Supreme Court case could take big bite out of First Amendment...
Excerpted....
Another pending case is
Novak v. City of Parma, in which Anthony Novak was prosecuted for posting a parody of the website of his local police department. He was charged with (and later acquitted of) a felony under an Ohio law prohibiting the use of a computer to “disrupt” or “interrupt” police functions.
The satirical site, The Onion, has filed a
brilliant parody brief to support the right to parody. The Onion regularly publishes funny fake news stories and, true to form, filed a brief as
the self-described “world’s leading news publication” offering “universally revered coverage,” and noting it is the “single most powerful and influential organization in human history.” It told the court that its “more than 350,000 full- and part-time” staff members are renowned for “maintaining a towering standard of excellence” in journalism. (It added that it “owns and operates the majority of the world’s transoceanic shipping lanes, stands on the nation’s leading edge on matters of deforestation and strip mining, and proudly conducts tests on millions of animals daily.”) It was a tour-de-force on the value of satire to make profound legal and political points.
