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EFF On Why FBI Can't Force Apple To Sign Code (boingboing.net)
New submitter Kurast writes with this article at Boing Boing: Code is speech: critical court rulings from the early history of the Electronic Frontier Foundation held that code was a form of expressive speech, protected by the First Amendment. The EFF has just submitted an amicus brief in support of Apple in its fight against the FBI, representing 46 "technologists, researchers and cryptographers," laying out the case that the First Amendment means that Apple can't be forced to utter speech to the government's command, and they especially can't be forced to sign and endorse that speech. In a "deep dive" post, EFF's Andrew Crocker and Jamie Williams take you through the argument, step by step. (You can follow along by reading the brief itself (PDF), too.)
Just try reading it outloud!
so that's what their calling 50 page walls of text these days, eh?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
It is true that the FBI cannot force Apple to produce new code that does not today exist.
But, code is not speech.
What the FBI cannot do is force a company to do something that will cause it irreparable harm and devalue its entire business model. Forcing Apple to produce this code goes against Apple's right to be free of unreasonable seizures, as the FBI would in effect be seizing 80% of the value of the company, if not more, to get a backdoor into all iPhones.
First, the FBI does not have a right to a backdoor into all iPhones. Second, Apple has a right to retain the value of its enterprise. Speech has nothing to do with it, and no reasonable person sees this as a free speech issue. This can and should be laughed out of court until Apple et al make the correct legal arguments.
Look. I see EFF lawyers saying code is speech and is protected. And I see EFF lawyers saying code is math and is not eligible for patent protection and sometimes not even eligible for copyright protection. I want an EFF lawyer to explain their stand on how these three mechanisms apply to code before this story gets posted AGAIN and it had better be consistent.
Not our coinage!!! Nooooooooooo...
Now I can't hoard gold! Oh wait, yes I can.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
ah you think the constitution is your ally. When your precious constitution declared warrantless search and seisure to be unlawful, we merely declared our our borders to be hundreds of miles long. We declared our wiretaps to be constitutional through "metadata."
When the constitution declared the first amendment sacrosanct, we merely declared those who spoke against us as "enemy combatants" and had them executed by drone without so much as a second thought. We bombed the news stations that refused to fall in line with our message during our wars, and we openly slaughtered their journalists in the field. When it was reported, we sentenced the whistleblower to rot in prison.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Code is instructions to a computer to do something.
Agreed.
The computer cannot interpret code as an expression, because computers are not sentient. Code cannot therefore be considered expression, as it is not being written to convey ideas to other people.
Your argument goes off the rails here. I absolutely can convey ideas to other people through code. You are making the mistake of presuming the computer is the audience for the ideas being conveyed. That is incorrect. Other people are the audience, the computer is merely the means. Saying code cannot be used to convey ideas is as absurd as saying written music cannot convey ideas because you need a musical instrument to play it.
It died in 1913 with the establishment of the Federal Reserve but few were willing to accept the fact until '64, when we enjoyed a coup and had our coinage debased.
Indeed.
For those who do not understand, try reading "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin.
https://archive.org/details/Cr...
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Except they already do in other forms... and no I'm not talking about *falsely* yelling fire in a theater.
Pictures & drawings are also avenues of free speech... and while the government prohibits some expressions, it actually mandate others.
Should a car company be compelled into having to add government mandated components (air bag, seat belt, side mirrors, headlights, etc) to their designs which are eventually made into real and tangible objects?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
The government can mandate you buy a product, why not a mandate to open a product. If you believe the government can force you to do an action, why not another? What makes this any different than any other government force?
They already dictate your 4th amendment rights, so restricting your 1st for the "public good" is no stretch.
Just trying to make you think about the scope, that once you start giving up your rights for something you want, the government can limit your other rights.
Don't being a hypocrite when it comes to picking and choosing which rights you want to defend, defend them all.
So let's assume the courts get it right and rule that the FBI can't force Apple to sign code, or produce a modified version of iOS for them.
