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Court: 'Repugnant' Online Discussions Aren't Thoughtcrime (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a ruling in favor of former NYPD officer Gilberto Valle — the so-called "cannibal cop." In 2012, Valle was fired and arrested for going online and talking about his fantasies, which included kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, and cannibalism. He was later convicted in a jury trial. A district court judge overturned the conviction, but the government appealed, hoping to make it stick. The Appeals Court has now affirmed Valle's acquittal. In the ruling (PDF), the court notes, "We are loathe to give the government the power to punish us for our thoughts and not our actions. That includes the power to criminalize an individual's expression of sexual fantasies, no matter how perverse or disturbing. Fantasizing about committing a crime, even a crime of violence against a real person whom you know, is not a crime." The court also addressed the government's questionable efforts to use the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to increase the severity of Valle's punishment: "While the Government might promise that it would not prosecute an individual for checking Facebook at work, we are not at liberty to take prosecutors at their word in such matters."
Well LA has per crime now so what is next?
This comment section should be good!
if it involved an underage girl.
You mean pre crime, loser!
In your face! Victory is mine!
..and how is that different from convicting someone of thought crime?
So who's hotter: Twilight Sparkle or Richard Stallman?
At least a crime would have occurred...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
More of the quote:
While the Government might promise that it would not prosecute an individual for checking Facebook at work, we are not at liberty to take prosecutors at their word in such matters. A court should not uphold a highly problematic interpretation of a statute merely because the Government promises to use it responsibly.
Pay attention the next time your senator or congresswoman or Attorney General or CIA head or ex head or President says, "Come on, Shelley. Give it a rest. We aren't going to abuse it."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"We are loathe to give the government the power to punish us for our thoughts and not our actions."
If all judges were this sensible, then those who want to imprison people for "climate change denial" will be thwarted.
Loretta Lynch Vows to Prosecute Those Who Use 'Anti-Muslim' Speech That 'Edges Toward Violence'
So who's hotter: Twilight Sparkle or Richard Stallman?
Dirty Dick FTW
Christ. This country now convicts people of thinking of doing a crime? Must be nice to be a prosecutor these days. I want to murder several of my old managers. I guess I am guilty on multiple accounts. WTF? Really?
MOO
APPS!
If you even read the summary instead of just the summary title, you'd know that's actually what they said.
This is the sort of ruling that reminds me of what I admire about the US. The United Kingdom has pretty much totally abandoned the idea of freedom of speech in the past couple of decades, with people prosecuted for describing sexual fantasies, for telling ridiculous jokes, for drawing silly pictures, for declaring support for horrid ideas... all, it seems, with the aim of driving those who are a genuine threat underground, so we can move from directed intelligence-gathering to national surveillance.
At least a crime would have occurred...
could you elaborate on that..? Are you saying that his thoughts SHOULD be a crime, or are you saying that if he was hanged right away a crime would NOT have occurred? When we convict people of thoughts and feelings that is a slippery slope to an Orwellian future.
If they were they would have to arrest everyone on slashdot!
Oh just kiss already
Seems to almost perfectly require Evelyn Hall's pithy description of Voltaire's attitude.
Nice to see a judge agreeing.
We might be able to come up with a new programming method using recently open-sourced Swift and implement 64-bit hosts file software that pre-emptively blocks any crime from reaching the victims. I know a guy who might help us with this, he knows a lot about building high-performance hosts file tools. In order to summon him I suggest we all install AdBlocking extensions in our browsers and let it be publically known that we use such resource hogging low quality software.
Killing an innocent person...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This would have been a very dangerous precedent to set. As a society we have to stop being so terrified that something bad MAY happen that we police all potentially harmful actions. I'm glad no one was hurt but we have to be willing to accept a certain level of risk to have the freedoms we all want. Maybe he was going to kill that woman and that would have been tragic but it's nothing in the grand scheme. Just because something could happen doesn't mean it will and trying to stop everything that might happen eventually leads to a police state. I'd personally rather have the slim risk of being tortured to death and eaten than guaranteed oppression.
Well LA has per crime now so what is next?
Thought police. They will arrest anybody caught thinking.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
who's the innocent person being killed in your scenario.. ?
Not sure why they'd do that. LA doesn't have a particularly high thinking rate. And it's recidivism rate for thinking is even lower.
I think he's saying that hanging him would have been the crime.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
The man hanged for politically incorrect thoughts? Well, what we know, maybe stole some sweet in a shop when he was a kid, then he would not be innocent, but still, hanging for a stolen lollipop seems too strict to me.
A) conspiracy is two or more people. B) the statute specifically requires an "overt act" to be convicted of conspiracy.
US Supreme Court case history shows that they will strongly defend free speech even by government workers BUT government workers whose speech would reasonably discourage the public from using them may be sacked. I don't think anyone in trouble would call a wannabe-cannibal cop for help. Would you?
In 2012, as his new wife and baby slept in the next room, Valle went online to discuss — repeatedly, at length, and in morbid detail — how great it would be to kidnap, murder and eat, among others, the mother of his child. “The abduction will have to be flawless,” Gilberto Valle wrote of one victim in an Internet sex fetish community called “Dark Fetish Network.” “ I can make chloroform here.” He added: “She does look tasty, doesn’t she?” And: “I would want to see her suffer.”
