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French Man Sentenced To Two Years In Prison For Visiting Pro-ISIS Websites (theverge.com)
According to French media, a court in the department of Ardeche on Tuesday sentenced a 32-year-old man in France to two years in prison for repeatedly visiting pro-ISIS websites -- even though there was no indication he planned to stage a terrorist attack. Police raided his house and found the man's browsing history. They also found pro-ISIS images and execution videos on his phone, personal computer, and a USB stick, an ISIS flag wallpaper on his computer, and a computer password that was "13novembrehaha," referencing the Paris terrorist attacks that left 130 people dead. Slashdot reader future guy shares with us an excerpt from The Verge's report: In court, the man argued that he visited the sites out of curiosity. "I wanted to tell the difference between real Islam and the false Islam, now I understand," he said, according to FranceBleu. But the man reportedly admitted to not reading other news sites or international press, and family members told the court that his behavior had recently changed. He became irritated when discussing religion, they said, and began sporting a long beard with harem pants. A representative from the Ardeche court confirmed to The Verge that there was no indication that the man had any plans to launch an attack. In addition to the two-year prison sentence, he will have to pay a 30,000 euros (roughly $32,000) fine.
Nerd jailed for reading about person who read about someone who heard that someone read about ISIS.
Do you think that 2 years jail when no crime has actually been committed is appropriate though?
Sure, target him for treatment, counselling and intervention programs, but the actions taken seem like a really slippery slope to though crime.
if he was not a terrorist before, he certainly WILL BE, once they let him out.
nice job, frenchies. smart. real smart.
we have to go back to calling you surrender-monkeys again. sigh...
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
A few years ago I went through TSA with my laptop. Naturally they wanted to search it. No problem. I thought.
I'd forgotten that at the time, my documents directory auto synced whenever I logged into my network at home. At the time, I was writing a fiction story.
All kinds of excitement occurred.
Now I keep all my stuff in the cloud outside of "five eyes" treaty partners and any time I think I might have an "interaction" with LEO, I mercine wipe my drive and install fresh. I still get harassed because obviously I "must be a terrorist" because I don't use windows. Solution; Small windows boot partition by default and some random porn files. (If they don't find anything, they just keep looking. So I give them a little something obvious to keep them off my back.)
When did we start being more afraid of our own government than of terrorist? The world has gone crazy except for you and me, I'm slowly slipping away and I was never too sure about you.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
1984 was made about a Collectivist (Leftist) dystopia.
That's both an oversimplification and a not uncommon misunderstanding of the text. A misunderstanding which reading the book will occasionally (but apparently not invariably) clear up.
As the text explains via the device of Emanuel Goldstein's inserted Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism --which is left deliberately ambiguous to the reader as to whether it is a genuine text of a genuine dissident or rather a work of the Party describing itself with dark irony --Ingsoc "rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does so in the name of Socialism" (doublethink)!
1984 should be read in light especially of Orwell's essay The Lion and the Unicorn in which Orwell sketched out what a distinctly English Socialism (as against the prevailing internationalism of the time) ought to look like. 1984 represents the exact opposite, a totalitarian state neither actually Socialist nor English. A state whose sole purpose had become the exercise of power for its own sake. To label it Leftist or Anti-Leftist, or even Fascist is entirely to miss the point of the work. [There is also the implied accusation that the Soviet Union has rejected and vilified every Socialist principle, of course, remember Orwell fought with the Trotsyist POUM in the Spanish Civil War.]
The present situation is however to be distinguished from that describe in Orwell's dystopia on the basis that the sentence has been handed down by a court, duly according to a Law itself duly enacted by the French Parliament. A Leitmotif of 1984 is that Big Brother represents a state entirely unburdened by Law. Orwell is explicit: not only is there no Law in 1984, there is nothing even resembling it, not even a simulacrum of Law such as Stalin's show trials.
That being said, and the real dangers posed by Islamism notwithstanding, it might reasonable be argued that we as a voting public ought to guard ourselves against laws which criminalise mere browsing. While it may be seductive to think that punishing those who frequent obviously nefarious sites such as Islamist or anti-feminist ;p websites, there may come a time when our own browsing habits will not be appreciated by those upon whom we choose to bestow power.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
nice job, frenchies. smart. real smart.
The US has thrown people in Gitmo for nothing more than wearing a Casio watch.
If you destroy childporn, wont the demand INCREASE? If all the childporn ever made so far was available to pedophiles, there would be less demand for new material, right?
Sounds horrible but there is a kind of logic in it.
The natives won't accept a Nice every couple of months.
So either the security services prevent it from happening by any means possible, or the natives will do so through ethnic cleansing.