Freedom of Expression MTRCB v. ABS-CBN F: ABS CBN aired an episode entitled Prosti-tuition in their The Inside Story program.

The episode depicted female students moonlighting as prostitutes to enable them to pay for their tuition fees. The Philippine Womens University (PWU) was named as the school of some of the students involved and the facade of PWU Building at Taft Avenue, Manila conspicuously served as the background of the episode. Naturally, the PWU community filed a complaint with the MTRCB that the episode besmirched the name of PWU and resulted in the harassment of some of its female students. MTRCB initiated a formal complaint alleging that ABS did not submit the episode for review and exhibited the same without permission. For their part, ABS-CBN explained that the "The Inside Story" is a "public affairs program, news documentary and socio-political editorial," the airing of which is protected by the constitutional provision on freedom of expression and of the press . Accordingly, petitioner has no power, authority and jurisdiction to impose any form of prior restraint upon respondents. I: whether such program falls under the provision on freedom of expression and of the press therefore not under the review of the MTRCB H: "The law gives the Board the power to screen, review and examine all television programs. It then follows that since "The Inside Story" is a television program, it is within the jurisdiction of the MTRCB over which it has power of review. Here, respondents sought exemption from the coverage of the term " television programs" on the ground that the "The Inside Story" is a "public affairs program, news documentary and socio-political editorial" protected under Section 4,31 Article III of the Constitution. Albeit, respondents basis is not freedom of religion, as in Iglesia ni Cristo,32 but freedom of expression and of the press, the ruling in Iglesia ni Cristo applies squarely to the instant issue. It is significant to note that in Iglesia ni Cristo, this Court declared that freedom of religion has been accorded a preferred status by the framers of our fundamental laws, past and present, "designed to protect the broadest possible liberty of conscience, to allow each man to believe as his conscience directs x x x." Yet despite the fact that freedom of religion has been accorded a preferred status, still this Court, did not exempt the Iglesia ni Cristos religious program from petitioners review power. Japan Airlines v. Simangan F: Simangan, after favorable tests, decided to donate his kidney to his ailing cousin in UCLA, CA. After getting his Emergency Visa from the US Embassy, Simangan purchased a ticket with JAL. On the day of his flight Simangan went to NAIA, checked in and was issued a boarding pass and all pertinent docs to allow him to board the plane, which he did. While inside the plane JALs airline crew suspected Simangan to be carrying falsified documents and later on was constrained to get off the plane. I: whether there was a violation of contract of carriage entitling Simangan to damages due to the humiliation caused to him H: Since JAL definitely declared that the flight could not wait for respondent while his travel documents were confirmed, it gave respondent no choice but to be left behind. The latter was unceremoniously bumped off despite his protestations and valid travel documents and notwithstanding his contract of carriage with JAL. Damage had already been done when respondent was offered to fly the next day. Said offer did not cure JALs default.

We find untenable JALs defense of verification of respondents documents in its breach of contract of carriage.

It bears repeating that the power to admit or not an alien into the country is a sovereign act which cannot be interfered with even by JAL. RENO v. ACLU F: Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844 (1997), is a United States Supreme Court case, in

which all nine Justices of the Court voted to strike down anti-indecency provisions of the Communications Decency Act (the CDA), finding they violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment. Two Justices concurred in part and dissented in part to the decision. This was the first major Supreme Court ruling regarding the regulation of materials distributed via Internet. The CDA was an attempt to protect minors from explicit material on the Internet by criminalizing the knowing transmission of "obscene or indecent" messages to any recipient under 18; and also the knowing sending to a person under 18 of anything "that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs." H: In a nuanced decision, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote of the differences between Internet communication

and previous types of communication that the Court had ruled on. In conclusion, he wrote: We are persuaded that the CDA lacks the precision that the First Amendment requires when a statute regulates the content of speech. In order to deny minors access to potentially harmful speech, the CDA effectively suppresses a large amount of speech that adults have a constitutional right to receive and to address to one another. That burden on adult speech is unacceptable if less restrictive alternatives would be at least as effective in achieving the legitimate purpose that the statute was enacted to serve. (...) It is true that we have repeatedly recognized the governmental interest in protecting children from harmful materials. But that interest does not justify an unnecessarily broad suppression of speech addressed to adults. As we have explained, the Government may not "reduc[e] the adult population ... to ... only what is fit for children." (footnotes removed) The rest of the CDA, including the "safe harbor" provision protecting ISPs from being liable for the words of others, was not affected by this decision and remains law. Through the use of chat rooms, any person with a phone line can become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox. Through the use of Web pages, mail exploders, and newsgroups, the same individual can become a pamphleteer. Concurring Opinion Justice O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, agreed with the decision "as of 1997", but expressed interest in the idea of creating an "adult zone" on the Internet that was made inaccessible to minors through "gateway technology" that had been investigated by a lower district court. If such technology could be introduced, they wrote, zoning portions of the Internet to prohibit adult content could be as constitutional as such zoning is in the physical world. (See .xxx top-level domain. An alternate proposal promoted by free speech advocates claims that a ".kids" domain would be more feasible and constitutional.)

The two dissented in part, writing they would have invalidated a narrower portion of the two CDA provisions under review. SWS v. Asuncion (cant find this yet) will keep looking