From: mcmartin@aol.com (McMartin)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
Subject:  Satellite Censorship
Date: 14 Apr 1994 00:40:12 -0400
Message-ID: <2oihfc$bvj@search01.news.aol.com>

Ken Bullock:
I found your response to Chris Roth re censoring Satellite transmission and,
though it may be late, I felt like I should reply since I was tangentially (as
an ACLU spokesperson for Alabama) involved in the case I think you are talking
about (and if not, it was the first case of satellite censorship).

The DA of Montgomery County, AL Jimmy Evans (now Atty Gen) has for about 20
years done a censorship shtick every election cycle. He has, over the years,
developed a technique by which he doesn't actually have to prove obscenity to
close something down.

What he did in the Satellite case was bring  numerous charges (I recall 125,
but I could be off by a few) charges against the Exxxtasy network (which had
less than 200 subscribers in the state(yes, you needed to subscribe and have a
decoder), and then brought charges against the two companies providing the
uplink. One was out of NY the other was GTE. The uplink companies were not
going to fight for the rights of Exxxtasy, so they turned state's evidence and
kicked Exxxtasy off of the Satellite, thus bankrupting Exxxtasy. Exxxtasy
eventually plea bargained down to two counts and agreed to give a bunch of
money to some Alabama children's home. There was never a trial to prove
obscenity.

The reson for the complaint in the first place was that some high school
students allegedly taped some stuff off of the Satellite and were passing the
tape around school. Evans never went after either the parents or the students
and never produced the alleged tape.

Evans recently tried to use this technique against Sprint for allowing 900
phone sex-numbers. A federal judge said Evans had no jurisdiction in the area.

In the 8 years I've been here, Evans has tried banning Playboy (we fought him
and won) and R rated videos (he busted little old ladies in gas stations, then
cut deals) and has threatened cable. He went to the Supreme Court in the 70's
trying to prior restrain Last Tango In Paris (he lost all the way). As far as I
know, he has never proved anything obscene in court. He just gets a grand jury
to bring hundreds of indictments (and you can bet the grand jury does not watch
every film to see if they conform to the Miller test) knowing no one will
fight. And so he can censor and win.
Which is the problem with censorship in this country - it is so hard to fight.
Some of us enjoy the hate calls, but not everyone can take the heat.

Alabama, by the way, has a state wide community standard, and was the first
state to bust a 2 Live Crew record - and have a jury find it not obscene (FL
gets all the publicity because they lost).

Well, I'm new on the Internet, so I hope this wasn't redundant (and I hope it
gets where it is going.

Martin McCaffery
McMartin@aol.com