Rapper BG ordered to have all future songs approved by US Government | Hacker News Reader

Rapper BG ordered to have all future songs approved by US Government

theguardian.com

35 pointsHieronymusBosch38 comments

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I feel like this is one of those moral dilemma things where:

* It's probably really bad that BG is glorifying violence and murder and threatening witnesses

* It would be better if he stopped

* It's completely understandable that his parole should depend on him not doing it

* The court should absolutely overturn this and protect his free speech so he can go on glorifying violence and murder

Free speech, not just for good people!

He is a convicted felon; and while he serves his sentence, his constitutional rights can and will be substantially abrogated. This includes his right to vote, a sex offender’s right to move freely without being on a list, or a corrupt business executive’s right to be a CFO in the future.

You have rights unless by your own actions you forfeit them. This has been upheld as constitutional. In some states, depending on your actions, you can even forfeit your right to live (though I get the controversy on that one far more).

But on that note, threatening witnesses is always a crime. That is indefensible, and deserves prison no matter who did it. Saying he can’t do that in a parole release is like saying “don’t do crimes.”

> forfeit your right to live

That's a very interesting point of view, I had never thought of it that way: you can do whatever you want, but you will no longer be allowed to live. The consequence is almost presented as a choice, instead of a punishment.

If you ever watch The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (it’s in the extended, not sure about the theatrical), there’s a similar concept.

https://youtu.be/frJM35gWUFM?feature=shared

While I agree (restricted rights is a punishment), the US legal system still seems focused on "revenge" vs "rehabilitation"; you mention sex offenders, they are on that list for life even if it was a case of peeing in public. People lose their right to vote.

Regardless of whether you call it "rehabilitated" or "paid their debt to society", I don't think people should continue to be punished (e.g. by being on a list) after they've done their time.

I'm aware this gets tricky with certain kinds of sex offenders though, who get out of jail and continue their shit; they have paid their debt to society, but they haven't and may never rehabilitate.

I thought that calls for violence do not get regular Free Speech protection ?

Us it a call for violence? If he is a screenwriter is that a call for violence?

Too clever by half; as this implies that a person who is a screenwriter, by their profession, is incapable of ever actually calling for violence.

To me, it's not as much of an ethical question as a practical one. Clearly there are other rights that ordinary citizens have, which people on parole don't have in the same way: freedom of association, freedom of travel, the right to purchase firearms, and so on. It's not—to me—ipso facto a violation of his constitutional right to free speech, though I'd definitely listen to the argument that it was. To me, it's a simpler question of whether this is a stupid thing to do, because his songs don't pose a danger, and time spent by pretending government employees are suited to evaluating rap songs and guessing whether they are going to lead someone to murder someone else is time wasted, that could be spent doing something more useful.

There are Positive rights and Negative rights. Both should exist otherwise we become a jungle. The fact that you (or me) wouldn't go out killing and maiming doesn't mean nobody else would/will/does.

So if for the protection of the many (yes I know - it is a slippery slope) a specific person has to count his words & actions, so be it. He made his bed. Now he is sleeping in it.

when on parole, you are still serving your sentence. One doesn't have the right to our "normal" freedoms while in jail and therefore the concept of having one's free speech limited while on parole makes sense.

It's not about good vs bad people. It's about you did a crime and haven't finished serving your time.

Prisoners have the "same" free-speech rights as free men, why would parole reduce them?

They don't. They have some rights, not all.

https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/free-speech-righ...

"A prison inmate retains only those First Amendment rights that are not inconsistent with his status as a prisoner or with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections system."

i.e. if restricting freedom of speech is consistent with that, they would be restricted. Not all forms of speech restriction are consistent with that (and if the state tried to restrict those, the courts would probably overturn it), but to say they have the same free-speech rights is objectively false.

In this case, it would seem that the legitimate objectives of the correction system would fit with restricting his speech (as the OP states, it probably be better if he didn't do that).

I’m not convinced this is a free speech violation. He’s on parole - meaning the government has the legal right to put him back in prison basically at any moment. There’s no free speech in a prison (edit: officially yes, in practice, it doesn’t matter much).

Supervised release also comes with all sorts of restrictions, including in some cases: No internet use, no contact with minors, no alcohol, mandatory check-ins, random searches, approved locations only, curfew at night, no leaving the country, no knowing association with other felons. This is hardly novel by comparison.

Since when is there not free speech in a prison?

Officially, it exists; in practice, behavior is so regulated it’s not worth much. My point is that it’s more of an “on paper” free speech in comparison to a non-incarcerated individual.

They don't seem to be attempting to prevent him from publishing his music. They will just revoke parole if he violates their terms. They're not suppressing speech. They're giving him supervised release on condition.

Since they can put you in solitary confinement or beat you up for speaking

In one way or another, we are all being supervised, even without having committed a crime. It is true that there is a thin line between supervision and the violation of rights, but I believe this requires deeper analysis. However, the fact that supervision exists should not surprise us at a time in history when individuals are more supervised than ever before.

