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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: 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