Slashdot Mirror
Go To Jail For Visiting a Web Site? Top Law Prof Talks Up the Idea (slate.com)
David Rothman writes: Eric Posner, the fourth most-cited law professor in the U.S., says the government may need to jail you if you even visit an ISIS site after enough warnings. He says, "Never before in our history have enemies outside the United States been able to propagate genuinely dangerous ideas on American territory in such an effective way—and by this I mean ideas that lead directly to terrorist attacks that kill people. The novelty of this threat calls for new thinking about limits on freedom of speech.
The law would provide graduated penalties. After the first violation, a person would receive a warning letter from the government; subsequent violations would result in fines or prison sentences. The idea would be to get out the word that looking at ISIS-related websites, like looking at websites that display child pornography, is strictly forbidden" There would be exemptions for Washington-blessed journalists and others. Whew! Alas, this man isn't Donald Trump — he is a widely respected University of Chicago faculty member writing in Slate.
The law would provide graduated penalties. After the first violation, a person would receive a warning letter from the government; subsequent violations would result in fines or prison sentences. The idea would be to get out the word that looking at ISIS-related websites, like looking at websites that display child pornography, is strictly forbidden" There would be exemptions for Washington-blessed journalists and others. Whew! Alas, this man isn't Donald Trump — he is a widely respected University of Chicago faculty member writing in Slate.
Maybe he'll realize why it's a horrendously idiotic idea. Probably not though, people who envision draconian laws always do it believing that they'll never become a victim of their own fuckery.
USA how deep will you sink? Please stop.
I can see this being taken advantage of to quell free speech. For example, visiting a Tea Party or Libertarian website could land you in jail someday. Who gets to decide what is dangerous?
Also, wouldn't blocking certain websites be more effective? If they were using a foreign VPN, the US government wouldn't necessarily know anyway.
Eric Schmidt from Google wants to create AI to hunt down and delete "Hate Speech".
Seems like an easier thing to do for this situation is simply require these sites to be blocked by the ISPs
1. When notified by a designated government agency
2. The Website is hosted outside the US
3. The Website is registered to a group with known terrorist ties.
4. Hell, even include running it by a judge.
A lot simpler than creating some AI to scan Slashdot posts for people being mean.
I can imagine this getting abused rather quickly, like someone important getting tricked into clicking a link.
""Never before in our history have enemies outside the United States been able to propagate genuinely dangerous ideas on American territory in such an effective way"
I first thought he was talking about the idea that people might go to jail for merely visiting webpages.
"widely respected University of Chicago faculty member writing in Slate"
Widely respected by who? No one sane respects lawyers at this point. Slate is a terrible website with crummy "journalism".
coming near to you! Death penalties for reading mein kampf!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Brought to you by George Soros and The Open Society Foundation.
Where open society means you can be open to what they want you to be.
Something has going seriously wrong when a well respected professor of law begins saying that there are dangerous ideas, and that ideas can be the direct cause of terrorism.
State is more than capable of effective propaganda (or counter-propaganda). If ISIS is such existential threat, then correct approach to defeat their speech is more speech. For a fraction of what it costs to bomb them US Gov't can create top-notch documentaries and satire to effectively neutralize the threat.
Those willing to give up their freedoms... and all that.
Thinking about things is abhorrent and vile. Why just the other day, I considered making a cup of tea, but I stopped in the nick of time. Why? Because that tea might have been dangerously hot. crisis, averted. A few hours ago while driving to work i considered, but for a fleeting moment, that I should hang out with my friends at the pub tonight but nay! belay that thought...because drinking an alcoholic lager beer would certainly impair my abiltiies and make me a roaring powderkeg at the snooker table. Christs whiskers just this instant I considered getting a bagel from the coffee shop next door but sweet mother mercy I shouldnt dream such lascivious fancy...that bagel could have gluten...the devils chewy delight.
Good people go to bed earlier.
But the hate speech that leads directly to the murder and terrorizing of medical facilities that perform abortions is perfectly okay.
Eric Posner suggest we jail people we find engaging in objectionable ideas. I find Eric Posner's ideas highly objectionable, therefore following his suggested approach we should throw him, and anyone visiting Slate, into jail and throw away the keys.
He keeps talking about "supporting ISIS" and "making reference to ISIS", but last I checked there has been no group operating under that name in at least a year or two. There is a small number of illogical people who love to hear themselves talk who keep talking about "ISIS", meanwhile they miss the fact that the group uses a completely different name. At least three or four, commonly, none of which are "ISIS".
So, since banning "ISIS" websites is stupid and insults the religion of Ancient Egypt [heh, see the Flying Spaghetti Monster thread from yesterday to see lots of trolls claiming some religions aren't worthy of basic rights. Or any story on Islam], we must now ban websites that support groups by any of a number of different names. Or, derrp here's a thought, maybe we should just, oh, I don't know, make it illegal to actually be a terrorist. How the f*** will this ever be solved without murdering 1 billion people unless we are allowed to have open conversations?
Wanted: Dumb Ass Lawyer. Just read the prompter, we'll write the words.
Form the rest of America Eric, FUCK YOU, no really just FUCK YOU.
First of all, I wonder if "widely respected University of Chicago" is going to hold.
Second of all, it should be the speech that's illegal, not the observance of it. Whether it's inciting violence at riots; yelling fire in crowded theater; or INSERT THIRD EXAMPLE HERE, it should be the speaker that's at fault, not necessarily someone OBSERVING said speech.
He could equally be talking about radio transmission, the ability to print and distribute pamphlets, or satellite TV broadcast.
I always find it a bit disturbing when legal theorists talk about ways to work around the constitution, seeing it as an impediment rather than a set of ideals. Amend it, by all means. If you genuinely think that freedom of speech is an outdated concept it would be hypocritical of me not to support your right to say so.
Illiberals used to be rather smug about Academia being Left-leaning — as if it validated their claims of being intellectually superior to their opponents.
Well, folks, you own this professor. And this one too.
And, of course, this whole bunch as well.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This sounds like Swatting might get easier and harder to trace.
he was a widely respected University of Chicago faculty member writing in Slate.
FTFY.
When we remove one of our core beliefs (Freedom of Speech) then they have won.
Ok, let's start by jailing anyone calling for limits on free speech.
No. No limits on speech. That is exactly the wrong idea. But being on a CT watchlist if you're immersed in ISIS propaganda, and don't have a clear reason otherwise for doing so? Yep, that's gonna happen.
Problem with watchlists?
Quiz:
1. Should the government have the ability to keep ANY list(s), to include names and other attributes of people, for counterterrorism and intelligence purposes?
2. Should the government be able to watch non-protected aspects of a US Person suspected of terrorism, foreign intelligence ties, etc., without a warrant?
