Congress Wants to Tape Your Mouth Shut, Steal Your Wallet

says who?? a ton of case law straight from the Supreme Court flies in the face of your assertion that it does not matter WHERE. there are all sorts of restrictions about placement of speech...even political speech..that have been upheld for years by the Supreme Court.

private citizens can still use private placement for their ads. they can buy billboards on the roads that people will see while riding on those buses or trains. they can hand out leaflets as soon as they step off the bus or train. the government isn't saying, "you can't say this." the government is saying, "you can say this...but we're not gonna sell you space on our trains and buses." i think that's pretty reasonable. i'm starting to convince myself that my initial reaction to this article was wrong.

 

man, that's awesome!! good for you. i'll donate my fee to his college fund...just make the deposit for me directly!

 

there's no other way for them to get this message across?? it has to be on placards on public transit??

 

I'm going to disagree with you here Max.

Remember, the Government here is also representative to the people who have concerns about their policy too. They are already at a huge advantage in terms of getting their message out though their organization and through the $145m of taxpayer money they will use to present their case.

It should not be an us against them anything goes contest.

Imagine if this were used muzzle debate on other issues. Pro life/choice. Foreign Policy. Capital punishment. The Gov decides what's right, and then makes it exceeding hard for opposing views or concerns to be heard.

The Busses and Trains accept advertising from all sorts of causes, campaigns and products. I don't see any justification to restrict it here.

And GV -- i'd of been in this thread earlier, but you make the same points i would have made -- only faster and better.

 

Why shouldn't that avenue be open?

Is there any reasonable reason to restrict it?

 

Is there any reasonable reason to restrict it?

I think this is the key here. The government can restrict speech based on grounds of security and safety. That's why yelling FIRE in a theatre is a problem, and why ads trying to sell cigarettes are not allowed on TV.

What is the compelling reason for barring these ads here? We've apparently allowed them in the past - has anything dangerous happened as a result?

 

is this true?? could bill white have bought a sign on a metro bus?? somehow, i doubt it.

 

It's not a time place and manner restriction, it doesn't say "no advertsing on buses".

The motivation behind the restriction is purely content based. It's not because its on a train or a bus and they want to protect them from advertising.

They're not preventing us from going out to other sources no, but they are also not preventing an anti-marjuana person from running anti-mar1juana ads on the very same train or bus .

You simply cannot discriminate based on content for protected political speech, and since this is not hate speech, fighting words, incitement, or obscenity

As I said before, that's a textbook 1st amendment violation

The fact that it is government property dictates a higher rather than lesser level of protection of political speech anyway. The fact that the government allows advertising at all may mean that it has become a voluntary public forum. Any content based restirction in a public forum is nearly always impermissible

Hell, even if it is not a public forum, the government can only regulate it as long as the regulation is reasonable and not intended to surpress a viewpoint.

Example, you could ban all political ads on buses, but not ones for certain candidates (I think there's a case on this one, can't remember the name). THis is clearly not such a case.

 

See my above post, they're saying "we're not going to sell you space because we don't agree with your politics"

Unconstitutional

 

i'm just not buying, it andy. i'm not buying that if they can't advertise through this one medium, all hope is lost.

and again...you can't say, "this is objectionable to me (railing against child molestation laws), but this isn't (railing against mar1juana laws)...so the groups advocating change in the latter can buy space on mass transit..but the groups advocating change in the former, can not." that's preferring one content over another in a political context...and that very plainly can't be done.

 

They're not preventing us from going out to other sources no, but they are also not preventing an anti-marjuana person from running anti-mar1juana ads on the very same train or bus .



Do we know this for sure? Or could the provision have been something broader like "no issue ads on buses". All we know is the impact on a drug policy change group. It may have similar impacts on a keep the same drug policy group as well.

 

i suppose they would make the argument it might be incitement. that it might encourage the use of illegal drugs before they're made legal.

i mean...if groups are out there saying, "look...this stuff really won't hurt you..." and they're running that on advertisements to the public...then they're at least tacitly saying, "it's ok to try this stuff" and, oh...by the way...that stuff is still illegal.

 

Your second paragraph makes your first one untrue.

You're preferring non-legal mar1juana speech over legal mar1juana speech.

Exact same. You can't define subsets of issues that are protectable and non protectable. The only classifications are political, commercial etc.

THis is clearly political, and thus protected.

 

you may be right...let me think about that.

 

I think you have to a LOT further than that for incitement, but anyway its inapplicalble here, this is what the ad said

" Enjoy better sex! Legalize and Tax mar1juana"

That's as political as it gets.

 

do we know for sure the government is running anti-drug ads on these very same media?

 

take out the first part and i think there is zero chance of an argument for incitement.