The Editor, Sir:

Yesterday my cable television viewing was disrupted by diktat of the Broadcasting Commission. Flow supplies me with both internet and cable television service. I take the full complement of cable tv channels available, including the X-rated ones. When I noticed that some channels were missing content, I rang the Flow Service Centre, inquiring of the reduced service.

The answer from the agent who came online gave away the game almost immediately. X-rated channels are now termed "late-night adult services". Maybe this new terminology is intended as a sop to the 'boobocracy'. The choice of words is clearly intended to transmit and carry a faint odour of the disapproved. As Flow tells it, they were coerced, under threat of dire consequences to their license and, indeed, their business, to abjure a commercial contract and to "remove the x-rated channels from their packages". However, if I affirmatively declared for them, they would be restored.

Inalienable rights

Supreme Jamaican law affirms some rights to which I am born - to privacy in my home; inviolability of my home, without due process of law; freedom of expression, of conscience and of association. The law grants me inalienable rights to make contracts and establishes, without qualification, my right to the enjoyment of my property. When I signed up for the service, I was obliged to provide a government-issued identification which showed I was an adult of many years. I pay the cost of service contract in full. In fact, since Flow is challenged to deliver an invoice for service regularly, I negate the risk of disruption, especially to my internet service, by prepaying months at a time.

Abrogation of contract

I hold that the act of removing the content from channels, to which I had a contractual right by electronic means, not only infringed on my rights to privacy but deprived me of the quiet possession and enjoyment of my property. Contracts are not to be trifled, especially for a business. So Flow's collusion with an agent of the state resulted in a unilateral abrogation of a contract for a service that is lawful and consensual. This action is equal parts craven and contemptible and ought to be of grave concern to all consumers.

As to the Broadcasting Commission, I am waiting for the day when they declare the Book of Songs of Solomon to be excised from the Bible (KJV) on account it is prurient and a threat to the public order. The members of the commission, singly or severally, are simply unqualified to determine which of my rights may be sequestered. Furthermore, informed by the abundant lessons from history and on general principle, I loathe hypocrites of every stripe, high church or low. I do not wish to be saved from whatever.

I am, etc.,

CARLTON A. SAMUELS

28 Seymour Avenue

Kingston 6