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Illinois Politician Wants a Kill Switch For Anonymous Speech Online
New submitter OhSoLaMeow writes with a story at The Daily Caller with unpleasant news from the Illinois state Senate, where a state senator has introduced a bill that "would require anonymous website comment posters to reveal their identities if they want to keep their comments online." From the article (warning — obnoxious ads with sound): "The bill, called the Internet Posting Removal Act, is sponsored by Illinois state Sen. Ira Silverstein. It states that a 'web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless the anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate.'"
Hardly. Unless your servers are located in Illinois the bill is meaningless.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
(cough)Democrat(Cough)
> betrayal of your constituents like this
In the 21'st century a politicians constituents are the various lobby interests that give him money to run the campaigns that get them elected. "citizens" don't come into the picture except as demographics to be manipulated by the advertising campaign.
I suspect this bill was advanced directly in the interests of one of the senators "constituents".
freenetproject.org = absolutely no one can censor (delete) anything.
Also of-course it is anonymous (more then TOR).
Downside: it's slow.
But best thing we have now for truly NO CENSORSHIP, good for online anonymity.
got 3 minutes?
For geeks only (need patience!)
- freenetproject.org grab .jar (sorry, it's java)
- java -jar thefile.jar (and -console if headless)
- http://localhost:8888/ (from separate firefox profile, block outside-localhost access by setting invalid proxy if you want, disable java/flash if you want, JS also not needed)
- in wizard set LOW or NORMAL security (you can't have HIGH unless you know >10 freeneters practically)
- later, go to Freenet Message System and install it - its 100% uncensorable board (will take hour to start up, it's normal. create id, solve captchas)
- do NOT use Freetalk (extreamly slow), but on very fast (ram/hdd=ssd) computer try Sone and WoT plugins (Twitter!)
Greetings from anons, Johny and tgs3 see you there :)
If questions ask us there and #freenet on irc2p and freenode.org
If they have nothing to do except introduce bullshit bills, we should stop paying them and send them home. We could use the money to hire better teachers, fix up a crumbling bridge or something.
doesn't mean freedom of anonymity...
I don't understand why people think that anonymity is or should be an unquestionably protected given.
While I disagree with this politician's proposal, I feel like we should make it clear that not all speech should be behind an anonymous veil. It's difficult to explore and draw the line but, for instance, if you call in a bomb threat or threaten someone's life over the phone and they use the appropriate means to track you down, I don't think you should be able to say that your speech should be anonymous and by removing the anonymity you're a treasonous free speech hater. However, if I want to criticize my leaders you shouldn't be able to trace whatever communications I use to do so in order to identify me. And I think we have court systems and warrants and wiretapping laws in place (or rather we should) that make this a process that does not become abused. When your words have a large amount of weight, they shouldn't be anonymous -- I think that testifying against someone is a great example of this. Can I anonymously swear to tell the truth and call you a pedophile and will you demand that be entered into the record in a court of law?
Another recent example I can think of that annoys me is when your "anonymous free speech" is equated to hundreds of millions of dollars or campaign donations. At that point we're talking about sums that can positively or negatively affect many lives and when it hits a certain point it should simply be published. This would reduce some of the legalized bribery in this country that is parading around as "free speech."
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It doesn't actually say anything about anonymity although I understand how forcing identification could amount to fear of response and future duress. So at that point you need to involve a judge in the process of determining whether identification is needed without violating the first amendment.
My work here is dung.
Don't do that, you'll just make somebody else's life miserable.
Rather than go random, people should just put in:
Ira I. Silverstein
2951 West Devon
Chicago, IL 60659
(773) 743-5015
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Inconvenient Party affiliation omitted, twice in one day.
Back here we have a Democrat state senator Toni Harp from Connecticut trying to "Ban Kids From Using Arcade Guns." Now we have Democrat state senator Ira Silverstein of Illinois with another statist gem.
Could we please stop this game? When we're raging about Republicans there is no hesitation qualifying names with parties. I know it's inconvenient that all bad government isn't the fault of fundies, but pretending statists aren't a problem isn't helpful behavior.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Already, Facebook and Google+ forbid anonymous postings. Facebook's comment system is used all over the web, so you can't post anonymously anywhere it is found -- you can, of course, violate their terms of service and use a *false* ID, but in that case, again, you can lose your voice and your posts at any time. For that matter, if you're not a Facebook member, you can't post at all on a Facebook comment system, either within Facebook or used externally.
You're looking in the wrong place for the real threat. The government isn't (really) looking to curb anonymous speech, just this one asshat in Illinois; and his stupid little idea isn't going anywhere.
Commercial interests, however, have a huge stake in making sure they know who you are, and are well into the process of making it standard. even here on slashdot, we have numerous naive koolaid drinkers who will blithely tell you that anonymous speech is a bad thing.
Slashdot itself starts anonymous speech at a lower value than speech with an ID, a slight, but not subtle, nudge to get you to provide your information to the world. Basically for anyone who utilizes the mod system here, anonymous speech is by default invisible. No, you can't count on the mods to fix all the cases that need fixing, either -- not enough mods or modpoints.
Seriously people... you're fighting the wrong fight. 1, support anonymous speech, and 2, don't feed the trolls. Get off Facebook and Google+ until or unless they come around. Or else swallow and don't spit when they don't let you post anonymously.
Cash can be subject to seizure without a warrant or other cause.
Read it and weep.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.