Letters

From the December 1999 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Bell Atlantic

Federal Subscriber Line Charge $9.57
Portability Surcharge .46
Automatic Savings Charges 1.26
911 Fee 60
Universal Service Fee .40
Gross Receipts Tax Surcharge .63
Federal and Maryland Taxes 1.70
Total: $14.62

AT&T

Universal Connectivity Charge $.93
Carrier Line Charge .85
Federal Tax 1.25
Maryland Tax .79
Franchise Tax .03
Total: $3.85

These taxes and surcharges of $18.47 account for a whopping 60 percent of my charge for basic service of $30.89. Worse, there are items on the phone bill that purport to summarize taxes and surcharges, only to be followed by further taxes and surcharges not included in the summary. Multiply the $18.47 on my phone bill by the number of telephones in service, and ask where the money is actually spent.

Richard Lange
Rock Hall, MD

Suit Threatens Free Speech

As David Kopel points out in his article on Rice v. Paladin ("The Day They Came to Sue the Book," August/September), a civil case against a small press concerning a book which sold only 20,000 copies gravely threatens the First Amendment. It also has implications for pending lawsuits, such as the Louisiana case involving Oliver Stone's film Natural Born Killers.

As easy as it is to sneer at books like Paladin's Hit Man, and the sort of trashy TV movie scenario that inspired the case, it is just as easy to lose sight of what such wrongheaded judicial wrangles mean. Under the logic of Rice v. Paladin, anyone or anything that produces anything is fair game for short-term individual gain at the expense of everyone and everything else. The plaintiff, as in Rice, may get lucky and win a settlement. Or the judge, as in Hamilton v. Accu-Tek, may torture the law and the jury into an award. Or the money awarded, as in the tobacco suits, may never reach its "victims." But the precedents mount, and each following case rests on these absurdities.

Kopel's call for a harder look at reforms in this area should be given serious attention. As Virginia Postrel and Jesse Walker also inform us in the same issue, the piling on by congressional hearings, public hand-wringing, tort law run amok, and judicial activism is poised to leave more than just those on the bottom of the heap bereft of freedom--and more freedoms at risk than just the First Amendment.

Peggy Tartaro
Executive Editor
Women & Guns
Buffalo, NY
waguns@aol.com

David Kopel's article aptly demonstrates his keen analytical abilities and thorough research. Based upon the reasoning used in Rice v. Paladin, a survivor of guerrilla warfare could sue Leon Uris for writing Trinity or Exodus because they extol the excitement and effectiveness of guerilla tactics against an established government with consequent loss of innocent lives. If one could obtain jurisdiction on the authors or editors of the Bible, I can only hazard a guess as to how many miscreants would attempt to justify their criminal behavior through their fractured readings of the Good Book.

The missing ingredient from these ridiculous decisions is the independent intervening cause that breaks the chain of circumstances leading from a book to action: the mind and judgment of the reader. The wisdom of the ages insists that responsibility for that judgment or lack thereof rests with the reader. Aside from the other dangers of censorship and thought control about which Kopel writes so well, the very essence of a civilized society, based upon the requirement that individuals are responsible for their own acts, is being desiccated by this sort of mindless pandering.

John L. Kane Jr.
Senior Judge
U.S. District Court
Denver, CO

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