Guatemalan Twitter User Arrested For "Inciting Panic"

talishte points out (with a snippet from BoingBoing) that "Amid protests in the streets and on social networks calling for Guatemala's president to step down after the assassination of a whistleblower attorney, Guatemalan police have arrested a Twitter user for 'inciting panic' through tweets. In the capital city today, police raided his home and confiscated his computer."

Comments

While you are at it

[jsnipy]

While you are at it, make some arrests for people boring others to death with a flood mundane tweets.

Re:While you are at it

[RobertB-DC]

While you are at it (Score:0, Redundant)

Ah, Slashdot. Where even the First Post can be declared "Redundant".

Now, if you can get a "+5, Redundant", you can win teh internets.

Nothing new

[idontgno]

Twidiots always assume they invented everything.

"Amid protests in the streets and on social networks calling for Guatemala's president to step down after the assasination of a whistleblower attorney, Guatemalan police have arrested a text messaging user for 'inciting panic' through SMS. In the capital city today, police raided his home and confiscated his cell phone."

What's the difference? None.

I suppose Tweeters can be proud their chosen technology joins the illustrious ranks of the telephone, the fax machine, and the mimeocopied bill pasted on a telephone pole as agents of protest.

suggesting a boycott is not cuasing a bank panic

[mr_mischief]

Calling a suggested boycott of a bank inciting a panic is so stupid it'd be funny if the poor guy wasn't actually arrested for it. A bank panic is when people run to withdraw funds because someone told them their money was unsafe in that bank. Suggesting a boycott on ethical grounds does not even remotely relate to causing a panic.

He suggested breaking the bank. He did not say the bank was going broke. Anyone who called this a bank panic must have assumed that everyone who reads a sentence or two on Twitter will immediately do whatever they are told.

In that case, hopefully those people who think it's necessary to do whatever suggestions they read (like the officials who brought this trumped-up charge) are also reading Slashdot. I suggest that anyone calling this causing a bank panic go swimming in a piranha-infested river while tied to an anvil.

Good advice

[Zerth]

is not inciting a panic, even if everyone panics. You can get charged for shouting "fire" if there is no fire. If there really is a fire, you should not be charged even if there is a stampede and someone gets crushed.

On the other hand, if the government has already killed 2 people, one quite obviously because of what he was saying, I wouldn't be doing anything that might land me in jail.

That's a good way to "accidentally" shoot yourself in the back, jump off your cell's balcony, shoot yourself again with a different gun, and then trip into a wood chipper.

Re:Good advice

[Zerth]

Unless you think personal martyrdom to be more effective in achieving your goals, avoiding government assisted suicide is hardly cowardice.

Re:Good advice

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy that made the video that started all this knew that he was going to die if he kept talking. But he did it anyway. He was going to make his declarations public, but the government didn't give him a chance. If you haven't seen it go here, it's really shocking. It begins along the lines of "If you are watching or hearing this message, it means that I'm already dead"

Anonymity

[NeutronCowboy]

Any more proof required that Anonymity is required for a working free society? Not because without it, a society ceases to be free, but because an oppressive government requires a complete lack of it.

Quite frankly, every time I hear someone say "but I'm not hiding anything", I have to add "yet". People might not hide anything now, but that's largely because they're part of the majority that makes laws. They don't understand how quickly their position can evaporate and how quickly they can find themselves on the wrong end of the long arm of justice.

Re:Anonymity

[causality]

Any more proof required that Anonymity is required for a working free society? Not because without it, a society ceases to be free, but because an oppressive government requires a complete lack of it.

Quite frankly, every time I hear someone say "but I'm not hiding anything", I have to add "yet". People might not hide anything now, but that's largely because they're part of the majority that makes laws. They don't understand how quickly their position can evaporate and how quickly they can find themselves on the wrong end of the long arm of justice.

And if they don't understand that by now, with the numerous examples history has provided, then unfortunately it's probably because they don't want to. Just read any decent history book and what you see is that most of recorded history is the story of the most violent, egomaniacal, psychopathic and murderous segment of the population trying to assert control over everyone else with varying degrees of success. It's as though we think that all of history stopped applying to us in the last 50 years or so, like state power is your friend and has given up its dream of absolute control merely because it has learned that it will encounter less resistence if it puts on a smiling face and tells you it's all for your own good. The smallest foresight can prevent the Orwellian police state that's coming and is becoming more prominent, but not when people think that burying their heads in the sand is any sort of prevention.

What you said above reminds me of that saying: "it's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."

Re:Anonymity

[mr_mischief]

You're too right. Governments know it's easier to take away anonymous speech first, and free speech that is not anonymous later. It'd be quite difficult to take away anonymous speech if free speech was taken first. They must lock people into identifying themselves so they can find you once they make what you're saying illegal to say.

It it one's duty to oneself and those one cares about to stand up not only to recognized tyrants, but those who would put the tools of the tyrant in place.

in order to properly understand

[Anonymous Coward]

That poor guy was arrested because of this:

-In Guatemala all banks are in control of a few very powerful families (republica bananera way
-that control is of course close tied to congress campaigns and policy making.
-since a couple bank panics in the last few years, they pushed a law that makes illegal say anything bad about a bank.
-the guy twitted.

I don't know how to feel about this...

[jeffb (2.718)]

Suppressing free speech: bad.

Ridding the world of Twitter, one twit at a time... hmm.

Guatemala

[br00tus]

An NGO like Freedom House, which gets about 80% of its money from the US government, rates Guatemala 3.5 of 7 in freedom, with 1 being the most free (United States) and 7 being the least free (Somalia).

I find the list rather ridiculous. Cuba is rated 7. Why? I presume because it locked up a bunch of independent journalists, many of whom had contact with the US mission in Cuba. So why is Cuba 7, but Guatemala 3.5? This journalist was KILLED - in Cuba they arrest, but do not kill journalists. So why are they rated so much lower? Also, Saudi Arabia is rated 6.5, as is China. So Saudi Arabia is more free than Cuba? That is completely ridiculous.

Re:Freedom of speech...

[sjames]

I could be sued, but not criminally charged. Of course, anybody can sue anyone for anything. AIG couldn't win because I'm merely expressing my own personal opinion. BofA because it's obviously a humorous message. In fact, Berke Breathed published a very similar statement in millions of newspapers and books in the '80s. Even if I sent out a more serious message, I would still be merely expressing an opinion and belief.

That doesn't mean that with their well funded army of lawyers compared to my lucky if I don't have to appear pro se they couldn't effectively buy a ruling, but that's another issue.