Interesting things

[juliet]

• Sign the Indymedia petition (more details on the FBI seizure of their machines at that link)


• Found this on Strange Machine (marnameow should like this)


• Alien Loves Predator (made kitty_goth & I laugh immoderately)


• MY MONITARY SISTEM IS f1dud14ry & 133t!!!!!! (especially this one)

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

> Sign the Indymedia petition

Not sure I want to...Hmmm. I'll think about it.

> Alien Loves Predator

I love their tag line.... "In New York no one can hear you scream".

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Here's your starter for 10. What did a writer on Indymedia call the "most heinous ethnic cleansing of world history"

a) 'The' Holocaust
b) Some African shambles, let's say Rwanda, or Sudan perhaps?
c) The Armenian Genocide of 1915.
d) The dropping of the atom bombs on Japan
e) The expulsion of the Germans from Polish and Czech borderlands after 1945
f) The AIDS epidemic's disproportionate impact on Africa
g) The US attack on Iraq, 1990 through 2004, including sanctions era

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

No idea. I'll guess h) any of the above, although from what I remember of history e) didn't affect that many people.

Do you have a link to articles on their site supporting denial of the holocaust? I just looked and didn't see any, but I'd never heard of Indymedia until this incident.
I'm inclined to sign this petition in any case, because free speech doesn't mean much if it's restricted only to speech I like. I haven't signed it yet because I know so little about Indymedia.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'm afraid it was (e). Here y'go.

http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/05/802998.shtml

We have lots of restrictions on free speech, most of them for damn good reasons.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Providing a platform for whackjobs is, unfortunately, a good way to get yourself associated with their whackjobbery, of course.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Take a look at the final comment on this page. BTW, John Paul Cupp has a known reputation as an utter crackpot (see kennedybak's journal), and AFAIK has nothing at all to do with Indymedia.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Nothing to do with them apart from the fact that they are publishing his writings and therefore funding Holocaust denial.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Yes, funny that it's suddenly a spoof five months after it's posted, and after people start noticing it, rather than at the time... You'll excuse me for being a bit sceptical of a news organisation that evidently has no fact or quality control filter.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Here's a few more - I believe indymedia sites elsewhere in the world are part of the same dubious network, aren't they?

http://melbimc.nomasters.org/news/2004/06/71087.php
http://www.sdimc.org/en/2004/05/104243.shtml

[peshwengi.livejournal.com]

You seem to think that because you disagree with some things that Indymedia has published, that they should not have the same rights as other people/organisations.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I don't especially think those who recklessly promote denial of the Holocaust should have any rights at all. This isn't about 'disagreeing with something they have published' as though whether or not the Holocaust happened is a debate in the same way 'Do you like Kylie's new single' is a debate.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I don't especially think those who recklessly promote denial of the Holocaust should have any rights at all.

In that case we are doomed to differ. I fundamentally believe that human rights have to extend to all humans, no matter how odious. Part of that stems from the selfish belief that if they don't, people who find my way of life abhorrent can take those rights from me.

I also think the best way to deal with whackjobs is to have their beliefs out in the open for all to ridicule and beware of, but that's a separate issue.

[peshwengi.livejournal.com]

Whew, that guy writes like a 12 year-old. The "inverted commas" hurt my eyes (and my brain).

[the23.livejournal.com]

i can't think of any damn good reasons except maybe where campaign finance is concerned.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

OK, restrictions on free speech which I think are good ones.

1) If I ring someone up and say "Hey, let's go out and rob a bank this afternoon, here's where you can buy some big guns", that's two crimes, and rightly so.

2) If I stand at the top of the high street and say "Hey, blacks are taking over the country, and faggots too, let's kill them all, come on, kill them now!" that's one crime, and one thing that probably is, and ought to be firmed up to be.

3) If I write all over my LJ "the23 is a paeodophile who has sex with little boys", that's a civil offence, and I can be bound over not to say it again, and rightly so.

4) If I ring up the fire brigade and say "hey, the house across the road from me is on fire, come quickly!", and it in fact isn't, that's a crime, and rightly so.

5) If I find out at work that we are providing secure transport for nuclear material which could be used to make a dirty bomb, and there's a flaw in the security, and instead of fixing it, I ring up my local Al Qaeda supporter, that's a crime, and rightly so.

6) If I write a newspaper article saying that the UK should stop being a monarchy, that's a crime, and on reflection probably didn't ought to be.