The FBI can (I think, IANAL) compel Apple to produce something it already has in its possession- the equivalent of compelling a lock maker to turnover their master key.
So the FBI changes their demand from
"Produce this code and sign it for us"
to
"Give us the source code you already have and your cryptographic keys."
And they then make the changes, sign the new binary, and install it themselves.
And I see EFF lawyers saying code is math and is not eligible for patent protection and sometimes not even eligible for copyright protection.
Some code cannot be copyrighted, though this is the exception rather than the rule. For example I can write a hello world program but I can't copyright it because it is too basic to be considered a creative work but I can write a word processor and I can copyright that. In principle no code should be eligible for patents because the code should be adequately protected by copyright. You shouldn't be able to patent math. Patents should only be for tangible goods. But there is a sufficient level of creativity in coding that allowing a copyright is reasonable. (presuming we think copyright itself is reasonable which is a separate discussion)
I don't think the EFF is being inconsistent at all in their stance on these issues.
Should a car company be compelled into having to add government mandated components (air bag, seat belt, side mirrors, headlights, etc) to their designs which are eventually made into real and tangible objects?
I don't think there is any debate that the government can mandate companies follow regulations. I think the point here is that the government is attempting to mandate Apple perform an action that is arguably unconstitutional. You can make reasonable arguments against the FBI's actions under at least the 1st and 4th amendments. The FBI's actions would have all sorts of negative knock on effects if they get their way.
Since DaHat was born an idiot.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Code that is instructions to tell a computer what to do is not "communication.
ALL code tells a computer what to do. This argument fails right out of the gate. There is no such thing as computer code that doesn't tell a computer what to do.
There can be "communication" embedded within computer instructions, and that is certainly protected.
Not only can there be, there routinely is. The argument that code is not speech as a blanket assertion is demonstrably nonsense. If you want to argue that all code is instructions but not all code is speech then you'll have to dig a little deeper.
I think the First Amendment argument is not as strong as the argument against the government forcing a company to build something that it does not normally build. Should the government be able to force Black and Decker to build firearms? Should they be able to force Dupont to manufacture napalm? Now, if these companies WANT to manufacture these goods, that's one thing, but forcing them to do it is quite another.
Proverbs 21:19
the most logical and clear defense I've yet seen. good job.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Even if that fell under "free speech", you are completely free to design and even BUILD a car without that stuff. What you can't do is drive it on public roads with other drivers.
"Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce."
Then why does Conservanazism always want more prison money?
Even if that fell under "free speech", you are completely free to design and even BUILD a car without that stuff. What you can't do is drive it on public roads with other drivers.
Applying the car analogy back to the current topic: perhaps Apple can create an unhackable iPhone, but would they be allowed to let it emit radio signals?
The radio spectrum, like most roads, is public property.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
The airbag itself isn't... however it's inclusion in the design plans could be argued as compelled speech.
I agree, it's a stretch, which is my point. We accept compelled/banned speech in some areas but not in others.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
The radio spectrum, like most roads, is public property.
Yes, but the FCC still regulates its use "for the public good" like the Dept. of Transportation and state DMVs regulate road use.
I'm not altogether I'd call source code "speech", but I'm pretty sure that object code isn't speech. If Apple wanted to use a binary editor to change the number of tries in the object code from 10 to 10,000, then sign the result, they haven't been forced to utter speech.
Yeah, it's a stupidly legalistic approach, but what we're talking about is corner cases where every interpretation of the rules is stupidly legalistic.
Let me be clear I think Apple shouldn't be forced to do this -- or at the very least they shouldn't let the FBI get its grubby mitts on a compromised version of iOS. But that's for other reasons than whether it technically falls under some provision of the law or not. It's because no government agency should have that kind of power.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The radio spectrum, like most roads, is public property.
Yes, but the FCC still regulates its use "for the public good" like the Dept. of Transportation and state DMVs regulate road use.
That's my point.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Only when it isn't functioning (when it is printed, on the disc, etc).
