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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

You mean like arresting people when they say something the gov't doesn't like? [1] I'll take a pass, thank you.

[1]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-for-offensive-...

I can't wrap my head around how you can see it as positive that these kind of actions would go unpunished, in the name of "freedom".

If I were harassed and bullied I'd not feel very free, but rather anxious, threatened, depressed. I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological.

I would prefer being harrased and bullied rather than having to live in a country that has a legal power to punish me for what I say.

> to punish me for what I say.

But doesn't, unless you say something reprehensible that the society you live in agrees that you stepped way over the line.

You can absolutely get punished for what you say in the US -- freedom of speech was long ago recognized as anything but absolute. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Obscenity (as defined in Miller v. California) is not protected by the constitution. You can't lie under oath. You can't deliberately tell lies about people (Libel). The First Amendment doesn’t protect the speech of people plotting to overthrow the government (Dennis v. United States). House Bill 347 authorized Secret Service agents to arrest anyone protesting in the president’s or vice president’s proximity.

The only difference is they've chosen to draw the line somewhere just offset from what you're used to. There's still a line in these here United States. And it's really not that different, is it?

Not to mention the myriad of other nonsense charges they'll get you with ("loitering", "soliciting", etc) if they can't find anything specifically against your speech.

You can shout grammatically correct, sensible and lawful speech from the public street corner ("eat right! exercise! wash behind your ears!"), but if a cop simply tells you to move along and you refuse, you're still looking at being jailed.

>...You can't yell fire in a crowded theater.

Wrong.

https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

>...The only difference is they've chosen to draw the line somewhere just offset from what you're used to. There's still a line in these here United States.

It looks like the US probably has the strongest free speech protections of any country in the world - that isn't a bad thing.

Those free speech protections have been implicated in an ongoing series of terrorist murders, which is a bad thing.

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/04/17/splc-report-n...

> Almost 100 people were murdered over the last five years by registered users of Stormfront, the largest racist Web forum in the world, according to a report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

>Those free speech protections have been implicated in an ongoing series of terrorist murders, which is a bad thing.

How did free speech carry out terrorist murders?

Well now that we Americans can murder people directly with words, we can merge the first and second amendments.

…right. That article bemoans the use of "shouting fire in a crowded theater" as a rhetorical device, but doesn't actually discuss the legality of such speech.

(IANAL, but there exists such a thing as depraved indifference murder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder)

The ruling standard is Brandenburg v. Ohio, which draws the line at incitement to "imminent lawless action." Which is to say, you have to be rallying people to start a riot right now. Doing something that is merely provocative, such as marching a neo-Nazi parade through a neighborhood of Holocaust survivors, is protected First Amendment speech.

Literally shouting fire in a crowded theater in an attempt to cause a panic and perhaps kill people, would not be protected speech, but pretty much anything less would be protected speech.

No contest here! The only thing my reply addresses is the parent's assertion that the specific example of shouting fire in a crowded theater is protected speech.

>...but doesn't actually discuss the legality of such speech.

Well, the article discusses the origin of the idea that "shouting fire in a crowded theater" is illegal. It also points out that Brandenburg v. Ohio is the actual relevant decision.

For more context on the Brandenberg decision:

>...Charles Brandenburg, a Ku Klux Klan leader, had spoken to group members at a televised Ohio rally. He’d used inflammatory language and racial slurs. He’d called for "revengeance," which Ohio prosecutors interpreted as a call to violence. This meant, said the prosecutors, that Charles Brandenburg had broken the law.

>...Advocacy, even when it encourages law-breaking, helps the marketplace of ideas, ruled the Court. Had Brandenburg instructed followers to commit a specific crime, he’d have committed a number of offenses himself. But the First Amendment protects speech that merely advocates general, indefinite illegal action.

>With that ruling, the Court overturned the Schenck decision that had introduced "shouting fire in a crowded theater." No longer was "clear and present danger" a sufficient standard for criminalizing speech. To break the law, speech now had to incite "imminent lawless action."

>So if a court can prove that you incite imminent lawlessness by falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, it can convict you. If you incite an unlawful riot, your speech is "brigaded" with illegal action, and you will have broken the law. But merely falsely shouting "fire" does not break the law, even if it risks others’ safety.

http://civil-liberties.yoexpert.com/civil-liberties-general/...

The death of a human being can certainly be regarded as unlawful. See Michelle Carter's conviction for encouraging Conrad Roy to commit suicide [1] despite the fact that Massachusetts has no law against suicide itself.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy

Don't forget "born secret" Restricted Data.

The US does have that legal power so it seems to be more about where you draw the line.

You sure that isn't just a reflex "defending my country" reply?

I mean, extending on that statement, you probably also think sexual harassment, as long as it stays verbal, is OK to have in the name of freedom. As a guy you probably don't have to worry there anyways. People are driven into suicide through harassment.

