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from the time-to-start-torrenting-on-a-gigabit-connection dept.
PC World reports on the story of an American teenager who has been sentenced to eleven years in jail and who will have his Internet use monitored by the government for the rest of his life.
His crime was to assume that his Constitutionally-protected Freedom of Speech included posting pro-ISIS messages on Twitter and other social media.
"Today's sentencing demonstrates that those who use social media as a tool to provide support and resources to ISIL will be identified and prosecuted with no less vigilance than those who travel to take up arms with ISIL," said U.S. Attorney Dana Boente...
[Ali Shukri Amin] created the Twitter account @AmreekiWitness in 2014, and used it to provide advice and encouragement to ISIS and its supporters, according to court documents. At one point the account had over 4,000 followers. He also helped other ISIS supporters who sought to travel to Syria to join the group, according to the Justice Department.
The question that Soylentils should ask is, "What groups do I belong to that someone in government might decide are 'terrorist', and am I at risk for speaking out?"
The Canadian government for instance has come within a hair of declaring prominent environmental groups to be terrorists.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 31 2015, @11:16AM
"donated for Julian Assange, for Chelsea Manning or for Edward Snowden."
Why, oh WHY, do so many of you lump BRADLEY Manning with Assange and Snowden? Actually, Assange and Snowden don't belong on the same classification, but at least they are akin to each other in some ways. That Manning bitch is an outright traitor whose motivation was to "get back" at his fellow soldiers for various slights, real and imagined. Manning doesn't have the intelligence, the imagination, the humanity, or the empathy that either of the others has. Just a conniving little bitch who wanted to hurt people. It is right where it belongs - rotting in prison.
The T-shirt? I'd wear it. Can I get it in a dark color with a pocket? Tell you what - if I can get a nice blue pocket T, I'll post the receipt here for you to see that I put my money where my mouth is.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Monday August 31 2015, @11:31AM
Because as far as I know, Chelsea Manning wasn't convicted for her motives or attitude, but for her actions. And the actions were to publish information on war crimes. BTW: As far as I'm concerned you lower your credibility for this discussion by refusing to acknowledge her gender/name change.
Good for you, but doesn't help as long as you and others applaud rulings like the above one. The ruling is not against "people supporting groups, which are considered evil by a majority of the world population" but against "people supporting groups, which are considered evil by the US government." You are basically applauding a verdict which might fall back on you for wearing the shirt you want to buy now.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday August 31 2015, @12:07PM
Not everyone is aware of the sex change. I actually forgot until you mentioned it.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Hairyfeet on Monday August 31 2015, @01:59PM
I'll get hate for saying this but fuck it, truth is truth and to steal a line from Austin Powers "Its a man baby!".
Words have meaning folks, and I can declare I am 9 feet tall and purple but that won't change the fact that I'm 6 foot and white now will it? If they have a penis then common sense would dictate its a guy, if it has a vagina they are female...why are we supposed to pretend because they wake up one day and decide they want to switch teams but haven't had the surgery yet? If you took a pic of Manning naked from the waist down and mixed it in with a bunch of similar photos of men and women, which column would you put him in, guys right? After all that is the equipment that he has. Now once they have had the surgery that is a different matter but until that point we really do have to have some sort of baseline, otherwise we have what we did recently with two "black activists" that turned out to be as white as the driven snow yet because they "feel black" that entitled them to claim as black, and in one case get a free college education by claiming minority status.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Monday August 31 2015, @03:20PM
As far as I'm concerned, my most evil reaction would be to rate it off-topic (although I don't like the attitude some people have here to rate everything off-topic which doesn't match the topic of the initial submission. Discussions evolve, and as long as a reply is on topic in regard to the immediate parent post, I find it counter-productive to rate it off topic).
You seem to focus on biological gender and want the term to be understood in that sense. I can sympathize with that view, without giving up my conviction that from a social point of view people should be allowed live as the gender they feel most comfortable with. Like in Life of Brian [50webs.com] (look for "I want to be a woman.").