When it works, it is more than speech. It can kill people, direct missiles, etc after all.
If it was just speech, then an execution order is free speech too.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
No 'but', just because property is public doesn't mean it is free from law or control.
If the FCC decides (or is required to by an act of congress) that an allowing unhackable phones to be emit radio signals is not (to use your words) "for the public good", just as simple as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration decreeing that all new cars after 86 must have a center high-mounted stop lamp.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
That's an interesting thought. I know less-informed Slashdot commenters, who have never read the relevant law, make those claims. I would be surprised if an EFF lawyer made those claims about code. They might say that about one specific algorithm, which can be expressed in English, code, or hardware.
You mention two mistakes, wrong about both the law and the facts.
The statute on patentability says:
The laws of nature, including the laws physics and the laws of math, aren't patentable
That makes sense given that the laws of physics and the laws math aren't inventions.
HOWEVER, there is a common misconception among laymen. The operation of an elevator is physics- gravity, magnetism, etc. Newton's laws, etc. There is, however, "Newton's 743rd law" which states "to move people to the top of a building, you must install a motor at the top and a counterweight on the side and ...". The elevator was an invention, it USES the laws of physics, but an elevator is not a law of physics.
Similarly, a law of mathematics is that a+b=b+a. There is no law of mathematics that says "to recognize a face in an image, you must XOR the brightness of each vertical segment with ...". A new facial recognition system is an invention. It USES the laws of math, but facial recognition is not a law of mathematics.
You can't patent gravity, you can patent an elevator. You can't patent the commutative law (a+b=b+a), you can patent a new way of doing facial recognition.
That's the mistake of law.
Factually, trying reading Excel.exe. It's almost impossible because compiled executables are written for computers, not humans. Executables use math to useful things. Source code, on the other hand, is written for humans. We can read excel_main_form.c and understand it. Source code DESCRIBES, in human-readable terms, what will be done. If executable programs are like a strange form of math, source code is like a math textbook. It describes, to humans, the operations to be done. The compiler will completely delete portions of it in order to use that description to create an executable which actually does the operations.
The 14th amendment would prevent the government for retaliating at apple by revoking their use of unrelated public property. Talk about an abuse of power the court would absolutely stomp.
It is true that the FBI cannot force Apple to produce new code that does not today exist.
But, code is not speech.
The Sixth and Ninth Circuit courts would disagree with you:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junger_v._Daley
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States
And one cannot be compelled to speak, per US First Amendment:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of_Education_v._Barnette
Should a car company be compelled into having to add government mandated components (air bag, seat belt, side mirrors, headlights, etc) to their designs which are eventually made into real and tangible objects?
Free speech is not absolute and courts recognize the need to balance freedom of speech with public interests. In the case of safety regulation, you'd be hard to find any judge who thinks that requiring safety devices is violating free speech. Now if the government mandated what specific colors a car company could use, that is different. The government can regulate the type of paint (lead-free, anti-corrosive agents, chemical base) but not the color.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Considering his other views such as cancer, AIDS, and chemtrail conspiracies, why would you consider Mr. Griffin a credible source of information?
The day the government controls your speech, democracy is dead.
A true statement, but impractical in terms of governments. Just look at what happened in Europe during the enlightenment. A more powerful medium is controlling the media and affecting the majority, as opposed to direct oppression.
I've always been wondering where the extremism expresses itself in the US. In Europe you get the surges in radical groups in the government positions, but mostly failing deliver and falling into obscurity. Maybe give the plebs more sugar?
For a long while I've wondered what would happen in the US if they adopted the Jeffersonian/D'Hondt method for all federal elections.
The airbag itself isn't... however it's inclusion in the design plans could be argued as compelled speech.
