Channels can be made illegal, you say? Now THAT gives me ideas!
On one hand, I say persecute him to the fullest.
The libetarian in me is surprised, however, that there is such a thing in this country as "an illegal channel".
I wonder what else is on that list.
It's probably no big deal, but can any administration in the future add to the list of forbidden political viewing?
Channels can be made illegal, you say? Now THAT gives me ideas!
More information, this time from DAWN.com (Pakistan)
Pakistani accused of operating Hezb TV
NEW YORK, Aug 24: A Pakistani man was due to appear in court in New York on Thursday, accused of providing a banned Hezbollah-linked television station to viewers in the city, prosecutors said.
Javed Iqbal, 42, allegedly offered to provide an undercover agent from the FBI with satellite broadcasts by Arabic-language Al Manar, according to court documents seen by AFP.
He faces up to five years in jail if convicted of charges under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
A search warrant issued by a New York court says that Iqbal was interviewed at the city’s Kennedy airport in May on returning from a trip to Lebanon and that an FBI agent entered his satellite television store some two weeks later. It was then ensuing in conversations that Iqbal was alleged to have offered broadcasts of the channel.
Al Manar is seen as a mouthpiece of the Lebanese Hezbollah, and was categorised by US authorities in March as a terrorist entity, making it a crime to conduct any business with it.—AFP
> The libetarian in me is surprised, however, that there is such a thing in this country as "an illegal channel". <
Me too!
In fact I stumbled across the al Manar signal once a few years ago, while pointing my BUD ("big ugly dish") at the lineup of ethnic programming on satellite T-5.
But never again!
You can bet that in the future, I'll be extra careful to stay away from al Manar's frequency, polarization, SR and PID's.
[TV engineers and satellite hobbyists out there will know what I'm talking about. It's technical lingo.]
But in all seriousness I imagine this guy's offense was not in watching or receiving al Manar but in reselling the signal, in one fashion or another.
Probably the same restrictions would apply to Cuban TV:
You aren't prosecuted for watching Cuban TV. Almost ankybody in south Florida can do so easily all year round.
What's more, us TV-DXer's always value a catch from Cuba on Channels 2 thru 6 via E-skip. Happens quite frequently all over the eastern USA in June and July.
But anybody who tried to SELL Cuban TV programming in the USA would undoubtedly be guilty of the same "trading with the enemy" crime that makes it verboten to import and sell Cuban cigars.
Much like yourself, I have mixed feelings.
No matter how much I disagree with his message (and I do), I cannot see reason to abandon freedom of speech.
Who is to dictate what political or religious messages are deemed appropriate? Recently, this country has a history of politicians using their political power to squelch the voices of those that they do not agree with. Opportunists can always find a way to demonize those that are a liability to them. The problem is, each time they exercise their power they chip away at our constitutional rights.
We do not need a McCarthy telling us that one religion is better than another, one political party is better than another, one minority group is better than another or that one philosophy is better than another. That one's ideas and words are forbidden. Not at the point of a gun.
That is what the founders meant when they wrote that amendment.