3. Should the government be able to watch protected aspects of a US Person suspected of terrorism, foreign intelligence ties, etc., with a warrant?
4. Can the government keep secret the fact that a US Person (or any other person) is on any CT watchlist and/or is subject of a CT/CI investigation?
5. Should the government be able to deprive a US Person of Constitutional rights without due process, or by virtue of appearance on a CT watchlist?
Answer key: 1. Yes. 2. Yes. 3. Yes. 4. Yes. 5. No.
I really think we should just end the Internet if this is the alternative, I really do. Lets just cut the cables and make it a domestic only affair.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
For example, maybe he's widely cited by people disagreeing with his shenanigans.
Now if we could just get that wall finished.
These same sorts of people were saying the same things about Communist writings back during the Cold War. The bottom line is that there is a significant segment of the population that abhors freedom of speech, and they'll use whatever is convenient to get at it.
...is of course to add to the list of the banned mind-p0rn sites all those potentially danger.. umm... destructive (sounds better, doesn't it) sites NSA has selectors for. You know... Like Linux Journal for instance.
we just TAG and TRACK where the visits are coming from, and use that as an indicator to keep tabs on them? You know, process of elimination...watch for patterns of people who visit those sites...have access to guns...also look up stuff like "How to make a bomb" or "Are goats included in my 72 virgins?"
No need to have a mechanism in place to allow for arresting someone for visiting a fucking website.
Talk about a DISGUSTINGLY BAD IDEA, what's next the thought police?
""Never before in our history have enemies outside the United States been able to propagate genuinely dangerous ideas on American territory in such an effective way"
Somehow, I am sure that the ghost of Senator Joseph "tail gunner" McCarthy is smiling from the great beyond.
Now there will be a managed list of reporters. I'm sure any ISIS related hits will still trigger SOMETHING, which will surely lead to [more] surveillance of the press, even if it doesn't lead to a 'three strikes' letter. What other websites did they visit? Who did they contact? What else are they searching for? Who in the government is leaking information to that reporter? What are their other sources? Are they talking to a known leak? Can we plant a leak for them to speak to? If they're willing to publish that information can we imprison them for leaking 'secrets' to eliminate the chances of reporters talking to whistleblowers?
No sir, I don't like it.
He's a fucking shill.
I'm pretty sure that the United States founders would agree that "genuinely dangerous ideas" (let's remember that not so long ago, things like homosexuality, transgenderism, interracial marriage would have all been on that list - hell my parents were married in 1955 and his parents didn't go to the wedding because my mom was LUTHERAN) should very much BE discussed in the marketplace of ideas. The only way stupid ideas die is when they're revealed to be stupid.
Of course, part and parcel of their worldview was that if you were deemed enough of a threat to society, they just killed you and didn't wring their hands over the injustice of it either.
-Styopa
What's scary about this is that he has even written books on Constitutional law but proposes ideas such as this. I guess it is pretty telling though that according to his Wikipedia page he is a big proponent of the NSA and its pervasive collecting of US citizen's data. I'm assuming his books on constitutional law just skip over the 1st and 4th Amendments.
I also wonder what effect this would have on scholars and researchers. Had ISIL been around in it's current form 4-5 years ago I would have most likely written my Master's thesis on them and possibly might have attempted to access some of their propaganda sites for research. Besides, wouldn't criminalizing this information just make it seem that much more powerful and also make it harder to refute? People will seek it out just to see what is so bad about it.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
All of us outside the US will create the "Prison Roll"! It'll be like a rickroll, only the links will all go to illegal websites. We laugh, you go to jail.
So, what happens if you load some page on a normal site that has a malicious javascript or flash that pulls a bunch of pages from forbidden sites to flood the system with innocent victims?
But Posner is working on it. "Genuinely dangerous ideas"? The horror, better redesign the language to avoid such things.
Have you read my blog lately?
...now all I need to send someone to jail is a javascript or other little bugger that loads a certain page?
#whatcouldpossiblygowrong
...or some other track-covering technology. And therefore all users of such technology will be placed under suspicion, and so on and so on....
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
In fact, most countries have laws that will jail you for visiting certain websites.
They don't, you say?
Search for child porn and get back to me. Might want to get back to me quickly, though, because chances are you won't have too much time to let me know if you were or were not arrested!
"The novelty of this threat calls for new thinking about limits on freedom of speech."
So says the esteemed professor, without realizing that as much as we claim we don't negotiate with terrorists, this is exactly what the fuck we're doing here.
And someone should be held accountable for that. Someone should be punished for even bringing it up, much like the "thought crime" bullshit being suggesting here to destroy our Rights.
Who sets the threshold? By some definitions, watching an Obama speech on CNN.com might be sufficient for having viewed ISIS propaganda.
If the analogy to restricted info like child pornography is followed, do current media get an exception to that type of material currently?
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Anti-abortionist and ultra conservative right wing christian websites are going to fall under this umbrella too right, after the recent domestic terrorist shooting, right?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
ask the popup pron teacher on how bad of a idea this is. It's way to easy to land on the wrong web site or to be stuck in a loop of ad's.
The Supreme Court would have a field day with that idiot.
He needs to take more class the Constition, rather than teach them.
The reason for the first amendment still makes sense - better to letter fools speak freely so you know who they are, rather than punish men for doing doing so. The most powerful and dangerous of speech is true speech and by stopping speech you are more likely to spread lies than truth.
The US government needs a good way to track ISIS supporters, and spying on those that visit their websites makes a lot more sense than arresting them.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
"Remember: Listening to foreign radio stations is a crime against the national security of our people. By order of our leader, it is punishable with long prison sentences."
Never before in our history have enemies outside the United States been able to propagate genuinely dangerous ideas on American territory in such an effective wayâ"and by this I mean ideas that lead directly to terrorist attacks that kill people. The novelty of this threat calls for new thinking about limits on freedom of speech.
There are two things to note. First, the "danger" is not novel or unusual. Nazism is a good previous example of such a dire threat. And we have plenty of over-the-top, hysterical examples throughout the history of the US of foreign ideas like socialism, Catholicism, and other such things (usually imported by immigrants) threatening the US. Somehow the fabric of US society endured.
Second, we have the ludicrous argument that this propaganda is effective on the basis of a single, two person terrorist attack in California (as well as a few others throughout a world of over seven billion people).
Using the law to force Facebook and Twitter to do more to block ISIS propaganda would make sense but also falls short of what is needed. No approach is perfect, but there is a way to deal with these problems.
Blocking ISIS propaganda is "makes sense". "No approach is perfect". We have two more assumptions here. First, that blocking ISIS propaganda is a good idea. and second, that we can ignore how terrible an idea is. Why not advocate the nuking of say, two billion people who happen to be or live near Muslims? No approach is perfect.