All industries have some sort of regulation they must follow. Coca-cola can't include rat poison into their secret formula. General Foods cannot say their cereal contains unicorn farts and rainbows. And so on.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It would seem to me that EFF's line of defense is dependent on the Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission, where it was ruled that corporations have the same constitutional rights to free speech as people. If Apple did not have such a right, then the government could force them to produce and sign code. I personally was unhappy with the Citizens United vs FEC ruling, but this is an area where it could have a positive impact on me.
If writing the software is possible, then the FBI can do it themselves. If it isn't possible, then how can the FBI punish Apple for not achieving the impossible? That's the concern nobody is talking about: can the government hold you in contempt for not doing something you are incapable of doing? I get that Apple is fighting the good fight and trying to set a precedent that the government can't force them to neuter their own user privacy protection scheme. But wouldn't it be easier to just argue that the government must first prove that what they're asking for is possible before demanding that they produce it? Wouldn't a better plan of action by the government be to just ask for any access to trade secrets necessary for them to do the work of breaking encryption themselves? Setting a precedent that law enforcement can just demand that other people do their job for them would be a very bad precedent indeed!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"legal mangling of concepts"? You mean like property forfeiture, which is based on the legal principle that the property itself has committed a crime and therefore must be arrested, but that as a non-person it has no legal right to defense? Seems like there is ample precedent for law enforcement just making ridiculous shit up to justify them doing whatever they want.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
They want more money for prisons because they have stock in the for-profit prison companies, duh! If you were profiting handsomely from locking people up, you'd want more people locked up to! Unless, of course, you weren't a total douchebag, but in that case, you wouldn't be a "conservative" either, would you?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Let's say this argument succeeds. Then the FBI just asks for the signing certificate, and letting the FBI have the certificate is worse than what they were asking for before.
The day the government controls your speech, democracy is dead.
Different people have different ideas on what "speech" consists of. EFF makes a good lawyerly argument in favor of the position that the cryptographic key signing an application is "speech", but it is certainly not "speech" of any kind that would have been recognized by the founding fathers. It could also be argued that the cryptographic key is simply the key to a lock, and the govenment most certainly can demand, with a court order, that a lock smith open a lock.
With that said, I'm completely on Apple's side here (the implications seem to be far too drastic for the small amount of gain of opening a phone that probably has nothing whatsoever on it)... but I do realize that there are actually reasonable arguments on both sides.
Which would require an intermediate update which trusts the new signature but is signed with the old one.
If writing the software is possible, then the FBI can do it themselves.
Right now, to get to the contents of a phone, the FBI must use the courts to get a warrant. This at least provides a little bit of a check on what they are doing. If they write their own code, this removes this last vestige of oversite and they will be free to get into any phone they please (just like the NSA that wrote their own software). Is that really what people want?
> Code is instructions to a computer to do something
That's what your fourth-grade teacher told you with the sandwich- making demonstration, but that's not really true of most languages used since about 1978.
Most languages today include a lot of stuff for humans, and also tell the compiler / query optimizer / etc which RESULT the program should ACHIEVE. The process the computer uses, the steps it takes, are not in the code. This is blindingly obvious if you compare 1960s cursor-based database code (which was procedural) to modern SQL, which is declarative. The SQL code directly specifies what the result should be. What the computer does to get that result is completely unknown to the programmer, and may change completely based on external factors. It can also be seen in modern implementations of a procedural language like C. The computer may completely remove large sections of the task description (code) and turn others inside-out. It's only expected to come up with some series of actions which end up producing the same RESULT as what is described in the code.
Further, computers run executables, humans read programming languages (code).
Try reading Excel.exe. It's almost impossible because compiled executables are written for computers, not humans. Executables use math to useful things. Programming languages (code), on the other hand, is written for humans. We can read excel_main_form.c and understand it. Source code DESCRIBES, in human-readable terms, what will be done. If executable programs are like a strange form of math, source code is like a math textbook. It describes, to humans, the operations to be done. The compiler will completely delete portions of it in order to use that description to create an executable which actually does the operations.
If congress passes a law that says all phones have to be crackable, then the answer is no. Until there is a law or regulation on the books somewhere that dictates that FCC compliance and licensure requires some means of access by the State, Apple is free to sell an "un-crackable" phone.
