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The televised Victoria's Secret fashion show may be mildly racy, but should it be illegal?
One prudish FCC commissioner thinks so -- and has ordered the agency's "enforcement bureau" to begin investigating whether the company's famous bikinis and lacy unmentionables on TV could corrupt American youth.
Last week was ABC's first broadcast of the Victoria's Secret fashion show -- prompting FCC commissioner Michael Copps to call for the investigation. He told reporters that his 27-year-old daughter believed it would be inappropriate for her children to watch.
Copps, appointed earlier this year by President Bush, seems eager to pick up where fellow anti-indecency crusader Gloria Tristani, an ex-FCC commissioner, left off. Tristani campaigned tirelessly against bare skin on TV and the word "piss" in radio programs.
In its defense, ABC noted the special program was tagged with a TV-14 parental label.
Under federal law, the FCC's enforcement bureau can fine broadcasters that air "indecent" material, unless it is aired late at night. The bureau's Investigation and Hearings Division will review the Victoria's Secret videotape and decide whether models in G-strings should be categorized as stunning -- or lewd.
Can't say that: A domain name mocking a corporation must be turned over to that company, a WIPO panel has decided.
In a 2-1 split, WIPO-appointed arbiters hearing a dispute over vivendiuniversalsucks.com said that Vivendi has the rights to the name. The reason: Casual visitors may be confused.
"The panel has found that non-English speaking Internet users would be likely to attach no significance to the appended word 'sucks' and would therefore regard the disputed domain name as conveying an association with the complainant," the majority said in a decision handed down last week.
Panelists Ian Barker and Alan Limbury went so far as to claim that because the band Primus owns the domain name primussucks.com -- named after their 1990 album "Suck on This" -- prospective visitors to vivendi.com might get flummoxed about who's really who.
J.D. Sallen, who lost the fight to keep the vivendiuniversalsucks.com domain, complains: "Such intellectually bankrupt decisions are even more problematic than they first appear because poor decisions serve as precedents that enable more and poorer rulings. The result is a (domain name dispute) system that has sent fairness into a death-spiral."
Facecam update: The ACLU is protesting a California city's decision to install face-recognition cameras in its airport.
In a letter this week, the group said of Fresno's move: "We believe that the effectiveness of facial recognition technology is open to serious question, and therefore, that airports should not be implementing the technology."
But after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the ACLU seems to be fighting a losing battle: Virginia Beach, Virginia, last week voted to install facecams on public streets, and the airport in Oakland, California, this month adopted facecams too.
Don't question authority: The FBI has admitted creating a controversial anti-terrorism flyer that's sparking outrage in conservative discussion groups.
The flyer (front), (back) instructs the reader to report as a possible terrorist anyone who asks why they were stopped by police or anyone who dares to defend "the U.S. Constitution against federal (sic) government."
In an interview, FBI spokesman Ed Hall confirmed the flyer was produced by the joint anti-terrorism task force in Phoenix. But he said it dealt with domestic terrorism: "That flyer was put out two years ago. Someone picked it up and put it on the Internet like it was put out this week."
Hall did admit that the section that states anyone spotting a defender of the U.S. Constitution "should call the Joint Terrorism Task Force" was perhaps a teensy bit ill-advised. "It could have been a bit better foundation worded saying you're not a right-wing extremist if you defend the Constitution ... or if you ask a police officer why they're stopping you," Hall said. "There's some misinterpretation there."
Do question authority: Speaking of defending the Constitution, President Bush's recent accumulation of unprecedented power to investigate, imprison and execute alleged terrorists is drawing fire.
The muckrakers at counterpunch.org have run a column by Michael Ratner that's titled: "Moving toward a police state (or have we already arrived?)"
The Washington Post reports that the USA Patriot Act and Bush's military tribunals have given the president "a dominance over American government exceeding that of other post-Watergate presidents and rivaling even Franklin D. Roosevelt's command."
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the Judiciary committee's top Democrat, and some of his Democratic colleagues are saying that "today we stand on the verge of a civil liberties calamity in this country."
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, said: "There has been no formal declaration of war, and in the meantime, our civilian courts remain open and available to try suspected terrorists. All this raises questions about whether the president can lawfully authorize the use of military commissions to try persons arrested here."
