Len Lazarick, The Examiner
2008-01-16 08:00:00.0
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Annapolis -

The families of fallen veterans demanded Tuesday the legislature pass a bill that would stop companies from profiting off the names of dead soldiers.

“I think I should have the right to say whether it’s sold for profit,” said Kevin Kavanaugh of Anne Arundel County. His son, Pfc. Eric Kavanaugh, was killed in Sadar City in September 2006.

Kavanaugh said it “came as a great shock and disturbance to learn that there was a company using the names of fallen soldiers, not only to promote their political beliefs, but to profit from the sacrifice that these young men and women made.”

The company’s Web site is carryabigsticker.com.

Sen. Bryan Simonaire and Del. Nic Kipke, Anne Arundel County Republicans, agreed, and they drafted a bill that tried to avoid the First Amendment free-speech issues that other states had run into over similar legislation. “Recent court decisions have upheld the privacy rights of the Three Stooges,” Simonaire said, “but Maryland lacks basic privacy rights to protect our own heroic fallen soldiers.”

Simonaire and Kipke narrowly drafted the bill to apply only to using the name or picture of a soldier killed in the line of duty “for the purpose of gaining a commercial advantage by advertising for sale a product” or services without the consent of survivors or heirs.

But that still wasn’t enough for the American Civil Liberties Union. In testimony submitted by ACLU legislative director Cynthia Boersma, the group said it “agrees that the families of soldiers who have given their lives for their country deserve honor and respect” and the country owes them a debt, but not the sacrifice of shared principles, such as freedom of speech. But SB3 “is an unconstitutional proscription of speech protected by the First Amendment,” the group said.

As an illustration, the ACLU submitted a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoon that used the names of deceased soldiers to spell out the word “Why.”

As an alternative, the ACLU said the families could sue the companies for emotional distress.

llazarick@baltimoreexaminer.com