I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Isgrimnur
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by Isgrimnur »

This isn't going to end well for authorities:
An East Tennessee State University student was arrested Wednesday after going to a Black Lives Matter protest on campus wearing a gorilla mask and handing out bananas.

Tristan Rettke, an 18-year-old freshman, wore overalls and a gorilla mask and, holding a burlap sack with a Confederate flag and a marijuana leaf on it, offered bananas to students who were protesting, according to the ETSU police department report. He was arrested and charged with civil rights intimidation.
Statute
(b) A person commits the offense of intimidating others from exercising civil rights who:

(1) Injures or threatens to injure or coerces another person with the intent to unlawfully intimidate another from the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the constitution or laws of the state of Tennessee;

(2) Injures or threatens to injure or coerces another person with the intent to unlawfully intimidate another because that other exercised any right or privilege secured by the constitution or laws of the United States or the constitution or laws of the state of Tennessee;
...
(c) It is an offense for a person to wear a mask or disguise with the intent to violate subsection (b).

(d) A violation of subsection (b) is a Class D felony. A violation of subsection (c) is a Class A misdemeanor.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Pakistan
Pakistani officials have banned 11 Christian television channels in what local priests are calling a blow to religious freedom in the region.

Pakistan, home to some 2.8million christians, ordered the censoring of pro-Christian programmes after the nation's TV regulatory body declared them illegal.
...
The move to ban the stations leaves Pakistan's Christian minority with no public media presence after 17 years of having been allowed to broadcast across the country.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by LordMortis »

I'm still forming an opinion here but my first instinct is break out the torches because quite frankly, the Governor, the R legislature, and the AG have all long ago burnt out the fuse on trust in their ability govern nor create and enforce laws.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/l ... /95124708/

I do wish periodicals will both distill information and source it.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Saudi Arabia
A Saudi man has been jailed for one year for calling for an end to the Muslim kingdom’s guardianship system that gives men wide controls over women, local media said Tuesday.

The man, who was also fined 30,000 riyals ($8,000) by a court in the eastern city of Dammam, was convicted of “inciting to end guardianship of women” in statements he posted on Twitter and in public posters, the Okaz daily said.

He was arrested while putting up posters in mosques in Al-Hasa district calling for an end to the globally unique system that subjects women in the ultra-conservative kingdom to male control.
...
Thousands of Saudis signed in September a petition urging an end to the guardianship system following a Twitter campaign which the court claims was launched by the defendant.
...
Activists say that even female prisoners have to be received by the guardian upon their release, meaning that some have to languish in jail or a shelter beyond their sentences if the man does not want to accept them.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Egypt
The Committee on Religion in the Egyptian Parliament has disclosed plans to pass into law, a bill that makes atheism a criminal offence in the North African nation.

Current Egyptian law says atheists can be prosecuted for expressing their disbelief in public but the committee’s proposal would go further and criminalise disbelief itself.

It would be recalled that in 2014, little more than a week after Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi was sworn in as Egypt’s President, the government announced that it was preparing a national plan to crush every form atheism.

A few months later Al-Shabab, a government-linked newspaper, stated that atheists were “the country’s second enemy after the Muslim Brotherhood” and quoted a psychologist saying that “atheism leads to mental imbalances and paranoia”.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Thank you, Arab Spring.

Sigh.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Is it really paranoia when they really are out to get you?
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by Drazzil »

Wow. The world seems to be going through a "stupid" period.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Two Pussy Riot members are missing. Olya Borisova & Sasha Sofeev disappeared in Crimea yesterday.

FSB detained them several times. Yesterday cops broke their phones and computers. We can not reach out to them.

We don't know what has happened to them.
Newsweek
The women were allegedly in Crimea to protest the detention of filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who is serving a 20-year sentence on terrorism charges that many say are politically motivated. Sentsov is originally from Crimea and was arrested there in 2014.

