vol 83m issue22

[HighlandWindsLLC Miller]

quoting sarbajit roy:

As an ordinary citizen who has personally argued and won some cases before the Supreme Court of my country (India) on Free Speech issues (one coincidentally involving large corporations and television broadcasting), I was actually quite impressed with the reasoning in the majority ratio handed down by your Supreme Court (although to be frank, I am not up to speed on the case law of your country).in "Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission". The message I got from the judgement is that the Court is adamant on ensuring that citizens are fully informed no matter what the source of information is so long as the mandatory disclaimers are in place and the bias is spelled out up front. "The Government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether." Heck, now Osama-BL Inc. has the right to buy air-time and tell you what he thinks of the Georges Bush,


I wanted to say that I believe the disagreement about this Supreme Court decision centers on the issue of timing. It has been shown that if ads are allowed to be run on a candidate and their position right up to the day before the election, there is no chance to respond by the candidate. Damning statements with no validity at all can be placed on our television sets or on radio the day before and the candidate has no way (no time) to respond to them. Therefore, in the past, we cut off new ad content quite a bit before, thereby protecting all.

Peggy Miller

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[Sarbajit Roy (testing)]

Hi Peggy

Very perceptive. As the judgement mentions at the outset, the FCC laws
define "electioneering communications" as within 30 / 60 days of an
election. Section 441 prohibits electioneering communications by
corporates paid for from the general funds of the corporation. [I am
not sure if there is any law which bars an electioneering
communication by a private citizen right almost up to the voting day
(probably not)].

In the circumstances your SC held that a corporate was equivalent to
an individual when it came to exercise of electioneering free speech,
NOT because a corporate is an individual (!!!), but because the
individual citizen is entitled to receive information from all
possible sources .. and the citizen MUST be presumed to be so
discriminating to be able evaluate the information accordingly.

PS: In my own somewhat more advanced democracy, we have a Law of
Parliament which comprehensively regulates all these matters and a
Federal Election Commission which oversees the actual implementation
of this law to the extent that even the government cannot take
significant policy decisions with a potential to influence the
electoral outcome once the election process commences. A "code of
conduct" for electronic media comes into effect, so   for eg. no movie
of an actor candidate (say Arnie S) would be allowed to be broadcast
once the process is on (inequitable to non-actor candidates). In
Article 19 of my Constitution
[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_India/Part_III#Article_19_.7BProtection_of_certain_rights_regarding_freedom_of_speech.2C_etc..7D]
the Fundamental  (inalienable) Right of a citizen to Freedom of
Speech/Expression is co-extensive with the equally inalienable right
to carry on one's business or profession (ie. corporate activity).
Interesting comparative reading :
http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/faq/faq_mcc.pdf

Sarbajit

On 5/19/10, peggy miller <[hidden email]> wrote:

> quoting sarbajit roy:
>
> As an ordinary citizen who has personally argued and won some cases before
> the Supreme Court of my country (India) on Free Speech issues (one
> coincidentally involving large corporations and television broadcasting), I
> was actually quite impressed with the reasoning in the majority ratio handed
> down by your Supreme Court (although to be frank, I am not up to speed on
> the case law of your country).in "*Citizens United vs Federal Election
> Commission*". The message I got from the judgement is that the Court is
> adamant on ensuring that citizens are fully informed no matter what the
> source of information is so long as the mandatory disclaimers are in place
> and the bias is spelled out up front. "*The Government may regulate
> corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements,
> but it may not suppress that speech altogether*." Heck, now Osama-BL Inc.
> has the right to buy air-time and tell you what he thinks of the Georges
> Bush,
>
>
> I wanted to say that I believe the disagreement about this Supreme Court
> decision centers on the issue of timing. It has been shown that if ads are
> allowed to be run on a candidate and their position right up to the day
> before the election, there is no chance to respond by the candidate. Damning
> statements with no validity at all can be placed on our television sets or
> on radio the day before and the candidate has no way (no time) to respond to
> them. Therefore, in the past, we cut off new ad content quite a bit before,
> thereby protecting all.
>
> Peggy Miller
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org