Consider Ali Amin, the subject of a recent article in the New York Times. Lonely and bored, the 17-year-old Virginia resident discovered ISIS online, was gradually drawn into its messianic world, eventually exchanged messages with other supporters and members, and then provided some modest logistical support to ISIS supporters (instructing them how to transfer funds secretly and driving an ISIS recruit to the airport). He was convicted of the crime of material support of terrorism and sentenced to 11 years in prison. Amin did not start out as a jihadi; he was made into one.
Dude had his computer hacked. He didn't mean to try to help kill people. It just sort of happened with all this bad content forced on his computer screen. Here, the implicit assumption is that people can't be responsible for their actions when it comes to this insidious jihad stuff.
In one case the seemingly naÃve individual posted general questions about religion, to which ISIS supporters quickly responded in a calm and authoritative manner. After a few weeks, the accounts of hardened ISIS supporters slowly introduced increasingly ardent views into the conversation. The new recruit was then invited to continue [conversing] privately, often via Twitterâ(TM)s Direct Message feature or on other private messaging platforms such as surespot.
This reminds me of the hysterical exhortations about the danger of recreational drugs and how drug users are lured into a shadow world of sin and iniquity.
But there is something we can do to protect people like Amin from being infected by the ISIS virus by propagandists, many of whom are anonymous and most of whom live in foreign countries. Consider a law that makes it a crime to access websites that glorify, express support for, or provide encouragement for ISIS or support recruitment by ISIS; to distribute links to those websites or videos, images, or text taken from those websites; or to encourage people to access such websites by supplying them with links or instructions. Such a law would be directed at people like Amin: naÃve people, rather than sophisticated terrorists, who are initially driven by curiosity to research ISIS on the Web.
Because punishing people for reading the wrong websites will work. When he discovers that sending people to jail, als
Idiots like this guy are the tip of the fascist spear.
Simply put, his idea is unacceptable in the United States.
On more on point than ever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
brandelf -t FreeBSD
In America, even a fascist authoritarian gets to have his or her say.
I guess 5th amendment protects Trump's speeches, but not ISIS'.
“All men are created equal, but Americans are more equal than others”
and so on.
So, lemme get this straight. We'll *allow* these websites to exist and be available on the internet, but you go to jail for *looking* at them?
Seriously, what kind of horseshit is this?
This is a kneejerk reaction to the killings in California. And it's a kneejerk right into your own nose. You can't do the logical thing, like banning easy access to guns, because that would be too hard and expensive to go up against the NRA, so you do the easy, slimey thing and propose this crap instead.
And when the next mass killing is done by a white, Christian, republican conservative who has been radicalized by Fox News, what's the plan there? Can we outlaw Fox News? Or put people in jail for watching it?
Seriously. This country has gone insane. I think it's time to leave and go someplace that actually is a government for the people.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It seems to me that tracking who visits such sites would yield more useful information to be followed up on.
From TFA:
"Consider Ali Amin, (blah blah blah)...convicted of the crime of material support of terrorism and sentenced to 11 years in prison."
Poor Ali Amin. TFA makes it out loke Ali Amin is not to blame for becoming radicalized. That if he hadn't visited IS websites, etc, that he'd be a fine, upstanding young man contributing to society.
Well fuck Ali Amin. He made his choices and for the choices he made he should rot in prison for the rest of his life - not just 11 years.
Track the visitors to the sites. Use such visits to justify warrants and use the existing legal framework to monitor them, track their contacts, intercept them on their way to do whatever helps the enemy and lock them up forever.
What's next? A crime to look at websites that say things that the government doesn't want people reading?
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Please, list also Eric Posner's personal website
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/posner-e
(please, don't click it or you'll go to jail!)
"After the first violation, a person would receive a warning letter from the government;"
Wow! How would the government know my address? I'm sitting in a Starbucks with free WIFI and obviously an active VPN.
I guess he has more knowledge about the law than of that series of tubes, like all those morons with the 'great ideas'.
Sure, it's pretty easy to agree that ISIS are a bunch of nasty fuckers, even by terrorist standards; but I am utterly sick of people hyperventilating and pretending that they are some kind of bold, unprecedented, super-threat that thererfore totally negates all historical arguments in favor of free political speech.
By western body count, they are still lagging Al Qaeda, though their media arm appears to be better; and in terms of killing random foreigners we don't much care about they lag behind Boko Haram, a wide variety of respectable nation states quite possibly including us; and they are no closer to magic-super-brainwashing-propaganda than anyone else is.
The 'argument' in favor of keeping the scary ISIS social media away from the kiddies to prevent their little minds being poisoned could just as easily have been applied to 'communist propaganda'(and, unlike ISIS, Team Communism actually had enough thermonuclear ICBMs to burn us into a smoking crater); basically any pacifist group during one of our wars, assorted unpopular sects, and all kinds of other things.
They are mediagenic, and they aren't nice guys; but They. Are. Not. That. Novel. Any nonsense about their being some bold, new, existential threat is simply false. It's just the same old bad arguments for censorship, with a new boogieman. Plus, even if you ignore any principled objections; are you really going to win a war of ideas by looking like an utter coward? "Ohh, jihad is so attractive that we can't let kids hear about it or they'll adopt it for sure and go out and start attacking our decadent immoral civilization!" That's not fighting 'the terrorists', that's agreeing with them. Get your head out of your ass and do what it takes to have a culture where contempt for the opposition's message is all it takes. No, you won't win everyone, some people really do love the most sociopathic flavors of abrahamic blood god they can find, which is what actual police operations are for; but cowering at the power of the opposition's message is both pathetic and strategically dubious.
Aside from my usual distaste for antiliberal 'national security' bullshit; the sheer cowardice of this really rubs me the wrong way. If you actually think that your own cultural offering is so weak that you need to live in terror of somebody's jihad-blog making it through the great firewall; surely you should be working on solving the real problem? Again, can't win em all; but if you can't compete with 'join in our glorious sandbox hellhole where the war is constant and everything fun is forbidden' message; you have issues.
Goes to show that even the most ostensibly eminent law professor can get basic constitutional questions wrong. There is no such thing as crimethink in American law.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Is about to be permitted in Germany, in an effort to demystify dangerous ideas by bringing them to the light. So I fell a cognitive dissonance about this news.
Sounds like a great way to send people you don't like to jail. Just get their computer to visit an ISIS site.
No idea how that would stop terrorism though.
I am just going to leave it at that.
Isn't "anti-American" ideas like limiting our freedoms exactly what these groups are after? Isnt the whole point to destroy our "free society" way of life?
So getting rid of our freedoms is basically letting the terrorists win, no?