And why don't you feel the same about the right to just shoot anyone at will? Clearly your government is strongly restricting your freedom there, but we probably don't Need to argue why this is a good thing.

> I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological.

All except for terrorist attacks, which are considered part and parcel of living in a big city[1] like London (but strangely not Tokyo which has 4-5m more citizens!).

[1]https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/new-york-explosion-sad...

Shame on you for spreading that fake news. People on HN should know better and be held to a higher standard.

> Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job. We must never accept terrorists being successful, we must never accept that terrorists can destroy our life or destroy the way we lead our lives.

Seems sensible to me.

>Shame on you for spreading that fake news.

That's quite the argument!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I03IKr2TWDM

"It's part and parcel of living in a great global city..."

>Seems sensible to me.

You keep using that word...

>Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things,

Living in a city, you must be prepared for terror.

This is not how things should be.

It's not how things should be, but it's what decades of incredibly poor middle Eastern foreign policy gets you.

Being prepared for these things is not the same as saying these things are unavoidable certainties. There is quite a big distinction, along the lines of having a gun for self defense Vs having a gun to shoot someone.

He is basically saying support the police in their counter terrorism work, and report anything suspicious if you see it. Pretty much what you hear over the airport tannoys every time you fly.

So much here.

>but it's [terrorist attacks] what decades of incredibly poor middle Eastern foreign policy gets you.

You believe terrorist attacks are deserved as a result of what your government has done in the past?

>I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological.

Which is it? Your government is taking measures to assure your protection, or is actively provoking foreigners to kill you on your own soil?

> You believe terrorist attacks are deserved as a result of what your government has done in the past?

Nobody deserves to get hit by a car, but if you're running across a highway then what do you expect.

> Which is it? Your government is taking measures to assure your protection, or is actively provoking foreigners to kill you on your own soil?

Why are those mutually exclusive?

I would also tack on that it's mostly the USA's foreign policy that got us here (which our government decided to jump in bed with to be fair, but yours nonetheless). It's just you have a nice Atlantic ocean to buffer you from many of the concequences.

Be prepared for unexpected events that end up as a mass casualty situation due to the high population density.

> This is not how things should be.

So you support the disarming of all US citizens, because living in fear of crime isn't how things should be?

These things come and go throughout the world over time.

The occasional terrorist attack seems better than starting a world war that invited retaliatory firebombing and nuclear bombing.

USA is taking its turn at feeling the consequences of colonial imperialism.

>The occasional terrorist attack seems better than starting a world war that invited retaliatory firebombing and nuclear bombing.

Wasn't London bombed too? What's your point? Terrorist attacks are better than world wars?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack

The UK has been dealing with terrorist attacks for a long time, London especially so. And it is foolish to suggest that the government takes no measures to prevent it. They take appropriate measures to prevent many attacks and to reduce the likelihood of others, but it is impossible to stop all of them.

In the UK, you can be arrested for saying absolutely anything as long as somebody who heard it claims to be offended and a policeman also agrees it's offensive. There's no boundary or guideline that you can follow.

Do you also want to lock up people who criticized the color of Trump's skin or the size of his hands? When you outlaw offending people, there's not clear boundary as to what's allowed and what's not. It creates a scary power imbalance so that people can suffer severe consequences for simply responding to an insult, or saying something innocent that's misinterpreted. If you've ever seen an insult on Twitter, those people would be criminals. All of them, not just the ones who insulted people you like. Anyone who says "cops are pigs" needs locking up too. The US has clear boundaries to what's legal to say but the UK doesn't.

Can be equally used to suppress anyone with an unpopular opinion.

Who is deciding what is edgy but still funny, vs what’s over the line?

What is valid criticism of people who happen to be part of a minority group, vs what is hateful and racist?

The only reason you are ok with this, is because all of your beliefs fall within the boundaries of acceptability set by the censors. And you want to be protected from the speech of people who might think or believe differently.

Receiving insults, death threats and the likes online is just "speech of people who might think or believe differently" to you, seriously?

>"insults, death threats"

There is a world of difference between these two things. To my knowledge death threats are illegal in every American state. Insulting people is generally legal, just like it should be.

It's also pretty funny how they respond, because, let's face facts here:

1) the US government attacks people for their opinions, and so does the UK government. Same with civil asset forfeiture. And it doesn't stop there. Treatment of immigrants/asylum seekers, military actions outside of the country, protection of corrupt officials, ...

2) People who defend the US government actions, whether related to freedom of speech or forfeiture, are described as unfairly naive or pro-state by Europeans.

3) People who criticize the UK government actions, essentially the same, except much lesser known, are unfairly criticizing their "trustworthy state". Forfeiture without recourse, check. Speech attacks. And let's just not investigate what the UK government has done to immigrants, because ...

