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«Group participation: what's wrong with this picture?
I ordered some video-editing software from Hitfilm in the UK which also comes with some instructional videos. So a few days later I get a call from FedEx saying that the DVDs were being held at U.S. Customs until I filled out a Video Declaration Form, which she said was now standard practice. Now, I'd never heard of this before, so I called... back to ensure that this was indeed FedEx and not someone phishing for information. Had them email me the form.
This is what the form said: "I/we declare the the films/videos contain no obscene or immoral matter, nor any matter advocating or urging treason or insurrection against the United States, nor any threat to take the life of or inflict bodily harm upon any person in the United States."
Now, the first clause I can kinda see, though "immoral" is weird and there's no standard definition of obscenity in the US, but let that go...what made my eyebrows go up my forehead and down the other side was clause two. So I called back the nice lady at FedEx -- who was only following instructions given to her by Customs -- and asked what this was all about.
Apparently -- and this is only her understanding of the situation -- this is a new thing being done by Customs and Homeland Security with FedEx, UPS, and other carriers to make sure that films and videos with ideas or stories that were at odds with the United States Government didn't get into the country, as it was a form of terrorism (as further elaborated upon in the third and final clause.) She added that some DVDs showing Occupy events in London and elsewhere had gotten bounced because of the concern that these were being used to coordinate activities here (as if with the internet people actually need physical DVDs for that sort of thing but that's neither here nor there).
Under this new stipulation, if V for Vendetta had, for instance, been produced in the UK (instead of just filmed there), importing it into the US would be considered subject matter "advocating or urging treason or insurrection." And if you lied about it on the form, you could be held liable for this.
So there are now very literally guardians at the gate ensuring that the wrong sorts of ideas, movies or DVDs are not allowed into the country without investigation and/or prosecution. And most pernicious of all, they don't actually define what they mean by advocating treason or insurrection, any more than they define what "immoral" means, it's whatever they decide it means, so you could be breaking the law without knowing you're doing it, until they decide you're doing it.
And I imagine if someone produces such content INSIDE of the U.S. then they'll somehow disappear / be put in jail / have their content blocked / removed / be forced to shutdown?
No. The First Amendment applies inside the US, but not at the border. Customs has latitude to ignore the usual Constitutional rights. (I don't agree with this, but that's what the courts say.)
The good news is that this only affects physical media. Posting a video on YouTube has the same effect as shipping DVDs across the border, but is out of Customs' reach.
The good news is that this only affects physical media. Posting a video on YouTube has the same effect as shipping DVDs across the border, but is out of Customs' reach.
For now, sort of. After all, it's ICE that is seizing domain names. How long before any time your traffic crosses a border, a customs notice is displayed enumerating all the freedoms you are being denied?
There's a lot of spin on what the law actually is. Some of it by people mis-interpreting guidelines issued by bureaucrats who were themselves exaggerating a bit.
Treason is an offense in the US, dictated by the constitution. Advocacy of treason is also an offense. The entire point of passing through customs is that goods that are legal elsewhere, but illegal in the US, are blocked. While it's perfectly OK to make videos about the destruction of the US if you're in Saudi Arabia, it is NOT ok to do that in the US. So it gets blocked at customs.
Advocacy of treason in a general sense is legal in the U.S.; Yates v. US (1957) held that "advocacy of forcible overthrow of the government as an abstract doctrine" was protected by the First Amendment, and therefore someone couldn't be jailed solely on the basis that they were a member of the Communist Party and advocated a communist revolution. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yates_v._United_States)
To prosecute (after Yates) you'd need some additional evidence that an individual's advocacy wasn't merely abstract, general advocacy of revolution, but concrete and imminent enough to present a "clear and present danger", e.g. because of specific steps being taken to actually overthrow the government in the near future.
Similarly, a state actually seceding from the U.S. remains illegal, but someone merely abstractly advocating that a state ought to secede, as the Texas governor half-seriously did, and many "Sons of the Confederacy" type groups more earnestly do, is legal and not considered punishable as treason, assuming that the groups aren't actively planning raids of federal forts or something.
tazzy531 posted the entire text of the law concerning this matter in another post in this thread. IANAL, but as far as I understand this, her understanding seems to not only be right, but not even include some of the more… oppresive parts of the law, such as the scrutiny placed on material on abortion.
«Group participation: what's wrong with this picture?
I ordered some video-editing software from Hitfilm in the UK which also comes with some instructional videos. So a few days later I get a call from FedEx saying that the DVDs were being held at U.S. Customs until I filled out a Video Declaration Form, which she said was now standard practice. Now, I'd never heard of this before, so I called... back to ensure that this was indeed FedEx and not someone phishing for information. Had them email me the form.
This is what the form said: "I/we declare the the films/videos contain no obscene or immoral matter, nor any matter advocating or urging treason or insurrection against the United States, nor any threat to take the life of or inflict bodily harm upon any person in the United States."
Now, the first clause I can kinda see, though "immoral" is weird and there's no standard definition of obscenity in the US, but let that go...what made my eyebrows go up my forehead and down the other side was clause two. So I called back the nice lady at FedEx -- who was only following instructions given to her by Customs -- and asked what this was all about.
Apparently -- and this is only her understanding of the situation -- this is a new thing being done by Customs and Homeland Security with FedEx, UPS, and other carriers to make sure that films and videos with ideas or stories that were at odds with the United States Government didn't get into the country, as it was a form of terrorism (as further elaborated upon in the third and final clause.) She added that some DVDs showing Occupy events in London and elsewhere had gotten bounced because of the concern that these were being used to coordinate activities here (as if with the internet people actually need physical DVDs for that sort of thing but that's neither here nor there).
Under this new stipulation, if V for Vendetta had, for instance, been produced in the UK (instead of just filmed there), importing it into the US would be considered subject matter "advocating or urging treason or insurrection." And if you lied about it on the form, you could be held liable for this.
So there are now very literally guardians at the gate ensuring that the wrong sorts of ideas, movies or DVDs are not allowed into the country without investigation and/or prosecution. And most pernicious of all, they don't actually define what they mean by advocating treason or insurrection, any more than they define what "immoral" means, it's whatever they decide it means, so you could be breaking the law without knowing you're doing it, until they decide you're doing it.
Thoughts?»