States try to bar use of war-dead names, images

[TechBear_Seattle]

States try to bar use of war-dead names, images

By PAUL DAVENPORT
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHOENIX -- Incensed by the sale of anti-war T-shirts and other paraphernalia emblazoned with the names and pictures of America's military dead, some states are outlawing the commercial use of the fallen without the permission of their families.

Despite serious questions of constitutionality, Oklahoma and Louisiana enacted such laws last year, and the governors of Texas and Florida have legislation waiting on their desks. Arizona lawmakers are on the verge of approving a similar measure.

"You should have some rights to your own name and your own legacy, particularly if you're a deceased veteran," said state Sen. Jim Waring, a Republican who sponsored the Arizona bill. "Celebrities have that. Why shouldn't our soldiers have that?"

The bills were prompted largely by pleas from military families upset that their loved ones' names and photos were being used on phone cards, body armor and other products.

In many cases, the target of their ire is Dan Frazier, a Flagstaff, Ariz., man who sells T-shirts online that list the names of 3,155 U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq. The shirts bear slogans such as "Bush Lied -- They Died" and "Support Our Remaining Troops -- Bring the Rest Home Alive."

The article continues at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/316234_names18.html

Mr. Frazier's website is CarryABigStick.com

[Beelzebud]

1. No more public war memorials then, right?

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Well I'm sure the GOP wants to 'privatize' those war memorials anyway. Maybe, the families can just

'buy' a name on one, if they'd like their fallen solider to be remembered.

[Freddie Stubbs]

5. Only if someone tried to sell such a memorial

[Beelzebud]

6. You mean like how a construction firm might profit off of building one?

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. They'll do anything

So what's next, the wall is going down in DC?

I mean it is used in T-Shirts and mugs

[Clark2008]

3. What horseshit.

If they enacted something like this, then newspapers and magazines couldn't publish the list of names as a service. Newspapers and magazines, afterall, are for-profit (most of them, anyway).

This won't fly against most states' Sunshine Laws, but these politicians are too daft to figure that out.