The women decided to leave Crimea on Monday evening because they had been detained and harassed by security forces. The punk group’s Twitter account claimed that the members’ phones and computers had been broken. Masha Alekhina, a third member of Pussy Riot, is believed to be in police custody. However, she posted a picture of herself on Facebook on Tuesday holding up a sign that says “Free Sentsov.”
...
According to Radio Free Europe, Borisova and Sofeyev were originally detained when they arrived in Crimea on Sunday. Alekhina was reportedly apprehended after her arrival in Crimea on Monday. Borisova and Sofeyev were allegedly released and on their way back to Moscow when they disappeared en route to the airport.
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LordMortis
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Putin is a great guy.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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I really have no idea where to put anything anymore. It all seems to bleed in to the exact same conversation

https://arstechnica.com/information-tec ... addresses/
Early today, Roskomnadzor—Russia's Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media—moved to enforce a new Russian federal law blocking the use of Telegram, the encrypted chat and social networking application that has become the favored tool of Russia's political opposition and journalists. The censorship began with Roskomnadzor instructing Internet service providers to block requests to Internet Protocol addresses of Telegram's servers.

But as users flocked to virtual private networks and proxy services to reach Telegram from their mobile devices and computers—or resorted to building their own—government censors added large swaths of IP addresses to the block list. And according to multiple sources within Russia, ISPs there are now blocking large chunks of IP addresses associated with cloud services from Amazon and Google.

Alexander Zharov, the chief of Roskomnadzor, confirmed that Amazon's addresses were being blocked "due to the fact that the Telegram messenger started using them to bypass the lock in Russia," RT reported.

Telegram isn't the first secure chat application targeted by the Russian government. The chat application Zello is also widely blocked in Russia. More than 800,000 Amazon IP addresses were being blocked by early evening in Moscow, and a block of more than 1 million Google addresses (35.192.0.0/12) was added shortly afterward, according to a report from the Meduza Project.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Why don't they just pressure the companies into providing back doors into their encryption apps? That's the approach the US and the UK are flirting with.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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GreenGoo wrote: Thu Apr 19, 2018 12:22 am Why don't they just pressure the companies into providing back doors into their encryption apps? That's the approach the US and the UK are flirting with.
I don't know anything about Zello, but Telegram is run by people who are at odds with the Putin regime.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web
Here are some things that you will hear when you sit down to dinner with the vanguard of the Intellectual Dark Web: There are fundamental biological differences between men and women. Free speech is under siege. Identity politics is a toxic ideology that is tearing American society apart. And we’re in a dangerous place if these ideas are considered “dark.”
...
What is the I.D.W. and who is a member of it? It’s hard to explain, which is both its beauty and its danger.

Most simply, it is a collection of iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities who are having a rolling conversation — on podcasts, YouTube and Twitter, and in sold-out auditoriums — that sound unlike anything else happening, at least publicly, in the culture right now. Feeling largely locked out of legacy outlets, they are rapidly building their own mass media channels.
"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Yawn. That sounds like exactly what the alt-right are doing, and "alt-thinkers" gave drumpf to the world, so I'm not sure calling yourself an "alt-intellectual" is very wise.

The idea that the first amendment is under siege is particularly laughable. There has never been an easier time to express your ideas no matter who you are or what your background, race, gender, or culture.

The first amendment is under siege in the same way "men" are under siege by the #metoo movement, or "13 year old boys" were under siege during Gamergate.

Just because people don't like what you have to say doesn't mean you aren't free from government repercussions for having said it.

The rest is just playing the victim when people push back.