[the23.livejournal.com]

someone has already tried something remarkably similar to 3) (i'm not kidding) and my world didn't fall apart at the seams so i'll happily rule that one out.

in 1) we are talking about conspiracy which frankly i'm not sure about (the law is certainly too strict, but that isn't to say that all conspiracy is fine) and if the secondary point is something to do with guns I ought to be able to buy any gun from anyone. 5) is similar.

2) is similar but instead of conspiracy and guns we have threats and racism. Voicing racist opinions definitely shouldn't be illegal and if the threat are as vague and ridiculous as in this example they clearly shouldn't be taken seriously either. That's not to say though that calling someone and threatening to kill them shouldn't be illegal, and you could say that impinges on freedom of speech.

4) has some validity although i'm sure it ought to be a civil issue rather than a criminal one (given that the fire brigade should be private).

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

given that the fire brigade should be private

Oh, sorry, my mistake, I didn't realise you were a libertarian, or I wouldn't have entered into a debate at all.

[juliet]

I'm not so much worried about free speech as about the issues of legal framework - stuff being seized without people being told why, that sort of thing.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And being fuckwits shouldn't exempt you from that legal protection.

[puffinry.livejournal.com]

That's true, but also Indymedia aren't fuckwits.
They publish stories that are ignored by the mainstream
media, some of them very important. The opinions of
contributors are often controversial, and occasionally
they're completely insane, but nobody is forcing you
to agree with some random nutcase!

I guess I fundamentally disagree with beingjdc insofar
as I don't think the expression of wrongheaded beliefs
should be criminalised, whatever they concern.

(A proud signatory of the petition.)

Let's see how far this goes, then...

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

You'd repeal laws banning incitement to racial hatred, and criminal offences of conspiracy, or not?

Anyway, I wasn't saying that they should be criminalised, I'm saying that the fact they hate Jews so much they will publish articles claiming that the most wronged people in human history were the Germans in 1945 is a *good indicator* that some of their 'reporters' might have something on these famous hard disks that might help the legitimate authorities in the prevention of terrorism.

Indymedia site going down for a couple of days, versus innocent people dying in terrorist attacks. I'm not finding this a very hard choice, obviously my moral compass is broken.

Re: Let's see how far this goes, then...

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

So where do you place a limit on invasive procedures in order to prevent terrorism? It's ok to take disks without a warrant in a region outside your jurisdiction, if it's to prevent terrorism, because fuckwits have been known to post on the site.
If that's a good indicator, how about raiding homes of people without a warrant because they are related to or work with people suspected of terrorism? Or related to or work with racists?
Racist != terrorist by default, any more than being of any race = terrorist.

"Indymedia site going down for a couple of days, versus innocent people dying in terrorist attacks."
False comparison. If the FBI can take disks from a company outside the US, what's stopping them seizing property or people of anyone in the world who exhibits 'good indicators' of terrorist sympathies. For example, anyone who's been to various countries in the Middle East - which marks you out for special questioning at US immigration. Must be a good indicator.

Re: Let's see how far this goes, then...

[puffinry.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I hope Juliet doesn't mind her journal comments
turning into a spirited debate. (If you do mind, Juliet,
let me know and I'll shut up.)

Ah, the vexed question of how far we should extend
the right to freedom of speech. There are no easy
answers, and I wouldn't pretend otherwise. Personally
I think incitement (to activity of any kind) can usefully be
distinguished from the expression of beliefs; but of
course there's no magic formula for making that distinction
in any particular case and there are murky grey areas.
Similarly, although I do worry about the wide scope
of our conspiracy laws, conspiring to do
something is not the same as saying what you think
about it!

I suspect that our actual differences are rather slight.
If the lives of innocent people (or even guilty
people for that matter) can be saved by seizing IM's
disks - which, though I have doubts, is not impossible -
then seize them by all means! But I think it's incumbent
on the authorities in such a situation to explain as
clearly and publicly as possible why they felt it necessary
to do such a thing.

In other words, there need to be checking mechanisms
to ensure that official powers designed to prevent 'terrorism'
are not misused. Is that unreasonable?

Re: Let's see how far this goes, then...

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

A point on laws banning incitement to racial hatred: They haven't made the BNP go away. They haven't even materially altered the actual beliefs and policies of the BNP; I'm willing to bet that the likes of Griffin are as racist now as they were 20 years ago.
However, laws formulated to obstruct the dissemination of racist policy (a worthy goal) have forced the BNP to adjust the declared character of its policies in such a manner to present the appearance of respectability, and thus of electoral plausibility.
The intelligent listener can still tell that they're racist scum, of course.