Do you want to lose to terrorists? Because this is how you lose to terrorists.
Who do we have to call to get dangerous fascists off the street?
The US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and political ideology. What an a$$hole this guy is, no wonder Chicago is such a corrupt city.
to advise you to use a VPN or Tor next time. I'm sure that letting people know they're on to them early on will be an effective deterrent against actual violence.
This is a perfect example of why ANY attempt to undermine or diminish the intended scope of the 2nd Amendment should not be tolerated by the American public. Even the "scholars" will perform mental gymnastics to justify their arbitrary notion of what is "protected" and what is "criminal".
If Posner is serious about his proposal, he's a pants-wetting moron and deserves to be ignored. Nothing more to see here.
Sign me up. I'll visit every last one of these banished sites, repeatedly, until the police come knocking.
This law professor has gone off his nut. For one second follow his logic. We have a long history of terrorists attacking abortion clinics and abortion providers. Following this guy's reasoning, we would have to arrest people for going to web sites that promote anti- abortion feelings or opinions. This thinking stems from a certain, quite common notion. A person can not be radicalized. A person may be radical, but they can not be radicalized. It is not like getting a flu shot. It is not that someone will whisper magic words in your ear and you will suddenly go off and plant bombs. People who have problems so severe that they can not confront their own issues often fixate upon a belief or behavior that absorbs them to a degree that their own problems simply do not come to mind. Yes, they might fixate on becoming some sort of religious lunatic that just wants to kill someone. Or they might become radical conservationists, running about and destroying anything they feel is not good for nature. If we identify troubled people, and provide, real and needed help to them, we can limit the number of violent incidents in society. It could stop someone from being linked to ISIS or it could stop a black youth born in such a state that he knows he is better of dead at twenty than living the life he can clearly see before him. If the public is unwilling to fund quality mental health centers it will be even worse on tax payers when they have to pay for the wreck path caused by disturbed people.
What if you are visiting ISIS sites to troll their message boards with anti-ISIS messages?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
How many of those web sites did Posner visit before he came to the conclusion that it should be illegal to visit those web sites?
Either he is a terrorist sympathizer by his own definition or his claims are not grounded in any facts.
...means the terrorists win. Again. We should never consider giving power to bat-shit crazy fundamentalist types (of every stripe) by suggesting that their doctrine is "dangerous". What we should be doing is something like the equivalent of a giant marquee with flashing neon arrows, announcing "Look at this bat-shit crazy ranting". Ideas deserve the light of day. Bad ideas deserve derision in that light.
Tracking IP's of people who visit these websites more than a couple of times isnt.
I see no problems here. Researchers who need to visit ISIS websites but have no government license to do so, can always use Tor or something similar.
If he is cited this often, he must have a well-documented set of beliefs and opinions on most/all major topics. What are they? I want to know where he stands on everything else, since he seems to be a guy who wants to implement thoughtcrime.
Missed this option in the poll ...
just because barbarians have started using the free press. Dangerous ideas are nothing new. The free press is how a free people fights them.
There is a litmus test to identify a tyranny.
Are government officials pretending to have authorities that you know they don't have?
Are government officials trying to re-define terms such as Terrorism?
Are government officials trying to claim law means one thing when you know it means something else?
Well here in France we're already experimenting with the idea: this guy was home-jailed based solely on his Google search history. Best part is, no judge was involved, no hearing was done, not even a single formal accusation levied, it all happened on the Police's sole authority and discretion, by demanding his search history from Google (they complied) and then issuing an administrative order.
This guy was actually documenting possible work-related health hazards.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Common Sense by Thomas Paine comes to mind. Throw everyone in jail who read it?
-- Steve Woz
"limits on freedom of speech."
Seriously.
I was going to post a big 'go fuck yourself' rant but I see it's been taken care of by the rest of the community.
Thanks.
In fact, I think the idea that we should put people in jail for reading a web site is so dangerous that we should put Posner in jail before he says it again.
We should fear actions.
I mean, what the hell is this? Are we returning to the days of the "red scare" and related witch hunts? We win these things by understanding other ideas, openly discussing them, and potentially critiquing and ridiculing them if they deserve it. That's what freedom is about: consideration of dangerous ideas. If they're evil nonsense that will become evident by exposing them, not by hiding them away.
Maybe people might visit an ISIS/Daesh website to get the latest bit of their propaganda and then make a parody of it, like the recent duck-head campaign. Merely visiting a web site does not imply endorsement or sympathy.
It's ridiculous.
Before you're allowed to read subversive materials you should be licensed proving you're not a sociopath, depressed, or religious zealot.
Not only is this absurd on civil liberties grounds, it would be stupid even if you didn't care about civil liberties. Suppose for a moment that you are a famous U of Chicago law professor who doesn't care about the Constitution, and you want to stop terrorists. You could send a letter to a potential future terrorist saying "hey we noticed you visited this web site once, and we'll notice if you return to that site", or you could very discreetly log who visits suspicious sites and query for patterns, perhaps cross-referencing their Facebook posts or other public information, so you know who is likely to actually be a threat. Then when these queries identify the few people most likely to actually be a threat, you investigate those people further. That would be the smart thing to do, if you believed, as the U of Chicago law department seems to, that the Constitution is "an old piece of paper".
....like books....before.
Just say a link to a useful and innocuous site that uses some scripting to also hit an ISIS site repeatedly.
I'm sure a reasonably good phishing email will convince Eric to execute the malware.
Problem solved. One less law professor with a public forum for unconstitutional rantings.
Maybe he is "top most cited" precisely because he has radical opinions. It does not mean he is considered correct or his ideas are respected.
.. and if you educate yourself on the reality of the situation, you'll be jailed.
This is where all of this BS is going.
I really can't wait until the pre-internet and freedom of information crowd die out from old age. Maybe we can start being an honest civilisation.
Good to know that merely thinking about bad things is the same as doing bad things.
Reading about hacking? Same as hacking!
Reading about [BLANK]? Same as [BLANK]!
This guy is a FUCKING IDIOT.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Apparently pissing on the United States Constitution passes for patriotism these days.
Throw me in jail for reading anything. Just try it fuckers; just try it.
What do ISIS and James Bond have in common? BEAUTIFUL WOMEN ARE THEIR KRYPTONITE! I'm telling you, we are fighting ISIS in the wrong way... we need to be getting as many attractive young ladies constantly trying to scam ISIS out of as much money as possible!
https://www.yahoo.com/travel/catfished-girls-scam-isis-on-social-media-for-125374397897.html
But then idiots like this asshole, and the whole dysfunction system he supports and epitomizes, would be laughed out of their positions of wealth and influence.