To just take one particularly vile action taken by the UK government, which I challenge defenders to defend as "just" here's one:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/may/20/child-asylum-seek...

Or how about having cops deceive members of environmental groups into sex, going so far as to father children with them, then (of course) walking away. To make matters worse, the UK government decided (again, obviously) to protect the officers from normal legal responsibility requirements.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/deceived-lovers-...

Yeah, I can see why this organization doesn't want to be criticized publicly ... that's, as they say, going to go down poorly.

I don't understand this attitude in people. The US people criticize their government. This seems like a very, very good thing. Europeans, in my experience, largely have worse governments with better reputations ... They're different in various ways, although much less so in the case of the UK.

For instance, the royal house of the Netherlands has an insanely good reputation ... as long as you don't speak to people who so much as live close to them. Then they're moral abominations who constantly abuse their position in the state for utterly banal reasons (they've -literally- ordered people arrested because their children did better on a test in school than their children). And yet, fantastic reputation. But look up articles actually about them, and you will quickly realize what monsters these people are.

To judge the quality and trustworthiness of the UK police force, I encourage you to check out the exams they have officers take before entering, and realize that many officers actually fail these tests once or twice before joining. Let's just not pretend that half these people are even smart enough to know the difference between acting trustworthy and not, because that actually requires a very, very, very basic level of intelligence that clearly is not required and in many cases not present for those joining the police force.

Sometimes you can explain this through politics. For instance, US people often have a good opinion of the NHS. The NHS ! Yes, really, that NHS. WTF ? Ok, they don't charge much, true. They do seem to get accused constantly of not doing much else either and in cases ... they deserve that criticism. But OK, the US has a problem the NHS does not impose on UK'ers. So sure let's focus on the good. (Although what baffles me a bit about UK people is that they still think that something like 20 pounds or so is a lot for complex medical procedures, enough to convince many of them not to do them)

But many, many things in Europe are incredibly bad. Very little criticism, leading to good reputations which are, in quite a few cases, rather less accurate.

We've reached peak Poe's law.

Couple of thousand fines in a city of 8,700,000 seems sensible to me.

Not everyone values free speech quite as highly as the USA. It's important, sure, but it's not live or die. There are limits and spreading vile hate speech is one of them.

I also like the complete focus on the free speech aspect, completely ignoring the "we actually deal with racists here" aspect. How narrow minded.

Let's keep in mind here that there are many definitions of hate speech. In Canada, it's carefully defined as speech that actually incites people to a criminal act - so racism or other "vile speech" on its own doesn't qualify, you have to be actively making a credible threat or incitement to have others commit real actions.

“Vile hate speech” can cut both ways unfortunately. Both of us agree that racism is a bad thing. But the American South during Jim Crow declared progressive speech as “hate speech” and tried to ban it.[0] So it’s better to not empower the government to decide what is hate and what isn’t, or you may elect a government that decides what you say is hate speech.

[0] “As we have seen, during the days of slavery and later segregation, laws suppressing free speech were often aimed at abolitionists and civil rights advocates, not at slave owners or Jim Crow advocates. This reflected social and political power in local states and communities where attitudes towards race were very different than today.“ https://www.hoover.org/research/harm-hate-speech-laws

> So it’s better to not empower the government to decide what is hate and what isn’t

The government cannot just arbitrarily expand hate speech to include something which is patently not hate speech. The courts would not uphold it, neither would the judiciary or the public at large.

10 years ago, I would have argued the same about the gov't just arbitrarily expanding asset seizure laws, but here we are.

If they made it law (which strictly speaking requires parliament, not the government), the courts _would_ uphold it.

Unless you get an extreme president who stacks the courts with extreme judges...

So I would agree except judges are even elected in some places in the south. The judiciary is not always insular.

Couple of thousand fines in a city of 8,700,000 seems sensible to me.

As someone who values free speech, even one fine is abhorrent.

Do you speak for all people who value free speech?

I think that by his (and my) definition of "people who value free speech", yes he does - because that is a part of the definition.

Everyone values speech they like. Valuing Free Speech means valuing the speech you don't like, too.

But that's not criticising the government, you could call the government a bunch of cunts and no one is coming to arrest you. But if you harass an individual then that individual can use the government to prevent further harassment. This sort of malicious communication was illegal before the intern but now it is easier to commit it as you don't need to know where someone lives to send a letter, you can tweet them without leaving the house. In the past I imagine you had to do something pretty bad to get lots and lots of hate mail (takes a bit of effort to write the letter and send it ) but these days you could wear the wrong colour shirt and end up on the internets shit list and have your inbox or Twitter feed deluged in seconds.

I'll gladly take that, and a government that generally tries to look after its citizens, over one that is downright hostile to and steals from citizens.

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