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday August 31 2015, @09:56PM
You know what happens when you refuse to accept that words have meanings? You get people declaring newborns are racist and colleges trying to replace him and her with zym and zer [youtube.com] because hey, don't want to not support diversity now do we?
If we lived in a sane world? I would agree with you but we do not live in a sane world so we really have to draw lines in the sand and refuse to let them just throw out the meanings of words because otherwise? the batshit brigade WILL abuse every inch that you give them on the subject.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @06:47PM
You know what happens when you refuse to accept that words have meanings?
You know what happens when you refuse to accept that language changes over time? You look like a god damn idiot.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 31 2015, @12:08PM
So, your position is that anyone who opposes government is good, and anyone who supports government is bad. How very discriminating. Discerning. Enlightened. Informed. How very fucking god-like. Government is bad, so anyone who acts to harm government is a saint, or maybe even a god.
Tell me - how would you characterize each of the three persons mentioned? Really, I'd love to hear how people like yourself actually view the individuals involved. Or do you view them as individuals? Maybe in your view, they are one homogenous blend of saint-hood.
In case you aren't aware of the fact, all courts consider motivations. In fact, many courts REQUIRE that some malicious intent be proven before a conviction. Depending on the state you are in, depending on the charges, you might get away with some pretty serious infractions of the law, if the prosecution cannot demonstrate malicious intent.
Whether that be so, or not, the sentencing phase of almost all trials examines motives, intent, extenuating circumstances, etc ad nauseum. But, unless you've been sleeping since the days of the Roman Empire, you know all of that. A person with evil intentions is almost always punished more harshly than a simple idiot who inadvertantly did wrong. There are laws on the books to protect some people who do wrong, such as the "Good Samaritan Laws" which protect inadequately trained people trying to save an injured person's life.
Manning publishing war crimes? FFS, I'm pretty tired of writing this same old shit: the most damning piece of "evidence" of war crimes, the deaths of the Reuters reporter and his camera man, are only "crimes" in the minds of the fruit loop left. According to all the evidence, according to the Geneva conventions, those deaths were a tragic mistake, but they were not, by any means, a crime.
As for your BTW, fuck that. You are only stating one thing with that - you sympathize and empathize with Manning because he's a fucked up, gender confused homosexual. And, of course, that goes hand in hand with your apparent position that anyone who opposes government, or "The Man", or "The establishment" is a saint. Manning did what he did because he's fucked up in the head, not because he had any laudable goals. He intended to hurt his fellow soldiers, he intended to harm our country, and he intended to embarrass the government and the army. Fucked up little cunt.
Snowden and Assange, on the other hand, intended no harm to anyone, or to anything. Their motives are to be admired, therefore, their actions are to be admired.
Manning isn't high enough on the ladder of ethics to lick the boots of either Snowden or Assange.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Monday August 31 2015, @12:45PM
You seem to have severe issues with logic. I do not automatically sympathize with everyone opposing government views, nor vice-versa. Nor do I sympathize with Manning. You are the one emphasizing your emotions by deliberately neglecting her gender change and bitching about her motivations. For me, this is a useless distraction entirely beside the point, which disqualifies you somewhat as a discussion partner, because you deliberately refuse to stick to the topic at hand, which is: Should people be allowed to publicly sympathize with others or not, even if those others are considered "evil" by the government?
The only assertion I made in regards to Chelsea Manning is that people should be allowed to sympathize with her. This does not mean that I do sympathize with her.
And while I acknowledge that there are some views which should be discouraged, I think this should not mainly happen by court decisions. I think, posting self-written opinions or encouragements [1], no matter which, should not be punished by live-shattering jail-sentences.
[1] By specifying "self-written opinions", I deliberately exclude copyright infringement, posting of cryptographic keys, uuencoded child-porn etc. These contents would have to be judged separately. Also state secrets or recipes for drugs or explosives are excluded from this statement - I think that knowledge should be free, but haven't made up my mind on these corner-cases yet.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 31 2015, @01:01PM
"I do not automatically sympathize with everyone opposing government views"
Alright - to be fair, maybe you don't. Maybe I'm projecting a little. Most times, I don't look at the moderation, but sometimes, I do. Funny pattern on many public forums - badmouth Manning, and the moderation goes to hell.