Well, that will just drive people underground who visit ISIS websites. Instead, I suggest that we just monitor anyone who visits an ISIS website. They might lead us to other terrorists and we would still know their plans. And the proposal mentioned in the article would set a very, very, dangerous precedent.
"Eric Posner, the fourth most-cited law professor in the U.S., says the government may need to jail you if you even visit an ISIS site after enough warnings"
The entire argument is bogus, protecting us from the terrorists by spying on us. Reading a webpage doesn't make a terrorist. What does is seeing your relatives being targeted by missiles and drones.
I cannot believe there's not yet one mention of Tor or i2p in these comments other than mine; Slashdot has become so worthless—you people know nothing.
Okay, so we get a restriction. We have that already in a kinda - sorta way. You can SEARCH for links to the sites but it's not like the New York Times put the links permanently on the landing page. No media site would be that stupid because all the OTHER media outlets and the anti-Islam groups would pound the ever-loving FSCK out of whoever did that. "They're promotin' terrorisms and such! Don't buy that! Don't go there!" Tacit restriction via the free market so everything is good.
What this nut-sack wants to do is make it against the law to even search for sites that contain terrorist information or links to terrorist information.
Sounds good on first blush. Read the ISIS newsletter, go to jail. Meh.
Then what? Gotta keep his name in the headlines so the next this is a better definition of sites that promote terrorism. And then we start the witch hunt.
Links to pages promoting Syrian president Asad? Terrorism!
Links to anti-Isreal sites? Terrorism!
Pro-Iran? Pro-North Korea? How about just anti-American? Who gets to decide what promotes terrorism?
And then we have the bigger question of how do you find all those clicks....?
Be True Blue America and turn in all Witches/Loyalists/Slaves/Southerners/Anarchists/Huns/Nazis/Communists/Terrorists/Islamists/NEXT_VICTIM_GROUP!
Jail if you download under 18s
The professor here mentioned is the son of Judge Richard Posner, who is famous for throwing out the Motorola vs Apple patent cases, and also for claiming copyright is too excessive.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It was a warning, not an instruction manual.
The best way of combating bad ideas is through open discussion, not by making them forbidden -- which just makes them seem more exciting. If, in the process of that discussion, we find that our ideas are less than perfect: we must admit this and either change what we say or openly acknowledge our limitations.
What Posner advocates is an attack on the most fundamental principles of the United States. He should be sent a warning by the government about that, and if he continues to advocate such dangerous actions, he should be fined or imprisoned.
His goal is to prevent people from becoming radicalized by preventing them from visiting websites that radicalize people.
He gives an example of a normal, but lonely, teenager, who found 'friendship' among ISIS advocates, who slowly turned him over to the dark side. Eventually they convinced him to do something illegal, and he was caught, and jailed for 11 years. The article claims that if we had banned him from visiting those web sites, it would have saved him from doing illegal things, and saved him from jail. He wouldn't have met those false friends.
Of course, the supreme court has found this to be unconstitutional, but the article advocates that the supreme court change their opinion. GLWT.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
After all, we banned child pornography, and now there are no more pedophiles!
Last post!
He may be the top law prof but he clearly has no idea what a VPN is.
There's a slight difference.
You fear terrorists, so I must not visit a terrorist web site.
You fear bombs, so I must not know how to make a bomb.
These are about simple information. About things in your head or getting them in there.
It borders on Though Crime.
You fear guns, so I must not own a gun.
This is about a real physical object that is dangerous and is statistically linked to incidents.
The correct similar sentence (i.e.: about knowledge/information and its accessibility) would have been:
You fear guns, so I must not even be able to know how to operate a gun.
Not owning a gun is about avoiding disseminating dangerous object. Just like you're not also supposed to own a bomb without the proper licensing.
Nobody complains that one should not be prohibited from possessing bombs and that no licensing should be required for any explosive ordinance.
That's because it's well understood by most of the population that there's no rational reason why bombs should be freely available everywhere.
Lots of country in the developed world are relatively stable. You don't absolutely need a gun there for your safety. The number of time where a gun would have been an absolute need are seldom.
Meanwhile guns are dangerous objects, and accidents happen. In several countries (e.g.: in Europe) the risks (i.e.: frequency of accidents linked to guns) clearly outweigh any benefit (i.e.: the rare few situation where owning a gun saved the situation).
In these situation, it would be better to avoid proliferation of a dangerous and not so useful item. And therefore making the acquisition of a gun a tiny bit more complex that getting a pack of gum at the groceries store, by introducing licensing, ins't such a bad idea.
Of course then you have region with different situations (north European example: Svalbard has such a problem with polar bears, that carrying a riffle is mandatory in order to be able to defend against the beasts).
And then you have the US, a country that believes that carrying around enough fire power to be able to kill anyone at a whim is an absolute requirement for any modern civilisation.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
People could also be sent to jail for visiting anti-climate-change sites. Or Republican sites....
This post is shamelessly stolen from sehlat, http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
It was posted under the article "Credible" Bomb Threat Closes, Evacuates All Los Angeles Public Schools, but it is at least equally relevant for this article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Wasp is a 1957 science fiction novel by English author Eric Frank Russell. Terry Pratchett (author of the Discworld series of fantasy books) stated that he "can't imagine a funnier terrorists' handbook." Wasp is generally considered Russell's best novel.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
How many more of our rights will our leaders call to sacrifice because of this boogy man ISIS? We already had our president call for the suspension of the second amendment based on some extrajudicial watch list. And now we have Eric Posner arguing to suspend the First amendment right of freedom of association and speech. The fourth has long since been ignored with the NSA blanket surveillance, so what is left for them to sacrifice?
Will we sacrifice the sixth and suspend trial by jury for those on the no fly list? After all they are on the list so they must be guilty.
How about tossing the eighth and throwing those newly convicted terrorists into the Iron maiden, bring back a little old school punishment.
Perhaps we should toss the third and start placing NSA agents inside peoples homes, to make sure ISIS doesn't get in.
Or we could ignore the fifth and give the people on the watch list a nice round of waterboarding so they confess and forgo the bother of a trial.
I mean when will it stop for these people? Throw up ISIS or Al Queda and our leaders seem to climb all over each other to rip up our bill of rights. When did we elect a bunch of gutless cowards who would gladly sacrifice our constitution to help them sleep at night? This has to stop, we should face tragedies head on while holding on to our beliefs, not throw away our rights at the earliest convenience.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
So you thought you might like to go to the site
to feel the warmth, confusion, that spacey isis glow
I've got some bad news for you sunshine
Posner isn't well, he stayed back at the hotel
and they sent us along as a surrogate McCarthy
We're going to find out where you citizens really stand
Are there any Queers on the slashdot tonight?
Put them up against the wall
Theres one at 127.0.0.1 he don't look right to me
put him up against the wall
That one looks Muslim, and that one's a Jew
Who let all this Rif Raf into the country?