Fantasizing about eating his family and making them suffer might "not be a crime" but Valle sounds like a sick, dangerous and evil man and a crime waiting to happen. So maybe the court instead can declare he doesn't come closer than a mile to any other human being?
Elizabeth I of England may not have been the first person to say it, but she probably said it best: "I have no desire to make windows into men's souls."
Good, inexpensive web hosting
This depends on a lot of state laws, but for the most part, you have to do something material to further the criminal scheme (it can't all just be thought).
And it can, in some cases, be a 'conspiracy of one', though in that case you'd usually have to be planning it with an undercover cop. For example, they find you're plotting to do X, offer to help, then bust you for moving forward with the plan. Sometimes people worry about this, but all I have to say is that if someone offers to commit a crime with you, all you have to do is refuse. For those of us not planning to blow anything up or hurt anyone we don't like, saying "no" to the offer does not seem like a difficult task.
So how does the population reconcile this with non photographic child pornography. Where no actual children were used to create stories, pictures or video of sexual acts with children? If an artist draws something and distributes it, or someone buys the "art" doesn't this statement pretty much condone the sentiment:
"We are loathe to give the government the power to punish us for our thoughts and not our actions. That includes the power to criminalize an individual's expression of sexual fantasies, no matter how perverse or disturbing. Fantasizing about committing a crime, even a crime of violence against a real person whom you know, is not a crime."
Or is it just because we have all agreed that having the images is the crime? Not what that would obviously lead to in our expectations from those people that would view that stuff. What if we agreed that having murder fantasy plans and a database of nearby victims was a crime? Just like we expect it to naturally follow that a person interested in the child fantasies would eventually hurt a child, could we not make the same case that it would naturally follow for a murder plot they were developing with real people as targets?
He was later convicted in a jury trial.
Convincted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, by the way. Just in case you thought he was convicted of simply expressing grim thoughts.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I read (TFA) as a finding of guilt to commit conspiracy was overturned. Nothing about the status of thoughtcrime as an actual crime. Nobody ever suggested that the thoughts by themselves violated law. Just that, absent any other evidence, they are insufficient to create intent.
Have gnu, will travel.
Still a better love story than Twilight.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How this could ever have been in question is beyond me...I thought this kind of debate went out back in the 60's & 70's...with that said the judges just could NOT escape being influenced by today's society in claiming that there is 'no doubt' that 'violent fantasies' lead to degradation & violence against women...which basically tells me that no matter how often 'thought crime' convictions get overturned or the laws get struck down the judges doing so are doing it based ONLY on the constitution and not on their own 'common sense' that thought does not beget an action or harm of any kind...and that my friends is troubling...the point being that in a country less protective of speech at the constitutional level (Canada for instance...I am Canadian BTW) this conviction could easily have stood up & a person would be in jail for many years for what he thought not anything actually planned or actions taken...'thought crime' indeed
AG Loretta Lynch was just explaining that if people use unpleasant rhetoric about Muslims, the Department of Justice would "go after them." She also told Muslim parents that if their kids are bullied at school, they should call the DoJ immediately.
... mean? Insensitive?
You know, not talk to the principal, or local law enforcement, no. Call the federal government.
No mention other people being bullied, of course.
So watch that rhetoric, people! The Obama administration just said they feel they have the power to "go after you" if you're found being
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
http://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-16/chapter-12/article-3/part-2/16-12-100-2
2010 Georgia Code
TITLE 16 - CRIMES AND OFFENSES
CHAPTER 12 - OFFENSES AGAINST PUBLIC HEALTH AND MORALS
ARTICLE 3 - OBSCENITY AND RELATED OFFENSES
PART 2 - OFFENSES RELATED TO MINORS GENERALLY
16-12-100.2 - Computer or electronic pornography and child exploitation prevention
Of most interest to this discussion:
(e) (1) A person commits the offense of obscene Internet contact with a child if he or she has contact with someone he or she knows to be a child or with someone he or she believes to be a child via a computer on-line service or Internet service, including but not limited to a local bulletin board service, Internet chat room, e-mail, or on-line messaging service, and the contact involves any matter containing explicit verbal descriptions or narrative accounts of sexually explicit nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse that is intended to arouse or satisfy the sexual desire of either the child or the person, provided that no conviction shall be had for a violation of this subsection on the unsupported testimony of a child.
(2) Any person who violates paragraph (1) of this subsection shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than ten years or by a fine of not more than $10,000.00; provided, however, that, if at the time of the offense the victim was 14 or 15 years of age and the defendant was no more than three years older than the victim, then the defendant shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature.
In other words, if you go online and have an "adult" conversation with a person claiming to be a child of 14 years of age in the state of Georgia, you can be convicted of a felony and sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. Interestingly enough, there are some people who have been convicted of this crime (and no other) who have somehow wound up with more-severe sentences (20 year sentences, albeit most of it served on probation) as a consequence of plea deals.
This appellate decision seems to invalidate those sections of the Georgia statute posted above, along with any convictions/plea deals based on them.