They don't HAVE to. They could bolt them on ad-hoc later if they wanted.
Or they could just not make cars.
What could Apple just not do in order to avoid following the contested order?
If code is speech then it is covered by the First Amendment case closed. If code isn't speech then the First Amendment doesn't apply and then code can't be copywriten either and that could make many of our lives very interesting.
Not to mention the side of the road the steering is on, or orange blinkers. Slander laws and hate speech tell me that "free speech" is a catch phrase for something slightly more complex, not as anarchist. Something for good
Not as those seeking to exploit it pretend it means
So you are allowed to pass state secrets to Russia? You are allowed to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater? You are allowed to slander and libel anyone you want? There are limits to free speech if you thought about it in the slightest bit. The most ironic thing is I am an American, and it seems your ignorance of the 1st Amendment is second only to your dissonance that I must not be because I understand the 1st Amendment better than you.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
On every product that contains tobacco or alcohol there is a label with a health warning from the US Surgeon General. On many products you will have other warnings that start with something like, "The State of California has determined..." In each case it is clear that these mandated symbols and texts come from a government agency.
What the FBI wants Apple to do is say something on their behalf but make it look like it was Apple that said it.
This sets a dangerous precedent. If I was given a crypto key signed by Super Mega Global Software when the matching key was also provided to the FBI then how can I trust any crypto? If the FBI wants to own a crypto key then that key should be labeled in a way to indicate that the FBI has access to that key.
If the FBI can force a company to be silent on the fact that they shared a key with them then that is a serious infringement on the right to speak freely, or to air a protest before the government.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
"So you are allowed to pass state secrets to Russia?"
Presumably you were given access to those secrets based on the promise that you would not share them with Russia. If you break that promise then certain punishments can apply. Using centuries old contract law alone that puts you in a bad place for sharing state secrets.
"You are allowed to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater? "
That is a call to act, not merely an expression of fact or opinion. If there is in fact a fire in a crowded theater then a person is free to express that fact. If there is not a fire then such an expression will induce panic and inevitably cause harm to others.
I can call you a lying dirty thief and that alone would not be breaking the law. It may be a lie but if I can explain that it is merely my opinion based on something I believe to be true then I'm not breaking any law. Now if I tell people to beat you up because you are a lying dirty thief then I've just incited people to act, possibly based on a lie, and I've now broken numerous laws, including accessory to assault or something similar.
"You are allowed to slander and libel anyone you want?"
Of course not, but as above it I can show I believe it to be true then I've broken no law. If challenged on this opinion and shown it to be false then continuing to express that opinion would be illegal.
Slander, libel, inducing panic and such are not merely free expression, they are intended to cause harm and therefore not unlike swinging your fist at someone.
If I sell tin foil helmets to people telling them how it made me feel better knowing that martians were no longer listening to my thoughts then I could fall into a grey area in law. Is that fraud? Or is it free expression? A government agency might tell me I can't sell the aluminum helmets with that claim without also stating that I have not tested the helmet produces the effects I claim. They can't stop me from selling them if I merely say they look pretty. In either case the grey area disappears.
There are no limits on free speech. If you want to get into real grey areas of the First Amendment then I suggest using pornography in an example. That should get people talking.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Car makers are not forced to retro-actively install airbags in the cars they have already sold. Making airbags mandatory for cars in the future gives car makers the choice of making compliant cars.
> should NOT be patentable
You are of course welcome to your own opinion about what SHOULD be patentable.
What IS patentable under US law is of course unaffected by your opinion. "Recognize emotions in facial photos via a new method comprising ..." is in fact patentable for virtually any wording in place of the ellipses. Actual US law, which you're free to like or dislike, is that it doesn't matter whether you describe the multiplication operation as a lever, gear, pulley, using the * symbol, a left shift, or any other way. What matters is whether it's new (novel) and useful. A method of recognizing emotions in photographs is useful regardless of whether it's done with gears, bytecode, or both.