Gender change. Sorry, Manning will never be a woman. I don't care how many people claim otherwise, but it ain't happening.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Monday August 31 2015, @01:23PM
To be fair, in my initial post I did summarize them as "heroes of liberty", which also was beside the point and probably not fully informed on my side. I don't think I agree with your verdict on Manning, especially since you seem to try to make your point mainly by strong language and bringing up her gender-change, but naming them all as "heroes" was probably a wrong step into the discussion, and I won't spend the time and effort to confirm or refute my initial verdict on any of them.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 4, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday August 31 2015, @02:12PM
you sympathize and empathize with Manning because he's a fucked up, gender confused homosexual.
Manning did what he did because he's fucked up in the head, not because he had any laudable goals.
Your arguments would come through more clearly if there weren't uncertainty about whether you're just a bigot. On the one hand, you seem to have a somewhat reasoned argument that Manning is a different case from Assange or Snowden. Then you tear that argument's credibility to shreds by indicating that its foundation is some ridiculous belief that being transgendered or homosexual is a sign of mental illness.
So I have two questions. Do you believe that being transgendered is a form of homosexuality and that it indicates mental illness? Do you have any evidence that Manning is mentally ill other than her transition?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 31 2015, @02:46PM
The men and women who worked with Manning have very explicity stated that Manning was a discipline problem, and that much of that problem centered on his "gender confusion". That "gender confused" term comes across frequently in every discussion about Manning.
Gender confusion looks like mental illness to me, yes.
Manning's actions and motivations are an indication of mental instability. Let us suppose that Manning had uncovered a genuine war crime(s). Let us further suppose that Manning had exposed that war crime(s) and nothing else. In that case, Manning would have my support, just as Snowden does.
Let us suppose the same scenario, but Manning released much more than the evidence of those war crime(s). Manning would have my support, but less support than in the first scenario.
In fact, however, Manning stole everything he could get his hands on, and released all of it, in revenge for his perceived "persecution".
Let me be clear: that video entitled "collateral murder" contains zero evidence of a "war crime". That video is the centerpiece of the claims or war crimes. No person who has ever been even peripherally involved in combat action can see any criminal actions in that video. People who don't understand what they are looking at can be primed to believe it's a crime, but there is no crime. Tragic mistake, yes, crime, no.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday August 31 2015, @12:10PM
Because, you know, war crimes and such. I know US soldiers who were ordered to violate geneva conventions by executing captured prisoners AFTER they surrendered. Why? Because, you know, they just come back with more guys and more guns. Plus, there aren't any military prisons in foreign lands.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 31 2015, @12:19PM
Citations needed. No prisons? Obviously, you've forgotten all about this particular scandal - a genuine, documented war crime.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-prison-abuse-scandal-fast-facts/ [cnn.com]
I haven't even read that particular article, but it should be enough to refresh your memory. You know US soldiers who were ordered to execute prisoners? If that be true, then you are guilty of helping them to cover up war crimes. If you actually have knowledge of such things, I advise you to contact the nearest JAG office, and offer them whatever evidence you might possess.
In short, I call BULLSHIT!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2015, @02:11PM
Nobody would fault him for fearing that if he did so, he'd be on his way to Fort Leavenworth with a defense lawyer instructed to not mention anything that might reduce his sentence.
These days, reporting a crime is punished harder than the crime.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday August 31 2015, @01:42PM
Military prisons for captured enemy (and law-breakers) are very common. Every little fob probably has one. It could just be a circle of concertina wire. You can call up your support and the detainee will be shuffled along until they reach a large facility. Biggest i saw as around 10,000 detainees. A place in middle of the desert and run by the USAF. They were tried by their own Judges based on information and evidence gathered during their capture. Some went free (time served), some stayed in there for seemingly forever, some went to a civilian prison (as close to their home as possible). The process was overseen by ICRC.
Just because my personal experiences are different than your second-hand experiences that doesn't mean that yours are wrong. But the motives (the "Why?") are indeed incorrect which makes the "What" very suspect.
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