Proposed Legislation Is Mooninite Fallout

theantipop writes "Ars Technica has a story about the Terrorist Hoax Improvements Act, a bill introduced recently by the Senate. The bill aims to 'amend the federal criminal code to include a number of new clauses meant to up the ante on wasting government resources. The amendments include extensions to the prohibitions on the spread of false information and mailing threats, increases to maximum prison terms, and allowances for civil suits so that local and federal governments can attempt to recoup expenses related to an incident.' This is undoubtedly a reaction to the Great Mooninite Scare of 2007."

Comments

Re:H. G. Wells would be a felon

[dircha]

"And all of the actors form War of the Worlds would be locked up.."

RTFA for crying out loud!

According to the article, you can only be held liable if 1) they (the government) react as if it were a real emergency, 2) you are aware of their overreaction, and 3) you fail to tell them that it is not a real emergency.

The War of the Worlds broadcast was broadcast with disclaimers. And I'm not aware of any government emergency response triggered by the broadcast. This law doesn't cover activities wasting private citizens' resources, only government resources. And CBS certainly would have informed the goverment of the nature of the program had they been aware of any official emergency response.

And the radio broadcast was ORSON Welles, not H.G. Welles.

For the love of God

[deblau]

Stop linking to Ars. They never provide links to the actual laws or court filings. As a result, any discussion here will be flawed, since it's based on second-hand editorializing at best. If you want to actually read the law, it's here.

The meat of it:

(1) IN GENERAL- Whoever engages in any conduct with intent to convey false or misleading information under circumstances where such information may reasonably be believed and where such information indicates that an activity has taken, is taking, or will take place that would constitute [a hoax] is liable in a civil action to any party incurring expenses incident to any emergency or investigative response to that conduct, for those expenses.
(2) EFFECT OF CONDUCT-
(A) IN GENERAL- A person described in subparagraph (B) is liable in a civil action to any party described in subparagraph (B)(ii) for any expenses that are incurred by that party--
(i) incident to any emergency or investigative response to any conduct described in subparagraph (B)(i); and
(ii) after the person that engaged in that conduct should have informed that party of the actual nature of the activity.
(B) APPLICABILITY- A person described in this subparagraph is any person that--
(i) engages in any conduct that has the effect of conveying false or misleading information under circumstances where such information may reasonably be believed to indicate that an activity has taken, is taking, or will take place that would constitute [a hoax];
(ii) receives actual notice that another party is taking emergency or investigative action because that party believes that the information indicates that an activity has taken, is taking, or will take place that would constitute [a hoax]; and
(iii) after receiving such notice, fails to promptly and reasonably inform 1 or more parties described in clause (ii) of the actual nature of the activity.

Discuss.

Re:Watch out for DHMO

[smooth wombat]

What crackheaded mods gave this an informative rating? It's typical Fox propaganda. Let's take each of the accusations in order.

for him to provide proof,

On December 7, 2002, Iraq submitted a 12,000 page document outlining what it claimed was evidence of its weapons of mass destruction capabilities. Much of the report was recycled from previous declarations (after all, if you've said you destroyed something you can't very well provide any new information) though some clarifications of previous declarations was also provided. The UN used this declaration to assist the inspectors which were in the country (see below) to verify Iraq's claims.

Further, as soon as the report came out, and before anyone had even looked at it, Donald Rumsfeld was saying the entire report was a bunch of lies.

Hey, here's an idea. Instead of shooting your mouth off and saying someone is lying, how about at least putting on a show of opening the documents and then lie about someone else lying.

let inspectors do their inspecting,

Straight from Hans Blix's report from February 14, 2003:

Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidencethat the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming.

A bit further down the page we find:

More than 200 chemical and more than 100 biological samples have been collected at different sites. Three-quarters of these have been screened using our own laboratory analytical capabilities at the Baghdad Centre (BOMVIC). The results to date have been consistent with Iraq's declarations.

The only thing Hans' report does say is that not all of the destroyed material that Iraq claimed it had destroyed twelve years prior could be verified to have been destroyed. However, the inspectors continuing to work with the Iraqi officials to verify this claim.

And this is what Blix himself had to say in 2003 about Saddam's declarations:

"With this long period, I'm inclined to think that the Iraqi statement that they destroyed all the biological and chemical weapons, which they had in the summer of 1991 may well be the truth," Blix told CNN television.

Common Dreams link

Further, it was the U.S. who didn't want the inspectors to continue their inspections because they weren't finding anything, even after the U.S. gave them specific locations to look at, and so were afraid that the longer the inspections went on without finding anything, the more public opinion would turn against their already conceived plans to invade and occupy Iraq.

of dismantling the weapons he did have at the time of the agreement.

He did not have any of the weapons despite Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld repeatedly stating, "We know he has them and we know where they are." If we knew where those weapons were, why didn't we provide that information to the UN inspectors who were on the ground looking for those weapons? Iraq's declaration showed that they had destroyed their wmd stockpiles and construction capabilities as directed to by previous UN resolutions and in those few cases where there were discrepancies, was working with the UN inspectors to clarify the questions. Continuing to state a lie enough times does not make it a fact.

Are we done now with the propaganda? It's not like poll after poll hasn't shown that people who watch Fox Noise are the most ill-informed people in the nation. You didn't need to offer proof of the validity of those polls.