There's one smoking a Joint, another with spots
If It had my way. I'D HAVE ALL OF YOU SHOT
In addition to clickbaiting someone, imagine the possibility of someone using this against, say someone who does research into a political party that supports the full legalization of marijuana.
So then the internet becomes a big game of "they looked at a subject I don't like, therefore, they need the book thrown at them".
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
So they sig-int guys at CIA, NSA, FBI etc who stare at ISIS sites all day long go directly to the jug?
I can get behind this idea if enforcement does not involve wholesale spying on everyone's web traffic or banning https/tor/device encryption. We may not catch everyone this way, but plenty of opportunities to catch dumb would be terrorists would present themselves.
As for freedom of speech, I think we long established restrictions on specific calls to violence. If you are actively participating in forums on how to make a good suicide vest, you went way beyond speech. If you just clicked on someone else's link in slashdot and ended up on an arabic site you don't understand, there should certainly be a presumption of innocence.
His goal is to prevent people from becoming radicalized by preventing them from visiting websites that radicalize people.
Lets be frank: the idea is not that bad. Who the fuck want any contact with such stupid, rapid and utterly crazy-beyond-imagination radicals? Is there any good on any of their sites? I'll keep watching cute puppies myself, thanks very much.
What really scares control freaks is the thought that someone else might be able to exercise control over you or even worse that you might be independent.
One of the Internet's most remarkable capabilities isn't even based in technology: It exposes repressive intellectual cowards.
No, he's right some websites are dangerous and need to be banned for the people's own good. We should start with banning any website that promotes authoritarian ideas, those are the most dangerous to a free society, it should be terrorism so that they get no trial and a felony so that they can't vote. And we should ban all lawyer's websites, those incite people to cause financial harm to others. Anyone who calls a lawyer over the phone needs to be put on a watchlist.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
People motivated by fear don't pause to reflect on what they are doing. They aren't rational enough to see that taking freedom away from others will not make them safer, nor are they interested enough in justice to realize the harm they are doing to their neighbor.
They are just cowards, and cowardice makes them stupid. But that won't stop them from voting. It might, in fact, make them more inclined to vote.
He's a moron. People were becoming radicalized long before the Internet came along. They even managed to become radicalized under previous historic tyrannical regimes. Deciding to embrace Nazi or pre-Soviet style tactics to suppress dissent and disolusionment isn't going to do squat.
The idiot should crack open a history book, or perhaps acknowledge that such things as books exist.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
... kids could send you an ISIS link and SWAT you at the same time.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
Veolia a firm he is conflict with for disability denounced him for having being near a water plant and doing various activity which he was not allowed to, like visiting, and they found he researched article on how to make water toxic. Do you really think the FBI would think twice before jailing his ass ? So it was not coming only out of a google search. But afterward once it was known that that firm he was in conflict and it was research for his invalidity (25%) at that point it should have ended, and the firm getting a reprimand. The mise en residence was not the thing which you should be wary of, but that it stayed for so long and the firm was not even punished afterward. So yes it was not very good but it is not as clear cut as you push it.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Right now it's ISIS, in five more years it could be "climate change activists" or "white heritage" groups, etc. and let's be real, once they have the infrastructure in place to enforce this shit it won't be long before mp3 and torrent sites are put on the list.
Didn't some infamous government designed to last 1,000 years put a lot of people in prison [camps] to "protect" society?
I hope this dumbass is trolling, but even if he is, he's unwittingly promoting Trumpism.
And it's interesting because the same arguments are also applied to these examples:
So do cars....
Yup, and in the risk vs. benefits, they are considered much more useful. Owning a car is currently important to get around in most of the developed world. Cars are daily used by a very large portion of the population. Thus it outweighs the risks.
And still, because of the risks, complex licensing is in place in most of the developped world to avoid some random idiot stupidly doing dangerous actions.
(e.g.: assholes who can't abstain from driving while drunk get their drivers license revoked).
And knives...
Again a risk vs. benefits balance at a different point than guns.
Thus again, they are much more widely available.
Still lots of jurisdiction place some form of control of them.
(Basically: kitchen knifes and other similar cooking implement that you need on a daily basis are easy to get. battle knife and other weapons that you don't need on a daily basis might be restricted in some jurisdiction)
And glass bottles...
Very low risk. Much lower than the above, and much lower than weapons.
Thus a lot less restriction around them.
Only some local regulation about glass quality.
And ladders...
Clearly not the same risk/benefits balance than weapons.
Limited regulation regarding safety, depending on size.
And a lot of painkillers...
And given the higher risk and thigher benefits (lots of sick people *definitely* need them. They need more often to have drugs than they need to have firepower at hand) vs. risks (drugs can easily kill too):
drugs happens to be among one of the most widely regulated class of goods.
(Lots of substances are restricted to only prescription by fully qualified doctors or pharmacists)
Lots of stuff are dangerous, and like any other risks vs. benefits must be analysed.
In the case of weapons, I successfully lived nearly 4 decades without even crossing a single situation where I though "Thank $DEITY that I had my weapons at hand" or "I wish I had accessible weapons ".
But then I don't live in a country with free roaming polar bears.
And also I live in country with direct democracy, so when I don't agree with my government I dont need to be able to shoot, I only need to vote otherwise.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Chicago. That's all.
The problem is they don't think they are radicals and believe they are following the Qu'ran as it is written. If a Christians followed the Bible as written, we'd still have slavery and women would all be unlearned and obedient to their husband, as noted in both the Old and New Testaments. Also who would pick the radical sites? Christianity has radicals, too, like the Westboro Baptist Church. This sort of idea just opens the floodgates for censorship.
How exactly are we supposed to critique, deconstruct, and falsify their vile propaganda if we are not even allowed to know what it is???
He *was* a widely respected University of Chicago faculty member writing in Slate. Good thing he outed himself as an authoritarian douchebag.
it makes more sense throw in jail for a week stupid people like this "professor" with a major in fascism
I'm not seeing where it grants a right to acquire information. I'm also not seeing where it grants freedom of speech to non-U.S. residents.
So long as the websites in question do not originate in the United States, they may very well have every right to restrict our access to them?
My initial response was in the form of a modified quote from the summary:
"Never before in our history have enemies from within our own United States government been able to propagate genuinely dangerous ideas on American territory in such an effective way—and by this I mean ideas that lead directly to subjugation of the American citizens, and their Constitutional rights, by those in power under the guise of democracy. The novelty of this threat calls for new thinking about limits on the power of elected officials and the penalties that must be applied to those in such positions should they choose to ignore the rights of Americans." ... and then I ask myself why the hell are we even listening to this guy anyway? He's an frackin' law professor for crying out loud! Can't say for sure, but would wager that he and his ilk are part of the overall problem.
