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Comment by otterley | Hacker News Reader

I have no doubt that Russia and China are not "okay" with it. It's also irrelevant: they are not fully functioning democracies (and China isn't a democracy at all). I would fully expect an authoritarian regime to want to control the narrative and restrict freedom of speech--and, in fact, both do. I don't think we want this country to become like those; we shouldn't hold them up as models.

Despite the fact that they don't approve of our speaking to their people, we do it anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America

The U.S. is a democracy. We hold freedom of speech as sacrosanct. We let people make up their own minds as to how to evaluate competing viewpoints. I see no reason why the viewpoints of other countries--even those very different from ours--shouldn't be considered.

I have no problem with labeling speech's origin so that people can take it into account, but that's not the same as censoring it.

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Foreign powers and corporations are not protected entities in the US constitution, and historically have no recognized free speech rights.

Even ‘Citizens United’ is about otherwise eligible citizens being able to organize under an umbrella (and act under that umbrella) - not that the umbrella itself fundamentally has rights independent of the people under it. Though it has resulted in widespread abuse due to the ability to hide who is actually under the umbrella.

Foreign nationals making statements outside the US towards US citizens have historically no protection either - it’s why the NSA and CIA are in theory not chartered for domestic action, but have nearly carte Blanche outside the US. The CIA and US military has rather publicly assassinated folks off US soil for statements and actions that would be protected inside the US.

In fact, prior Supreme Court precedent heavily uses phrases like ‘the constitution is not a death pact’, and ‘yelling fire in a crowded theatre is not protected speech’.

Historically, foreign nationals have even been ejected/deported from the US for what would have been perfectly normal protected speech for US citizens, and it’s very common for visas and other entry documents to be denied based on what would be protected speech for US citizens.

Unregistered foreign agents tend to be locked up, deported, or hung.

Name one person ever hung for being an unregistered foreign agent in the US.

Here’s two [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg]. Electric chair though.

The Rosenbergs were executed for espionage under the Espionage Act 1917, not for acting as unregistered foreign agents under FARA. They were exfiltrating classified nuclear secrets. This is an entirely different thing.

Unregistered foreign agents tend to receive a fine, if they are charged at all. Before the past decade even this was very rare, now maybe there is one per year. The maximum punishment is like 5 years in jail, and no one has ever been hung for this. The directive to conflate these only traces to Pam Bondi.

Most of your post is like this in that you speak authoritatively but fumble premises. For instance you clearly don't understand free speech law. Yelling fire in a crowded theatre IS protected speech. The Schenck case your quote comes from was overturned in Brandenberg 60 years ago and is considered a national judicial embarrassment.

They were violating the FARA act, and were caught committing espionage for the folks they were foreign agents for. They charged them for the higher crime. That doesn’t contradict what I said at all.

Don’t forget the 5 Cubans thrown in jail under FARÁ, the LA major just indicted under it, or the numerous other successful prosecutions.

I gave a range of common punishments, don’t act like I’m not being entirely accurate here.

Hell, one of the recent prosecutions was a multimillion dollar bribery scandal from foreign nationals with the current admin - that only avoided jail time because of one of the more blatant pardons by the exact same admin.

That some were bad is par for the course. Most weren’t, and haven’t been.

I'm aware of what the law is, but this isn't really responsive to my argument. I'm arguing from principles, not existing law.

Why shouldn't the same principles we apply to our own people apply to foreign people? Isn't freedom of speech a universal principle? If not, what makes outsiders' speech substantively different from ours that we should censor it?

Moreover, people in the U.S. are free to say the exact same things that foreigners might say. Why does it matter that it's coming from outside the country as opposed to inside it?

> Supreme Court precedent heavily uses phrases like ‘the constitution is not a death pact’

1/It was "suicide pact." 2/That was dicta from Justice Jackson in a dissent in Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949), not law.

> and ‘yelling fire in a crowded theatre is not protected speech’.

