Yes I'm very proud of the headline, thank you.
Who knew that the first major battle over freedom of speech this semester would involve guerilla marketing, a cartoon flipping off passers-by, a discussion of 70's hair styles and a town with absolutely no sense of humor? But that's where we are.
You may already know the facts of the case. Boston's men in blue were alerted to strange cutouts with circuit boards and lights that could only be bombs, but weren't. The city of Boston was apparently shut down and one of these objects was destroyed before someone learned that they were not in fact bombs, but odd devices designed to advertise an upcoming movie. The objects were traced to a couple of independent spirits affiliated with the Cartoon Network who were then arrested and charged with placing a hoax device intended to cause a panic, and disorderly conduct.
Let's think of this in constitutional terms.
Repeated court decisions have established that an individual's freedom of speech can be limited by the social need to preserve public order. The trick is two fold. First it has to be determined whether the speech involves a substantive right--such as the right to participate in political speech and second in determining whether public order was in fact violated by the act, or if the reaction was not reasonable considering the nature of the speech in question.
In the first case, this is commercial speech, which does not have the same protections as political speech (think of flag burning). This makes it more likely that punishment could be upheld by the Supreme Court since this was not abou conveying an idea as much as it was about selling something.
In the second, it is always difficult to prove what was going on in the mind of people when they are committing an act.
We'll soon see whether this issue will linger or will silently drop out of sight--perhaps out of embarrasment. Regardless, as a pure marketing technique I can't imagine a more successful way to raise awareness of a product. Who now is not aware of Aqua Team Hunger Force?