Well yes terrorist kill people, but it is only a small amount, for example 32533 people in the US committed suicide in the US in 2005 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... ) and from http://www.politifact.com/trut... the people killed in the last decade from terrorism is 24. That is 1,355,400% more! Being insulting to the people around you is more genuinely dangerous than these sites.
I think calling it Genuinely dangerous, is a bit of a stretch. What is genuinely dangerous is jailing people because they have a different view than you. Donald trumps speeches are probably doing more to incite hate of the US by Muslims, than any terrorist organization could hope to achieve. If he gets elected he will be in charge of the most powerful military in the world. But he has a right to say it, no matter how stupid they may be. I also have the right to say he is a hateful, arrogant moron.
I also find it hard to believe that these educated people cannot seem place themselves in the opposing sides point of view. ISIS allow probably state that the American point of view is genuinely dangerous, and should ban having access to those ideas, (I don't know for sure, I might get arrested for viewing those types of web sites)
This guy is the forth most cited law professor and he has a stupid fucking idea like this? The country is fucked if this is the level of stupidity considered the norm or "ok" now a days.
I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy...censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
“If This Goes On—” Chapter 6 (p. 401).
"... he is a widely respected University of Chicago faculty member writing in Slate."
He may be less respected after publishing that article.
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
Not anymore. Will I ever be surprised how dumb suspected *smart* people really are? Doubtful.
Robert Evans of Cracked has also reviewed Dabiq .
Sorry, ISIS propaganda (which are ideas) and child porn (which is not an idea, but a depiction of an illegal act) are not the same. The first amendment was literally created to protect even ISIS propaganda _especially_.
Like most libertarian leaning people the child porn thing is a bit of a spear in the side for idealism, if you look at it in the abstract you could say it's just expression, and only the act itself of creating it should be criminal. But we don't live in an abstract vacuum and the massively compelling benefit to society from preventing sick fucks from looking at child porn outweighs such concepts, as _especially_ does preventing the motivation of creating it.
So if this professor could prove that preventing people in the US from looking at ISIS propaganda is _so_ dangerous that it could literally threaten American society as a whole, then I'll listen to him. He's as bad as the right wing fuckers with no perspective.
Oh noes! A small fraction of the number of people who die from falling down stairs or breathing air near coal power plants have died from terrorist attacks on the US! Quick, we should do all kinds of stupid fucking shit!
Hey, Eric Posner, I just posted an interesting response to this idea here. Go ahead and click it! Or if you don't like that one, try this one instead!
A total ban on all Arabic fonts.
Dumb move. What if you want to check out the site to see what kind of nonsense daeshbags are saying, or to have rational, informed discussions with your kids about the evil that is Daesh? (btw isis folk get really mad about being called daesh because they find the term horribly offensive)
Besides... there are these points:
* First amendment
* Streisand effect
* "Information wants to be free"
NO information is inherently evil, nor is having free access to it. Evil comes into the picture when you intend to act upon bad ideas.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Unfortunately, the schools of economics and law at the University of Chicago are packed with hard-right supporters. Much of the `intellectual' backing for the republican right wing policy is backed up by these guys. It is no surprise that this sort of stuff comes from there.
He gives an example of a normal, but lonely, teenager, who found 'friendship' among ISIS advocates, who slowly turned him over to the dark side. Eventually they convinced him to do something illegal, and he was caught, and jailed for 11 years. The article claims that if we had banned him from visiting those web sites, it would have saved him from doing illegal things, and saved him from jail. He wouldn't have met those false friends.
We should ban heroin too, by the same argument. If we banned heroin, all those people wouldn't be addicts/dead from overdoses.
Also, what stops IS advocates from appearing on new sites, such as facebook?
Trump cant say to ban all Muslims, but this guy throws out to imprison people who visit a website....
U. Chicago is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
If we can all accept that it's a foregone conclusion that nobody is allowed to view these websites for some reason because it'll 100% ruin the country, wouldn't a far better solution be to just have ISPs redirect to other websites. I'm pretty sure that ISPs here in Canada do that for child pornography websites, they just redirect to some other website.
This way we avoid jailing people for thought crimes (especially since politicians are starting to realize how bad throwing everyone in jail is regarding petty drug offenses now).
They don't want a theocracy
Theocracy is is exactly what they want.
When they are not planning to bring about Armageddon by looking for loopholes in the Bible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Some Fundamentalist Christians believe that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ cannot occur until the Third Temple is constructed in Jerusalem, which requires the appearance of a red heifer born in Israel.
Clyde Lott, a cattle breeder in O'Neill, Nebraska, United States, is attempting to systematically breed red heifers and export them to Israel to establish a breeding line of red heifers in Israel in the hope that this will bring about the construction of the Third Temple and ultimately the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.[9]
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"dangerous ideas"? really? Ideas are ALWAYS potentially dangerous. its ACTIONS that need to be squashed when they happen.
But once again, the system is looking to crash the law abiding and chill them into fear, while doing everything it can to let the actual killers, violent robbers and murderers off with lea bargains and lesser charges.
this whole "words are worse than actions" thing has GOT TO STOP
Nearly all those executed had both the guns AND were trained soldiers and police officers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Those that killed them simply had more guns. And more authority.
The killings were methodical.
After the personal information of the condemned was checked and approved, he was handcuffed and led to a cell insulated with stacks of sandbags along the walls and a heavy, felt-lined door.
The victim was told to kneel in the middle of the cell, was then approached from behind by the executioner and immediately shot in the back of the head or neck.[35]
The body was carried out through the opposite door and laid in one of the five or six waiting trucks, whereupon the next condemned was taken inside and subjected to the same fate.
In addition to muffling by the rough insulation in the execution cell, the pistol gunshots were also masked by the operation of loud machines (perhaps fans) throughout the night.
Some post-1991 revelations suggest that prisoners were also executed in the same manner at the NKVD headquarters in Smolensk, though judging by the way that the corpses were stacked, some captives may have been shot while standing on the edge of the mass graves.[36]
This procedure went on every night, except for the public May Day holiday.[37]
Or you could read up on Hungarian revolution of 1956.
They too had guns and hundreds of thousands of people.
Meanwhile, both Hitler and Mussolini got their power NOT through the use of guns, but through political means.
When shit hits the fan and "they", whoever they may be, come to take your freedom by force... well... ask Salvador Allende what good is a gun.
And Hafizullah Amin might also have something to say on that topic.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Does a proposed law include "exemptions for authorized journalists"?
If so, it's not only a bad idea, but also probably unconstitutional already. How the heck can there be such a thing as an "authorized journalist", unless the government is abridging the freedom of the press?