I'm not saying that there aren't examples where there is government overreach, I'm saying that government overreach is at an all time low.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Moliere wrote: Thu May 10, 2018 1:32 am Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web
There are fundamental biological differences between men and women. Identity politics is a toxic ideology that is tearing American society apart.
I'm apparently not an intellectual, because these two seem to be at odds with each other.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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I'm a sad human being. If you self describe as Intellectual Dark Web. My first thought is you should chill on watching so many primetime crime shows and I end up giving them a strike before I start reading. :( Subvert the Dominant Paradigm With Better Advertising! (for fun and profit)
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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The liberal elites in the USA really need to step up their game, the liberal elites in the UK are getting way ahead of you in silencing the right. Even a little girl can see it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djKQTIe ... e=youtu.be
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Don't worry, they take turns across the pond. The UK (and Canada, really) could use a good 1st amendment.

Hopefully not lost on anyone is that the first amendment is good for everyone no matter their stripes.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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em2nought wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:42 am The liberal elites in the USA really need to step up their game, the liberal elites in the UK are getting way ahead of you in silencing the right. Even a little girl can see it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djKQTIe ... e=youtu.be
I’m fascinated by the fact that elite is now an insult. It’s like hearing people complain about someone having “book learnin’“ in a movie with homicidal hillbillies.
Covfefe!
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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hepcat wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 7:44 am I’m fascinated by the fact that elite is now an insult.
It's not really a "new" thing. :wink:
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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hepcat wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 7:44 am I’m fascinated by the fact that elite is now an insult. It’s like hearing people complain about someone having “book learnin’“ in a movie with homicidal hillbillies.
The implication is that the elite are elitist. Shorthand for snobbish, better than you assholes... which isn't exactly wrong.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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I would understand if they used the word "elitist" but they keep using "elite".

Although being grammatically picky on this may be putting me in danger of becoming elite.
Covfefe!
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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I can hardly wait to stigginit to those elitist jerks over at Delta Force.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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hepcat wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:55 pm I would understand if they used the word "elitist" but they keep using "elite".

Although being grammatically picky on this may be putting me in danger of becoming elite.
An elite elitist.

Those dudes are the worst.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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I've been called many things in my life. But elite may just be the absolute worst thi....wait...what?
Covfefe!
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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"Gentlemen, you are the top 1 percent of all naval aviators. The elite. The best of the best."

Now are Trump supporters hating on Viper? Why do they hate America?
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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$iljanus wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 4:16 pm Now are Trump supporters hating on Viper?
Man, Viper is looking old. :(
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by Holman »

The conservative attack on "elites" goes way back. William F. Buckley famously declared that he would rather live in an America governed by the first hundred names in the Boston phone book than by the first hundred names in the Harvard faculty list.

Buckley, of course, was the elite scion of an elite family, and he probably never in his life worked on an equal basis with anyone who hadn't attended an elite school or descended from elite wealth. Needless to say he was a racist whose valuation of working-class people (and Southerners generally) basically ended at their utility in holding back the tide of diversity and miscegenation.

This same thing goes on in attacks on "elites" by Real'Merican Fox News pundits who make a million a year and own vacation homes in four states.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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BBC
A police raid on Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) has drawn fire from broadcasters and rights groups.

Officers arrived at the public broadcaster's Sydney headquarters with search warrants naming two reporters and the news director. The ABC has protested over the raid.

Police searched the home of a News Corp journalist on Tuesday, sparking alarm.
...
The police action is related to articles about alleged misconduct by Australian forces in Afghanistan.

According to the ABC, Wednesday's search is about the 2017 investigative series known as The Afghan Files which "revealed allegations of unlawful killings and misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan".

The broadcaster said the series was "based off hundreds of pages of secret defence documents leaked to the ABC".

The Australian Federal Police said the warrant was in relation to "allegations of publishing classified material" and that it "relates to a referral received on 11 July 2017 from the Chief of the Defence Force and the then-Acting Secretary for Defence".
...
The police said Tuesday's and Wednesday's raids were not connected, adding: "Both however relate to separate allegations of publishing classified material, contrary to provisions of the Crimes Act 1914, which is an extremely serious matter that has the potential to undermine Australia's national security."
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Lest we forget how much worse it could be here.

https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/07/ ... C8NfZQ2S-Q

In 2015, two members of Iranian metal band Confess — Nikan “Siyanor” Khosravi and Arash “Chemical” Ilkhani — were arrested by the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution for blasphemy and other charges for expressing anti-religious and anti-regime sentiments via their music. While Khosravi and Ilkhani since sought asylum in Norway, they were recently sentenced to a combined 14 years in prison and 74 lashes for playing heavy metal in their home country.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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NPR
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is being sued by two people who say they criticized her on Twitter and were then blocked from her account, which has more than 4.7 million followers.

