A Leftist writer below argues that it is and he actually has a fairly good case in terms of existing legal precedents. SCOTUS has drawn a rather fine line over what sort of advocacy of violence is permissible and I think they have got it pretty right. They say that advocating violence in general terms is OK but not in specific terms.
So: "The capitalist system must be crushed by armed revolution" is OK -- being essentially an expression of opinion or belief -- but "Meet at my place at 10am tomorrow with hammers and we will go downtown and smash the windows of all the banks" is not OK.
And the sort of Islamic advocacy that our Leftist defends below would seem to fall into the protected "general" category rather than the banned "specific" category.
On the other hand, the terrorists by their own admission are at war with us and speech restrictions during wartime are generally defended in the name of protecting the population. "Loose lips sink ships" was a famous government slogan in WWII. So safety trumps free speech. And I think that could be argued in respect of the cases below
Over the past several years, the Justice Department has increasingly attempted to criminalize what is clearly protected political speech by prosecuting numerous individuals (Muslims, needless to say) for disseminating political views the government dislikes or considers threatening. The latest episode emerged on Friday, when the FBI announced the arrest and indictment of Jubair Ahmad, a 24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, charged with "providing material support" to a designated Terrorist organization (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)).
What is the "material support" he allegedly gave? He produced and uploaded a 5-minute video to YouTube featuring photographs of U.S. abuses in Abu Ghraib, video of armored trucks exploding after being hit by IEDs, prayer messages about "jihad" from LeT's leader, and -- according to the FBI's Affidavit -- "a number of terrorist logos." That, in turn, led the FBI agent who signed the affidavit to assert that "based on [his] training and experience, it is evident that the video . . . is designed as propaganda to develop support for LeT and to recruit jihadists to LeT."
Source
6 comments:
We Americans are so in love with our "freedoms", or the illusions of same, and the freedoms of everyone and everything, that we would even sacrifice our own lives, wouldn't we. It's one of the things that makes us so weak and stupid, and the favorite target of terrorists.
Make no mistake, one 9-11 attack was not enough to cause the American people to wake-up and face reality. It's going to take "several" 9-11's to cause this nation of weak, mindless fools to regain their senses. We have become the weakest, dumbest people on the planet, and the whole world knows it.
The problem with the U.S. Constitution and it's Bill of Rights is that it never occurred to the framers to include the counterweight to rights: Responsibility.
No right exits without a countering responsibility and the framers knew that but never thought that people would come to demand rights while trying to absolve themselves of all responsibility. I believe they thought that no Judge would ever see one and fail to see the other.
Not very bright, were they.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."-Ben Franklin
I'll just leave this here...
Let's see what he is accused of doing:
1. exposing abuse by US troops - this is fundamental and is both clearly protected (by the speech and press aspects of the 1st) and necessary for any democracy,
2. posted news footage basically,
3. more news footage (not entirely sure what prayer messages include but if its not either a) recruitment, or b) a request for material support I cannot see what is offensive about it, and
4. logos...??? WTF?
So, when is the FBI going to prosecute all news programs who carry middle eastern reports? Will it soon be illegal to report on terrorism at all?
@Anon 12:28 PM, Dead on.
And the Founding Fathers simply didn't need to include anything about responsibility because the concept was a given. All you have to do is examine the founding documents, letters, and school textbooks of the time, and you find a society where Judeo-Christian teaching and values were intimately part of every day life.
Political Correctness and our litigious society insist that someone else must always be to blame. Personal responsibility is simply no longer taught because it has been drilled into the parenting generation that it is more important to be your child's friend than to be his or her parent.
Post a Comment