That was from an early free speech case in 1919 (Schenck v. U.S.) when speech restrictions were more broadly upheld--and it was not the question in the case (it was just an example). Freedom of speech has been significantly liberalized since then. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) overruled Schenck: "[T]he constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

> Unregistered foreign agents tend to be locked up, deported, or hung.

It sounds to me like you're just an unapologetic xenophobe.

I want to apologize for my last comment. I misread "tend to" as "need to."

Thanks for recognizing that.

Does my comment re: anti-self defense make sense now? I think you summarized the existing law pretty well - and what it grew out of.

If people feel threatened/are being targeted with a legitimate threat, they’ll react - or die. Regardless of rules or agreements.

That’s happened in the past, and is starting to happen again.

Not really, because I’m not sure what the existential threat to our nation is. They’re just words, after all.

Besides, the Constitution is designed to sustain our nation not just against speech, but even if our most sacred buildings are destroyed and our president is killed. That’s the beauty of it. It’s a clever design by the most brilliant minds of our time. Thus, I’ve never understood some people’s obsession with security. Such people are focused on current office holders and icons they deem important, not the health of the system, and not the ideals and principles enshrined by it. Paranoia and vengeance does not befit us.

Also, it pains me to have to remind self-identified Christians—the ones typically most obsessed with national security—that to “turn the other cheek” is one of the fundamental pillars of the faith, straight out of Jesus’ mouth. (Matthew 5:38–39)

Does propaganda work? Evidence says yes.

Very little is more existential to even the idea of a nation than the national identity, the in-group, out-group, etc. and that is what it is used for.

And if you think Hollywood didn’t turn that out in spades, I dare you to watch Top Gun and tell me that movie is about people flying planes, hah.

If so, seems remarkably stupid to allow foreign powers to use proven effective techniques against you unchecked, doesn’t it?

Right up there with being convinced that if someone punches you in the face, you can’t punch them right back - or worse - and/or throw them in jail for it.

That last comment is pretty hilarious in the context of geopolitics. Or criminal law.

The court may make you swear on a Bible, but what would you think about a judge telling an assault victim that they going to not give the assailant a day in jail and they should just turn the other cheek?

That judge isn’t going to be on that bench very long, that’s for sure!

This is something well understood in the Bible too - Romans 13:1-13:7 sums it up pretty well.

> Does propaganda work? Evidence says yes.

What is the practical difference between propaganda from the inside and that from the outside? Internal propaganda is often much more dangerous than external propaganda because it has a patina of legitimacy. President Trump, as you may recall, gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential Medal of Freedom for, among other things, legitimizing the racism and sexism and a fairy-tale version of America that eventually set the stage for his election.

I'd contend we should worry a lot less about what others are saying than what we are saying to each other. Yet it still doesn't mean we should censor speech.

> Very little is more existential to even the idea of a nation than the national identity, the in-group, out-group, etc. and that is what it is used for.

Who is the in-group? Who is the out-group? Who shouldn't be in? Are you sure they're not in already? Should a nation evolve or be the same as when they were founded? What evolution is ok? What's not ok?

All I can say is you seem profoundly confused about the situation if you think this reply is remotely relevant.

I think that the inability to answer challenging questions is a stronger indication of who lacks the understanding.

My experience is that when people don't want to answer them, it's because they either 1/don't actually know the answers, or 2/are afraid of what their honest answers will reveal about them.

I already answered them. You just refuse to understand the circumstances. Why waste my time?

Literally everything you seem to be arguing about has already happened, even on the platform you are arguing on, but you seem oblivious to it.

It’s like arguing with a child about tax policy or something while they insist taxes are bad. Sure, but they are clearly not going to be able to do anything about it, and it isn’t even useful for anyone, so why waste the time?

You were not responsive to any of the questions I asked. It’s disingenuous for you to claim otherwise. You appear to me to believe your claims are self-evident, as opposed to principled and well grounded in logic and evidence.

If you’d like to have a serious intellectual debate, I welcome it.

oh my. sure buddy.

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