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ACLU* national legal director David Cole warns that this new piece of legislation is a serious problem to free speech. He says that just discussing the boycott of Israel could land you in prison for 20 years and fined $1 million.
The right to boycott has a long history in the United States, from the American Revolution to Martin Luther King Jr.'s Montgomery bus boycott to the campaign for divestment from businesses serving apartheid South Africa. Nowadays we celebrate those efforts. But precisely because boycotts are such a powerful form of expression, governments have long sought to interfere with them — from King George III to the police in Alabama, and now to the U.S. Congress.
The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, legislation introduced in the Senate by Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and in the House by Peter J. Roskam (R-Ill.), would make it a crime to support or even furnish information about a boycott directed at Israel or its businesses called by the United Nations, the European Union or any other "international governmental organization." Violations would be punishable by civil and criminal penalties of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison. The American Civil Liberties Union, where we both work, takes no position for or against campaigns to boycott Israel or any other foreign country. But since our organization's founding in 1920, the ACLU has defended the right to collective action. This bill threatens that right.
As a European myself I find it very strange that such a law can ever be officially proposed. And in the US of all countries where the freedom of speech in codified in the constitution.
What do you make of it?
*American Civil Liberties Union
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @02:38AM (5 children)
You seem to have trouble understanding the role of a court. They were not (supposed to be) ruling on whether the trucker did the right thing, or about what he should have done. They were not (supposed to be) ruling on whether the company was right or wrong, morally speaking, for firing him over it. They were ruling on whether the company's decision to fire him violated a specific whistleblower provision in the law.
FWIW, it's obvious to me that whoever made the decision to fire him over that is a piece of subhuman garbage -- but that doesn't mean they were breaking the law.
The law at issue forbids firing an employee for "refus[ing] to operate a vehicle because ... the employee has a reasonable apprehension of serious injury to the employee or the public because of the vehicle's hazardous safety or security condition" -- the question then is whether dropping the trailer and driving away in the tractor really constitutes "refus[ing] to operate" the truck, or as a corollary, whether "waiting for help" is "operat[ing] a vehicle". And that's really a good question -- this case is right on the edge of what that law covers, and I'm not sure Gorsuch was right. But at least he had some reasonable interpretation of the actual law; contrast your choice to make it about "right thing" / "should have allowed himself to freeze to death", rather that to engage with the text of the law, and explain why Gorsuch's interpretation is wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @03:37AM (4 children)
Some facts:
The reason he had stopped was that the vehicle's brakes were inoperative.
(That's the fault of the company.)
When the brakes of a tractor-trailer fail, they fail-safe i.e. they lock in the no-go condition.
To have operated the vehicle, he would have had to literally drag the trailer with its locked-up breaks.
This would have quickly destroyed the tires.
It would have also been extremely dangerous.
In addition, anyone who wanted to steal the trailer (in sub-zero weather) would have encountered the same circumstances.
What the trucker did was what any logical human would have done.
To remove humanity from the picture (as 6 of 7 judges refused to do) would NOT serve justice.
It's the reason there are humans as judges and not automatons.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @09:29PM (2 children)
Ooh, great. Facts. We like facts! Facts are good. Facts are our friends!
Fact: He did not do as he was told with respect to the operation of the vehicle.
Fact: He abandoned the trailer and the cargo within.
Fact: As long as he was inside an operational tractor rig, he was not going to freeze ("frozen trucker" crap notwithstanding)
Fact: Now the company has been told they can't fire a guy they can't trust to do his damn job.
Fact-tastic!
So, speaking of facts, it kinda looks like Gorsuch is the kind of judge who will follow the actual law. And, as a matter of fact, I'm OK with that. The law is about specifics, not good feelings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @11:54PM (1 child)
I hope that you are in exactly the same circumstances one day and that you follow the company's directives to the letter.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @12:43AM
I can save you some time.
I'm not a trucker.
(I have done dirty, dangerous, difficult jobs, and I have stood up for myself sometimes. Sometimes they acknowledged my points and relented, other times they fired me. But I didn't whine about it, I went and found a job that looked less shithead-centric. Obviously, this makes me a capitalist stooge. I'll pencil in some time to care on ... ohh, how's Q3 of 2034 for you?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @10:08PM
Those are facts.
I'd call that one an opinion, as humans are notoriously hard to predict, but it's an opinion I strongly agree with. (I could quibble about logical humans preparing themselves a little better beforehand -- what would he have done if the tractor, rather than the trailer, had broke down? -- but that's really beside the point.)
But you seem to think that it matters; that is, that judges should say "Hey, I (or any logical human, it's all the same thing) would have done the same as the trucker, so screw the law and punish the company!" Will you be as happy when you're the one being punished, despite never having violated any actual law, because the judge has sympathy for the guy suing you? Will you exclaim "That's why we have humans as judges, to screw us over for obeying the law!"?
Why even bother with law -- just let judges apply their "humanity" to every case individually!