Sorry if you don't think it SHOULD be so, it is. (And anyone who knows what an ASIC is knows why it -must- be so).
None of your examples are even remotely close to being compelled to say something that you don't approve of, and especially forcing you to sign it in a manner that uniquely ties it to you.
Wouldn't First Amendment protection against compelled speech also apply to the specific engineers who would have to write that code?
Every single one of those things you mentioned has a purpose of keeping the user of the car safe. Tell me how mandating that you give your local police station a spare set of keys so they can go through your glove box any time they like is going to keep you safe?
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Not our coinage!!! Nooooooooooo...
Now I can't hoard gold! Oh wait, yes I can.
Well sure, today you can... but in 1964 you couldn't.
Private ownership of gold was illegal back then. It wasn't legalized again until 1974.
I am quite happy that Apple is resisting breaking into its own encryption. The US has gone out of balance in more ways than one. The public is very restricted on what we are allowed to know as well as how we can study or record the deeds and words of others. Yet the government demands more and more access into out lives. The power of the state vs. the power of the citizen is way out of balance. It is high time that we are allowed to know a lot more about what goes on in government and within corporations. And to make matters even worse the US now has a substantial number of citizens that are more dangerous than either Arab terrorists or our own government. I have no worries about a terrorist attack at all at this time. I do worry about a nation whose schools systems are so ineffectual that we actually have citizens that would vote for Donald Trump. Can you imagine what such a man could do if you could not encrypt your information and just how far he would go to abuse you?
Even if corporations have no right to free speech, Apple could hardly force their own (human) programmers to code what they didn't want to.
The trick then would be for the Feds to identify Apple programmers willing to do the work.
Hey .. I know code! Maybe if the Feds offered me a big enough bonus ...
No, wait .. I don't work for Apple. Oh well ...
The United States of America was never a democracy. It was established in 1787 as a representative Republic.
That said, the Republic died in 1913 with the passage of the 16th Amendment (income tax) and the 17th Amendment (direct election of Senators). Before that, the legislatures of the various States were able to somewhat control the Federal government, in that the States appointed Senators, and a direct income tax paid to the FEDERAL government gave it the money to whatever it wanted to do.
Then the rise of the Administrative State - especially in the last 50 years - has made it impossible even to reverse the decline, because the Administrative State controls the currency, the elections, and the news.
I wonder what we'll become next?
RIGGGHHHHHTTT!!!
The 17 million offshored manufacturing jobs would have nothing to do with the poverty that necessitates government intervention, would it?
Seriously, sheep flock toward the right, didn't you know that?
The government can regulate the type of paint (lead-free, anti-corrosive agents, chemical base) but not the color.
I am under the impression that it is illegal in many (but perhaps not all) places to paint a vehicle school bus yellow unless it is, in fact, a school bus.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
One word: Taxi. There are numerous examples of schoolbus yellow cars if you googled them. For the most part, it's not common.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Government -I need you to publicly sign this statement: "I support X, you can trust me"
Apple - No. We don't believe in this.
Government - (insert force of choice) Sign it! ( hands pen to Apple )...
That's illegal. What is the difference between the pen and the key? The signature on the statement is how we know Apple signed it - the same as the key. If not, the digital future is worthless and untrustworthy
Presumably you were given access to those secrets based on the promise that you would not share them with Russia. If you break that promise then certain punishments can apply. Using centuries old contract law alone that puts you in a bad place for sharing state secrets.
What kind of double talk is this? If you share state secrets with Russia, you will be prosecuted. If Snowden is ever captured by the US, he will spend the rest of his life in jail. If he was a member of the military, execution is an option. So in fact, you do NOT have free speech when it comes to state secrets.
That is a call to act, not merely an expression of fact or opinion. If there is in fact a fire in a crowded theater then a person is free to express that fact. If there is not a fire then such an expression will induce panic and inevitably cause harm to others.
