Slashdot Mirror
Italian Police Seize Blog Over 'Kill Berlusconi' Satire
Giorgio Maone writes "Italian Police just seized the Savona e Ponente Blog because the 60-year-old journalist Valeria Rossi posted a satirical article titled 'I want to kill Berlusconi,' writing that 'you can't feel guilty of wishing him death, because he's not human: he's an alien, with incredible psychic powers.' Otherwise, how could such a clown, with multiple pending trials for corruption, tax offenses, abuse of power and even child prostitution, convince the majority of the other politicians and a consistent slice of Italian people to keep him as their prime minister for almost 20 years now? Here's a mirror of the incriminating text (Italian)." And here's a translation to English.
Your comment will lead to some militrary contractor getting the opportunity to sell gigantic fans for $500 million each to the white house. within two weeks you'll notice that the flags around the white house will always point in a offset from the actual wind direction.
To an outside observer, it seems that Berlusconi has stayed in politics for one primary reason - to make sure that he can keep changing laws every time there's an attempt to prosecute him for some misdeed. With that tactic, he's rendered the judiciary largely irrelevant. He owns a vast media empire, and hasn't been forced to keep his media holdings at arm's length while in office, so he's used that to prop up his political empire. The Italian Parliament doesn't seem to be able to deal with the issue. The disconnect between those in power and a good chunk of the population is very high, according to some recent news reports.
Given his personal behavior, you have to wonder just how corrupt his government actually is, and who may have been in a position to blackmail him for favors over the last twenty years. If he'd managed to avoid sexual misconduct that seemed deplorable to his core supporters, he wouldn't be in trouble now.
If Italy was in another part of the world, there would probably be a lot of questions about how democratic it actually is.
"Did you know it is illegal to say: "I wish President Obama was killed by mortar fire on the White House. It could be set up across the park and use the flag on said White House to provide a rough wind measurement.""
BZZT! Wrong! I've had several talks with the SS, in person, regarding a phone call I had with someone stating similar things.
It is not illegal until you say "I plan to" or "I am going to."
Saying "I wish" is an opinion and is protected speech.
The whole thing revolves around INTENT. Wishing is not the same as saying you'll do it.
This has been a PSA from someone that has dealt with the Secret Service on multiple occasions - in fact some of my own ./ postings have made the SS come to my house.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.