Journalists should have exactly the same freedoms and rights as everyone else. No more, no less. Period. All suggestions to the contrary are, basically, attempts to define what "the press" is, and therefore - as an inevitable consequence - to control what it can do.
Somebody give this professor a gun and send him over to the Middle East
Point of the Katyn one is that those executed there were armed soldiers. From a real army.
With guns that no civilian anywhere can ever posses - like artillery.
Just like Hungarians did, when Zhukov just waltzed in and disarmed entire divisions.
And I also gave you links to what happens when military force, foreign or domestic, decides to topple the government.
While civilian leaders end up blowing their own brains out with their own guns.
And that was 20th century. Now...
You are deluding yourself that a supposed "armed insurance against tyranny" built-in back in the late 18th century can be of any use in the 21st.
Hell, they couldn't even envision repeater rifles or armor back then - or they would have said something about that too.
And funny how those white guys back then said nothing about civilians having cannons... Must have just slipped their minds that a tyrant is sure to have artillery...
If your plan is to "fight the government" with guns today... unless you can take down tanks and the air-force and guided missiles and drones... you might as well be waving a feather duster while calling their mothers "whores".
While they calmly and casually burn you alive.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Lawyer here.
For all the outrage over this stunt (which is clearly unconstitutional, BTW, since it is subject to strict scrutiny as a matter of political speech), the real damage Posner has done to American jurisprudence has been through his championing of the "law and economics" approach to legal decisionmaking.
Basically it boils down to deciding cases based on whether the outcome would be economically "efficient." This is basically the opposite of justice, but it's a great way of making sure moneyed interests are insulated from the human consequences of their actions.
The idea should be to innoculate the populace from being inflamed by all the nonsense. This is a reflection upon society at large if people are so riled up by contrarian viewpoints. On the other hand if it is an obvious hate film, then remove away.
The only way that will work is by repealing the fist amendment. The problem is that is a popular option according to todays youth http://www.jewishpress.com/mul...
Jailing people for simply visiting a site is ludicrous. True, it may prevent some black sheep from turning into even blacker sheep, but it will also prevent other people who may have a perfectly valid reason, for example journalists, from doing research and in depth-investigation into the darker corners of society.
And on the Eighth Day, Man created God.
...it should be Slate. If you read Slate, you're too dumb to use the Internet...
They are posting on YouTube too. It would be a shame if your cat videos caught you jail time because YouTube, Facebook, or XYZ Inc, got categorized.
Yeah. I keep thinking that, if we did have Biblical marriage, I could cruise around looking for some hot young woman so I could buy her off her father to be a second wife.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Just add a warning label on those websites.
WARNING: This website contains ideas known to the United States of America to cause terrorism and beheadings or other explosive harm.
Try it! Library of Babel
Look this U of Chicago, so what do you expect, a celebration of the Bill of Rights? It's a goddamn fascist idea incubator and hatchery. People from there are paid to float completely fascist ideas as weather balloons and to inject the idea into the national conversation generally.
Strategically, the difference between voicing the idea to widespread ridicule and never floating the idea at all is huge in favor of the idea eventually being taken seriously, despite the ridicule. That's what we're seeing here. Yes, the idea is soundly rejected at this time; but now that it's been floated, it's not going away. To be adopted, first you have to have been born. This idea has now been born. Mission accomplished for the fascists.
I'm guessing that at a younger age this same professor thought that anyone caught buying, or selling, a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook, deserved to be jailed. Or maybe not, after his generation was well intentioned when it advocated revolution. Perhaps Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and other booksellers need to be watched, since they all still sell this book.
Jail anyone with a dodgy surname.
Where he belongs. He's unfit to be a law professor. He's betrayed what this nation is about, he's betrayed the Constitution, and it's people like him that ultimately give the terrorists exactly what they want. The destruction of our Liberty.
I can't decide if this guy is a conservative or a liberal. Probably a conservative, but you can never tell, since both extremes are pretty much idiotically indistinguishable these days.
First, I'm not entirely convinced most people who visit such sites don't actually visit them to mock them. Making merely visiting them illegal would be idiotic for just this reason.
But the real outrage in his suggestion is the tacit assumption that the debate over weather or not the government has any right to constantly monitor what you do on-line is over. To that I say, fuck him and everybody like him.
The last point I'd like to make is, making just visiting this particular political site a crime is basically admitting that ISIS and such have some reasonable and compelling grounds to do what they do. If that actually IS the case, then it's time to just end the USA now and stop wasting time and effort and lives on ideals that are a failure. That's what suggestions like this law professors tell me more than anything else. I mean, if one of the top 4 law professors in the US is THAT terrified of ISIS ideals, they must be pretty damn compelling and reasonable, right ?
America had been priveleged enough to avoid this for years while the rest of the world dealt with the treat of terror. Now it's on our shores as well. Suck it up, and stick to the Terrorists by keeping America free. That's why they hate America: women are free, gays are free, atheists are free scientists are free, religious critics are free. Doing otherwise is doing their jobs for them.
I really hope people realize how empty and stupid these "Just give up being Americans and we'll keep you safe"-arugments are. We will never get these rights back once we give them up. Already a generation has grown up thinking it's OK to get strip searched at the airport. They know no different. I get pissed every time I fly (which is weekly). The thought of everywhere being like a TSA checkpoint makes my stomach turn.
The precedent is already set: visit child porn sites, you go to jail. Any protests against that policy are tepid. Regarding communications with enemies of the state, we have treason laws which ought to apply without irrationality: TO WIT: U.S. Code Title 18 Part I Chapter 115 2384 If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, 1, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.) (Taken from the website of the Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... )
In much of Islam, women are forbidden to go to school. You'll recall the stories of the Taliban throwing acid in girl's faces for having the audacity to go to school, to learn more than the Quran teaches them.
So, yes, because some people fear knowledge, they are willing to kill to keep others from having that knowledge.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Dear Eric Posner:
If you do not like free speech go live in a country where it is not allowed.
I hear North Korea is lovely this time of year,
PS Eat Shit and Die.
(I totally stand against ISIS, or ISIL, or IS, or whatever they are being called this week. I think they should all go to a bombvest convention and blow themselves to hell, but people who want to take away our rights are just as bad.)
and keeps going on to include anything the Government (or whoever will pay your Congresscritter) does not like.
Including torrents ect.
First it will be alleged terrorist sites then it will be sites like the Electronic Frontiers Foundation or the ACLU, eventually sites that criticize or question the US government will be included in the list of sites you cannot visit. The scary part is a lot of people have no understanding of their Constitutional rights and are all for this under the impression that it will make them safe from terrorist attacks when you are more likely to be struck by lightening that be involved in a terrorist attack.