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Linking Dangerously

Posted by michael on from the linking-la-vida-loca dept.

indole writes "Some /.'ers might remember the story of Sherman Austin, a Californina native who created the "anarchy" website raisethefist.com. Besides posting links to bomb-making instructions, the site caught the ire of the FBI for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government. Well, approximately 18 months later Sherman Austin, now age 20, has been sentenced to 1 year in federal prison. According to Austin, 'he took a plea bargain because he feared his case was eligible for a terrorism enhancement, which could have added 20 years to his sentence.' Doubleplusungood."

1 of 1,185 comments (clear)

  1. Freedom of Speech anymore? by miradu2000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This to me is just scary. Yes he was giving instructions on how to make chemical reactions work. Whoopdeedo! We live in America, and in the america i grew up in we don't censor information from the public. And he wasn't realyl even giving instructions - he never (AFAIK) disseminated the information, he just linked to it. It's like being arressted for telling people that you KNOW how to make bombs....

    But the most scary thing of all is this qoute from this website: "(5) he cannot associate with any person or group that seeks to change the government in any way (be that environmental, social justice, political, economic, etc.), "

    How can the courts do that? This guy has rights that cannot under any circumstances be taken away. Part of those rights are freedom of speech - expecially political freedom of speech - and policital freedom of speech again AFAIK is only when you want to try to change the government somehow.

    This guy got shafted by a horrible judge who shouldn't be allowed to work. If i were president, or governer i would pardon this man becuase he doesn't deserve to have his life ruined for such a simple thing as disseminating information.

    As a highschooler what am I to think growing up? Do we really have our Bill of Rights anymore? Every day i see more news about parts of it being chipped away - of course all in the name of protecting the country from terrorism. (since free speech, habius corpus, etc are an evil evil thing... ) BULLSHIT!