If in this case the supervision were a possible violation of his freedom of expression, then thousands of similar situations constantly occur with people’s freedom to move freely among other examples.

Need to add in the title that this is a condition of his parole.

aye. "parole" changes that discussion 100%.

random dude being told he can't -- ehh mostly free speech issue.

convicted felon on parole making threats via audio recordings -- different story.

he's basically "in prison" except they decided to let him out sometimes as long as he behaves himself, and he's not behaving himself.

> But Morgan said prosecutors’ concerns over Dorsey’s goals of rehabilitation were “legitimate”. So she would have the artist turn his lyrics over to the government prior to putting out or promoting any songs he planned to use them in, and at that point if they are deemed to be “inconsistent with the goals of rehabilitation”, prosecutors could ask to modify Dorsey’s supervised release terms.

> As prosecutors asked, Morgan also reiterated that Dorsey must not work with people previously convicted of felonies unless given permission to do so, among other special conditions. She furthermore ordered him to complete 400 hours of unpaid community service. Seems pretty wild, but apparently laws work a bit different for people on probation/supervised leave from prior (not sure what that means)?

The real story here is what a big win this is for the rehabilitatory justice movement. Personally I think that prison time serves a number of purposes. It's a punishment in the classical sense (make people experience something they don't like, and they will weigh that experience when making decisions that could lead to it again), it stops criminals from committing their crime of choice in the near term (giving the public a break), and it serves as an opportunity to help those who have fallen into a life of crime gain skills and knowledge that can help them get a legal job. That last point feels like it's being misapplied here. Being a rapper, you say a lot of things that you don't mean. It's a mask, a persona. Glorifying gun crime is literally what the public pays you for. They want to hear it. So it seems like someone is a bit confused if they think that banning that content from his songs will help him rehabilitate.

Interestingly this doesn’t see to be a violation of his freedom of speech. The order is simply that he must share it with the government, not that he can’t say it, AFAICT.

But it can affect his supervised release seemingly.

It seems unnecessary to impose this requirement, when the lyrics would eventually be public anyway.

It’s also counterproductive, as it opens the government up to many more avenues of legal attack than simply warning him that publishing violent lyrics may cause an adjustment in his supervised release terms.

I’d love to see the legal justification for applying this prior restraint. Seems like classic overreach, although I doubt the government will see real consequences beyond having their conditions dialed back to where they should have been anyway.

It might even create a Streisand effect

The fourteenth amendment says that rights can be taken away for "rebellion, or other crime". The courts have upheld this, which is why most felons in the USA cannot vote.

So, it's a conditional right, not a fundamental right.

Prior review is widely regarded as a restriction on freedom of speech.

Clear violation of free speech. Where is the ACLU at?

I believe FIRE is on it.

I agree, but this isn't any different than any of the other violations judges have been committing for decades.

Free speech isn't universal, there are numerous well known exclusions [0]. The title of the article, while factually correct, is in my opinion pretty misleading. A more accurate description of events is that the artist is on supervised release from prison and this is one of the terms of his release plan, because it's strongly related to how he ended up in prison to begin with.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

From just the first paragraph, it reads like they aren't trying to approve the release of those songs -- which they wouldn't have the authority to do. They are monitoring his activities as a condition of his parole, which is pretty routine. In this case they're putting forward the argument that he's intent on actively promoting violence with his music, and they are only willing to release him on parole if he curtails that behavior.

I don't know this rapper's music, but this line of reasoning honestly doesn't seem out of the ordinary.

The point there being he might not write something because he knows they will read and dis approve. Its way to control his speech (and this his actions) because is prior actions mirrored his rap lyrics.

If you support stopping this individuals right to speech do you also support doing the same for artists that haven't broken the law or are on parole?

He's on parole from a felony conviction, so the rules don't apply in quite the same way. I think, legally, he's still in the custody of the government, which is exactly why he has a parole officer to supervise him. And it's a well-established precedent that felons can lose constitutional rights - the examples that come to mind are felons' voting and gun rights, and sex offenders' freedom of movement.

As he is on supervised release from a prison sentence, he does not currently have the full set of constitutional rights. The government can place nearly arbitrary restrictions on his life until his sentence is complete. If he disagrees with the restrictions, he is free to instead return to prison to finish his sentence behind bars. Or he can agree with the restrictions for the ~3 years he has left on his sentence and afterwards be free of them.

To be clear, I do not necessarily agree with any of this, or think it's a good idea, but it is all settled law. Despite what it sounds like, this is not a violation of his constitutional rights, any more than preventing him from recording songs in prison is.

The ACLU has changed - these days they’re more about letting their staff perform their personal political activism using their donors’ money. They stopped being principled about free speech years ago. FIRE is who fights for free speech now.

See this article for more: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-disinte...

If he doesn't like it he can go back to jail and not use the supervised prison release program, and release all the music-glorifying-murder he wants.

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