Clearly you are not aware of legal precedent.. You cannot yell fire in a theater for kicks. Again another example of restrictions on free speech.
I can call you a lying dirty thief and that alone would not be breaking the law.
Clearly you have no concept of the law. Please do some research.
It may be a lie but if I can explain that it is merely my opinion based on something I believe to be true then I'm not breaking any law. Now if I tell people to beat you up because you are a lying dirty thief then I've just incited people to act, possibly based on a lie, and I've now broken numerous laws, including accessory to assault or something similar.
This whole argument is extraneous and makes no sense. Libel and slander are clearly defined legal offenses. All that matters is that your statements were false and that you knew they were false. The consequences of such statements is another matter.
Of course not, but as above it I can show I believe it to be true then I've broken no law. If challenged on this opinion and shown it to be false then continuing to express that opinion would be illegal.
A fact is a fact. An opinion is an opinion. You can believe the Earth is flat. That is in fact, a lie.
Slander, libel, inducing panic and such are not merely free expression, they are intended to cause harm and therefore not unlike swinging your fist at someone.
Again you fail to understand the difference between an offense and consequences of an offense. You can't shoot your gun at someone then claim that you didn't think it would kill them therefore you were not guilty of killing them. That's utterly ridiculous.
There are no limits on free speech. If you want to get into real grey areas of the First Amendment then I suggest using pornography in an example. That should get people talking.
It seems now you are trying to bend all sorts of clear legal exceptions to free speech because you lost the argument on facts.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
That was not point I was making. The parent said there are NO exceptions to free speech to which I disagreed. The parent was also arguing that safety regulations are unacceptable limitations to free speech.There are exceptions to free speech. Very clear ones.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
That's a good point.
Though I would point out that such silliness as the US government trying to accumulate as much gold as possible would not be necessary without a gold standard.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I say that anyone that claims we truly cannot speak freely in the USA because we could be punished for defamation has a very skewed view on what it means to be free. If that were the case then court trials could be very interesting since no one taking an oath to tell the truth could actually be punished for knowingly telling a lie.
Think about what that would mean to your freedom if someone could falsely accuse you of a crime and not face punishment for it?
I think where you are failing to grasp this concept is that there are two different definitions of speech here. Speaking may mean that words are coming out of your mouth but that is not the same definition of speaking used in law. I seem to recall that Penn and Teller did an episode of their show on freedom of speech, perhaps you could look it up. I'd take the time to link to it but I doubt you'd bother to click anyway.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I say that anyone that claims we truly cannot speak freely in the USA because we could be punished for defamation has a very skewed view on what it means to be free. If that were the case then court trials could be very interesting since no one taking an oath to tell the truth could actually be punished for knowingly telling a lie.
That was not the argument by the OP. His argument was that government regulations on safety could be considered violations of free speech and that our speech should always be free. My counter that speech as a right is not unlimited and that mandates on safety could hardly be considered a limitation. There are limits to speech. Some of the are practical and some of them are legal. Your right to express yourself ends at harm to others. This is the same principles as other actions.
Think about what that would mean to your freedom if someone could falsely accuse you of a crime and not face punishment for it?
This is silly on its face. I like everyone else in society are not free to harm others. This has been a tenant of civilized societies.
I think where you are failing to grasp this concept is that there are two different definitions of speech here. Speaking may mean that words are coming out of your mouth but that is not the same definition of speaking used in law. I seem to recall that Penn and Teller did an episode of their show on freedom of speech, perhaps you could look it up. I'd take the time to link to it but I doubt you'd bother to click anyway.
We have been talking about legal definitions since the beginning. You have not grasped that nuance yet and we are many threads into this post. There is also concept of slander vs libel. Speaking things out of your mouth that is not true is considered slander. Putting those lies in print is called libel. I'm a huge fan of Penn and Teller. Please don't assume what I know or don't know. It appears that you are less focused on the law even though that is what we have been discussing since the beginning of this thread.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.