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Well it appears obama AND both the house and senate has passed a newer version of the "stolen valor act" where the last time it went through the Supreme Court claimed it was unconstitutional but now with a little bit of rework it has finally passed. It is nice to see what happens when congress works together, hopefully this is something they continue on doing.
And for those who are unsure of what this bill is about it basically makes it a crime to fake being a veteran/wearing fake or stolen medals in an attempt to make money from them. I'm not sure of the rest of the bill but this is the gist of it.
Well it appears obama AND both the house and senate has passed a newer version of the "stolen valor act" where the last time it went through the Supreme Court claimed it was unconstitutional but now with a little bit of rework it has finally passed. It is nice to see what happens when congress works together, hopefully this is something they continue on doing.
And for those who are unsure of what this bill is about it basically makes it a crime to fake being a veteran/wearing fake or stolen medals in an attempt to make money from them. I'm not sure of the rest of the bill but this is the gist of it.
The president didn't pass anything. But this still restricts speech and I don't think it's nice to see the government do that.
The mysterious thing to me is (without reading all of Alvarez) I don't think last year's case would have changed because of this because in that decision fraud was pointed out as being an exception to free speech. So, did Congress pass a law in reaction to a SCOTUS decision that wouldn't have changed the decision?
Who's commercially profiting on this trade that isn't committing fraud? In other words, who would be guilty today that wouldn't have been guilty before?
Now if the entire law was struck down then I understand. I just don't have time to research it that far. I just don't think Alvarez would have been guilty under the new law.
If it means there isn't that much teeth added, and it means that Congress is deliberately trying to limit speech (which is easier in this law because of the commercial aspect) AND they wouldn't otherwise be guilty of fraud, then it's pandering in the worst possible fashion.
Sure, we might want to lock people up for speech that we don't agree with, but it's a bad idea in my opinion. Not to mention expensive to do. And why haven't they made it illegal to burn the U.S. flag in commercial fraud? Why not do that with everything we don't like to hear/see?
And people can still pretend to be returning from the Gulf and wear uniforms as long as they don't wear a very narrow set of medals. That is not made illegal. Put on 4 stars if you want as long as you're just going to 7-11 and not claiming to have a Purple Heart for money. But if you did claim it for fraud wouldn't that still be a crime?
I'm sticking with pandering which is a shame considering it's goal to restrict the 1st. It's narrow enough (and short enough) that it will be quite some time before someone gets nailed with it and their court appointed lawyer will bill the taxpayers hundreds of thousands before SCOTUS overturns it again (or not). Best case?
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