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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: 3, Insightful) by RedBear on Monday August 31 2015, @12:06PM
It should also be pointed out that "monitoring" and "censorship" are two different things. Once he gets out of the pokey and is no longer on probation, this individual will no doubt be allowed to exercise his 1st Amendment rights to say whatever he wants to whomever he wants, as long as he doesn't attempt to directly contact or materially support known terrorists again. Which all in all should not be a particularly onerous task. While on probation there will no doubt be additional restrictions in his release conditions, but after that he should be fine as long as he just steers clear of designated terrorist groups.
Meanwhile, we must all continue to watch our government like hawks to make sure they don't inappropriately expand what gets labeled "terrorist". If we do our jobs he'll wind up with plenty of freedom of speech, even though many might argue he won't deserve it.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday August 31 2015, @03:27PM
this individual will no doubt be allowed to exercise his 1st Amendment rights to say whatever he wants to whomever he wants, as long as he doesn't attempt to directly contact or materially support known terrorists again
but after that he should be fine as long as he just steers clear of designated terrorist groups.
Your post backs down from its own argument. Can he talk about anyone he wants, or must he steer clear of certain groups? Those two things are mutually exclusive.
"No doubt?" Ha. I doubt.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tathra on Monday August 31 2015, @05:44PM
so he can support whomever he wants, just so long as whomever he wants is on a list of people and groups pre-approved by the government? totally not censorship at all.