$10 says that if the defendant wasn't a cop, the conviction wouldn't have been overturned in the first place, and if it were appealed, the appeals court would side with the prosecution.
Are you saying that his thoughts SHOULD be a crime ...
It was more than just thoughts. If I remember an article about this earlier this year it had gone past the sick fantasy phase and was clearly in the active planning stage where he was stockpiling restraint and torture equipment in his garage including gathering intelligence by actively searching for possible victims using a police database.
Wow you are dense...
You forgot to mention corren22. If he posts he is sure to summon the furry of the host file spammer !
Because the only thing worse than a postvert is a prevert!
Well the politicians are safe then.
Offending someone somewhere is now a horrible crime. People who think or imagine bad fantasies are offensive and so are monsters. On the other hand, people who actually torture and murder are poor victims we should help.
Ah the pussyfication of society is so wonderful.
This kind of holding is somewhat more important than usual because it is coming from the 2nd Circuit, which is one of the most respected appeals courts in the country. It will give it a little extra weight if the question is examined by either another circuit court or the Supreme Court in the future.
From the I-dont-think-thoughtcrime-means-what-you-think-it-means dept.
I just saw a famous feminist dox some guy on facebook because he used the word "slut" online. She tattled to his employer (an apartment complex). He was fired the next day. Can't remember her name. Clemintine Ford or some shit like that.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/sydney-man-fired-after-calling-feminist-writer-clementine-ford-a-sl/news-story/e1179d6bd723ab6e395c1e2735e4a157
I call bullshit... I've found no mention of this online.
Furry and not fury? Hmm... I will probably think of APK in a whole new light now.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You're truly the party of death. The party of death.
I know there's all this talk about thought-crime and whatnot, but I'd just like to chime in for a moment...
Gilberto "Cannibal Cop" Valle illegally used a police database to research his potential victims. This was illegal, regardless of whether or not he actually planned to use the information he gained to commit any crimes, and has nothing to do with the thought-crime part of this case. By breaking the law, Cannibal Cop committed a crime, so a crime did occur.
The reason this appeals court threw out the conviction for illegal use of a police database is because of the issue of jurisdictional. That is, he got off on a technicality. Granted, he served some time already, so in a sense, he didn't get away with it entirely. However, his conviction record is now squeaky clean, and I'm sure he'll be back on the force in no time.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
> "We are loathe to give the government the power to punish us for our thoughts and not our actions.
Neiher thought, nor action was involved in the case. It hinged on speech and the press, i.e. the ex-cop's online postings of detailed, psycho-pathologic murder plans. Meets the clear and present danger criteria and the ex-cop should be in chains, buried in a mental asylum for life.
The doctors who gave him the clear to become a cop should be fired and their licences and university degrees revoced for sheer professional incompetence.
If you can NOT associate with people you don't want to (like this police officer), then there is no problem any more. People who are stupid enough to have him living near them, and choose to do so, have only themselves to blame.
But unfortunately we don't have freedom of non-association any more. The JEW took it away from us, so that we are forced to live with Jews, who have enslaved us through the debt based money system. Who would choose to live with Jews? Nobody.
Jews lie.
We die.
Hell, Dick and Jane Walk the Dog is a better love story than Twilight...
When Loretta Lynch was testifying at her confirmation hearings she admitted she had no intention of upholding her oath of office (go back and read her ENTIRE testimony). The Democrats in the senate, who work for their campaign contributors and who probably agree with her on most issues anyway voted to confirm her. The Republicans in the senate, who work for their campaign contributors and who pretend to oppose her no most issues in each election cycle voted to confirm her. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans were honorably upholding their own oaths when they voted to confirm this woman who had no intention of upholding her oath.
Wall St want political calm and a controlled population and cares nothing for the Constitution. Wall St would happily support total global government or total absence of government if it meant a calm climate for the investment banker class to get richer. They'll bribe, or rather "give campaign contributions to" any corrupt dirtbag of any party if they think it will give them the control they want, and they clearly have been getting good returns on their beltway investments over the past decade.
Note: Jeb Bush's biggest money man has announced that if he cannot have Bush, he will be backing Hillary (in the eyes of the rich investor/briber class they are the same, and they currently share many backers)
Here, second hit on Google by searching on "police cannibal child". I'm probably on some list now, thanks a lot! :-) To the main point, the problem here is he hadn't actually done anything illegal. It's really important we only punish criminals. In order for someone to be a criminal they have to have committed a crime. Nail him on the DB search, having a taillight out or not trimming his trees properly (this is Cali after all) but find an actual crime to prosecute him for!
No you lack communication skills.... because you can look at it two different ways...
Because the only thing worse than a postvert is a prevert!
Maybe preverts commit pre-crime, which is what this is all about? Or maybe they just think about it... Aw, hell, now I'm getting confused.
That would explain most Hollywood movies. ..
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
Yes but doesn't English do that all the time? Try '80 to 180 million', does it mean '80 to 180,000,000' or '80,000,000 to 180,000,000' ?? Causes me problems all the time.
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
now THAT deserves a standing ovation
well played, well played indeed!