise any product you want but you cannot advertise the sale of prohibited product, i.e, shabu.
Obscene speech is prohibited and so are obscene materials. The U.S. which many have considered to be a liberal society even in terms of sexual conduct and orientation has conceded to the State a rational basis for censuring materials which (1) appeal to the prurient interest in sex, (2) depict sex in a patently offensive manner, and (3) lack serious literary, political and scientific value.
Obscenity is defined by contemporary community standard. Thus it is possible that in a remote area in Kentucky populated largely by Amish people will consider the photo of Ms. K.H. in skimpy bikini to be obscene but at the heart of Manhattan, New York, even the sex video of Ms. K.H. and Mr. Kho will be considered an ordinary garden variety of voyeurism and perversion that would not hurt the morals of New Yorkers, specially the minors.
Prior censorship finds anchor on those well-defined criteria. And considering the country to be a catholic country, the probability for the Kentucky standard to be applied seems apt.
One is allowed to challenge any prior restraint if the State prohibited the distribution of “obscene materials” and it is up to the court to examine if such prior restraint impinges on “press freedom” or it was justified restraint because the materials falls under those “unprotected speech” materials.
Sanitizing or filtering one’s thought is not subject of any press censorship because it is conceded that you cannot be punished for entertaining some lustful fantasies for Ms. K.H.
You have the right to produce your own material to satisfy all your perversion in the privacy of your own home but you can be punished for “possession of prohibited materials”, and you can be punished also for “distribution of those prohibited materials” if you want others to share in your perversion.
This thing called SEX. WE ARE ALL HYPOCRITES! Whenever anyone have a hard-on what do they think? SEX!
Naka-balasubas-barabas naman kau! Why do you think you want your wife to get undressed? Because of SEX.
Get real, dude! WHEN IT COMES TO SEX EVERYONE IS HYPOCRITE!!!!
They are putting a “Great Wall”, like the Great Wall of China. Not
to keep the Barbarians out. But to keep the people ignorant.
So as they can continue to rule. The Wall is in the form of legitimate taxation.
Let us go down memory lane.
We become reminded of the Hello Garci controversy due to the sudden if untimely death of Atty. Samuel Ong, that whistleblower from the NBI who exposed the so-called ‘mother of all scams’- a 1 1/2 recorded conversation between Garcillano and GMA – the contents of which are self-explanatory.
This was supposed to be a case of violation of anti-wiretapping law. But in the end, nothing came out of it. Who released the CD? Why was it released? Were the people involved here really all got to jail? Are the contents of the CD itself really acknowledged or admitted as true by the parties involved? Were there sanctions so far as one has owned to it?
The future of the anti-sex video bills may follow this (im)moral currents. That is just one point yet.
Jcc has just provided us the ‘orientation’ – if I may be allowed to thank our friend.
China firewall is lame, use water to put out the fire of the wall but how do you get over the wall? – use Freedur.com to bypass it. You can bypass China Great Firewall and access youtube, facebook, blogger and all other sites which are blocked.