The two federal lawsuits were filed Tuesday, the same day a federal appeals court in New York upheld a lower court ruling that President Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking critics on Twitter. The three-judge panel's unanimous ruling said that because Trump uses his Twitter account as a public forum, he cannot bar people who disagree with him from taking part in an open dialogue.

The lawsuits against Ocasio-Cortez were filed by Dov Hikind, a former New York state assemblyman, and Joseph Saladino, a social media personality who goes by the name "Joey Salads" and is running for Congress.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by LordMortis »

Isgrimnur wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 11:26 am NPR
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is being sued by two people who say they criticized her on Twitter and were then blocked from her account, which has more than 4.7 million followers.

The two federal lawsuits were filed Tuesday, the same day a federal appeals court in New York upheld a lower court ruling that President Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking critics on Twitter. The three-judge panel's unanimous ruling said that because Trump uses his Twitter account as a public forum, he cannot bar people who disagree with him from taking part in an open dialogue.

The lawsuits against Ocasio-Cortez were filed by Dov Hikind, a former New York state assemblyman, and Joseph Saladino, a social media personality who goes by the name "Joey Salads" and is running for Congress.
They have a point. Though "Joey Salads" should be careful what he wishes for. His running for office and using Twitter as a public political forum puts him in the same boat.

I wonder if our laws and our mindsets will catch up to our technology. These last four years have opened a can of worms for which not one advancement in reason has happened or at least not an advancement that I've seen and our courts and our laws appear to be moving backwards.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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LordMortis wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 11:52 am They have a point. Though "Joey Salads" should be careful what he wishes for. His running for office and using Twitter as a public political forum puts him in the same boat.

I wonder if our laws and our mindsets will catch up to our technology. These last four years have opened a can of worms for which not one advancement in reason has happened or at least not an advancement that I've seen and our courts and our laws appear to be moving backwards.
The problem with their argument is that Trump and the White House have stated that his personal account is his official "Presidential" account, and the random bile he spews from there is official Oval Office policy. He has access to @POTUS but chose to use his personal. Trump represents a whole branch of government and the courts aren't going to allow him to block the public. That's on him. As far as I know, she's never stated the same about her account. Maybe if those two idiots were constituents of hers then they might have standing, but I doubt it.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Uh, if its my account, why am I not able to block anybody I want?
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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You can. When you’re a public office holder that uses it to talk about official business, the rules change.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russ ... SKCN1V10BY
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s state communications watchdog has asked Google (GOOGL.O) to stop advertising “illegal mass events” on its YouTube video platform, it said on Sunday.
It said Russia would consider a failure by Google to respond to the request as “interference in its sovereign affairs” and “hostile influence (over) and obstruction of democratic elections in Russia”.

If the company does not take measures to prevent events from being promoted on its platforms, Russia reserves the right to respond accordingly, Roscomnadzor said, without giving details.

Whereas

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/tech/whi ... index.html
Washington (CNN Business)A draft executive order from the White House could put the Federal Communications Commission in charge of shaping how Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR) and other large tech companies curate what appears on their websites, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
The draft order, a summary of which was obtained by CNN, calls for the FCC to develop new regulations clarifying how and when the law protects social media websites when they decide to remove or suppress content on their platforms. Although still in its early stages and subject to change, the Trump administration's draft order also calls for the Federal Trade Commission to take those new policies into account when it investigates or files lawsuits against misbehaving companies. Politico first reported the existence of the draft.
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