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DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

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Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#111

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mrbabbage wrote: post #106
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the law supposed to be blind, or do political groups have a "get out of jail free" card? Yes, core political speech is Constitutionally protected [1]. You can charge people being violent while protecting their rights to say stupid things. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite... Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

Free speech protection in American law is with its limits. Speech itself isn't protected if it is directed to incite or produce imminent lawless action. See Brandenburg v. Ohio.

> Speech itself isn't protected if it is directed to incite or produce imminent lawless action. See Brandenburg v. Ohio

Correct, but for that argument to hold within the context of this case (EDIT: warrant) we would need the government to show that most people who visited this site did so with the intent to incite imminent lawless action. (Note, too, that Brandenburg v. Ohio specifically struck down a law banning the mere advocacy of violence.)

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#112

Post by openasocket »

blfr wrote: post #51
mulmen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexual orientation is (or at least should be) protected so it cannot be used as the basis for discrimination, neither can race or religion. Being an inflammatory racist is not (and should not be) protected.

This a completely arbitrary exemption. Not in the US Constitution either.

It's not in the Constitution, but it is in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At least it is for discrimination against race and religion. Sexual orientation has some coverage, but the refusing to serve gays scenario is not currently accepted to be covered by the Civil Rights Act.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#113

Post by gozur88 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #89
gozur88 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not overreach if the political organization is behaving like a criminal organization. Much of the rioting and property damage at the inauguration was clearly planned, so the DOJ is just doing its job here.

An across-the-aisle analog would be a Democrat President demanding detailed visitation logs to Breitbart in response to the Charlottesville riots. You can prosecute violent crime without lazily trampling over the First and Fourth Amendments.

Except that there's no indication Breitbart had any involvement in Charlottesville (and anyway the rioting was mostly Antifa). Here we have tweets from people plugging their organizations and promising disorder.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#114

Post by Boothroid »

deftnerd wrote: post #63
ceejayoz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No Nazis" is a perfectly fine side to draw the line on, in my book.

I'm certainly not a fan of nazis or "white power" groups, but this can easily turn into the kind of behavior that turns into hunts for communists or socialists. Most of the HN crowd, including myself, are big fans of a lot of programs that are easily seen as socialist such as universal healthcare or universal income. I know the "slippery slope" trope seems tired at times, but this might be a case where it's warranted…

Exactly. I don't share their beliefs but I think we are all capable of looking at what they say and making up our own minds. I trust the good judgement of the general public a hell of a lot more than I trust censorship, and censoring them just plays into their narrative of persecution. The ends do not justify the means.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#115

Post by pdx »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #111
mrbabbage wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech protection in American law is with its limits. Speech itself isn't protected if it is directed to incite or produce imminent lawless action. See Brandenburg v. Ohio.

> Speech itself isn't protected if it is directed to incite or produce imminent lawless action. See Brandenburg v. Ohio Correct, but for that argument to hold within the context of this case (EDIT: warrant) we would need the government to show that most people who visited this site did so with the intent to incite imminent lawless action. (Note, too, that Brandenburg v. Ohio specifically struck down a law banning the…

   > Correct, but for that argument to hold within the 
   > context of this case we would need the government to 
   > show that most people who visited this site did so with 
   > the intent to incite imminent lawless action.
Of course that's not true. For the government to prosecute all of those visitors requires additional proof, to be sure. However, for the government to gather evidence on a subset of those visitors who have already been arrested and are being charged with politically inspired violence, is perfectly appropriate.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#116

Post by throwawayjava »

blfr wrote: post #51
mulmen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexual orientation is (or at least should be) protected so it cannot be used as the basis for discrimination, neither can race or religion. Being an inflammatory racist is not (and should not be) protected.

This a completely arbitrary exemption. Not in the US Constitution either.

> This a completely arbitrary exemption.

Laws -- including constitutions -- are in some sense arbitrary.

But actually the distinction between political belief and sexual orientation makes a ton of sense and is not arbitrary.

Avoiding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is super easy and clear-cut.

But it's very hard for me to imagine a world where political belief is a protected class. The category is just way too broad and encompasses basically every legitimate reason you might want to fire someone or turn down a customer.

Every restriction I can think of (e.g., party affiliation) is weak to the point of basically being pointless ("I fired/refused to serve you because you support abortion and because you support theft of my money via taxation, not because you're a democrat").

So although I really do believe that 99.9% of people should not be fired for political beliefs (as long as those beliefs don't interfere with the work place), and that 99.9% of financial transactions should proceed regardless of political beliefs, I still don't think it's workable to make political belief -- writ large -- a protected class.

If we're going to outlaw firing people for political opinions, it might be much easier to just end at-will employment all-together. And if we're going to outlaw discriminating against customers on the basis of political belief, we might as well just force businesses to accept every non-fraudulent client. I don't really think anything less than this -- but which still achieves "no discrimination based on political belief" -- is practically implementable.

So, in my mind, that's the major non-arbitrary distinction. Discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation has a clear bright line. Political discrimination not so much.

And all of the bright line problems aside, there actually is a pretty big non-arbitrary distinction between being gay and being a Nazi. So we can talk about whether that distinction should be codified in non-discrimination law. Or even, in the case of Germany, in criminal law. But the distinction is pretty fucking non-arbitrary...

> Not in the US Constitution either.

Which is why it's legal for bakeries and others to discriminate against LGBT customers in over half of the 50 states. What's your point?

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#117

Post by generic_user »

The lesson to take away from this regardless of your political leanings is that whatever power you give the state to go after a group you may disagree with will always, eventually be used against you.

It makes no difference if the target groups are alleged terrorists, alt-right, alt-left or or any other group. When you expand the power of the state that diminishes the privacy rights of the citizen that law applies to you, your family and your friends also.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#118

Post by openasocket »

EStudley wrote: post #37
ubertaco wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transplanted example of this same line of reasoning: JimBob's Cake Bakery also has a constitutional right not to do business with same-sex couples (or really, anyone else they disagree with). You are protected from the government restricting your speech, no one else has any obligation to put up with you.

That's incorrect. Sexual orientation is a federally protected class. Belief in white supremacy is not.

Sexual Orientation, unfortunately, does not have explicit federal protections from all forms of discrimination. Though there are state-level protections, and there are a couple of cases that will be heard at the Supreme Court this year that claim otherwise (we'll see if those pan out).

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#119

Post by Boothroid »

0x00000000 wrote: post #68
mulmen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexual orientation is (or at least should be) protected so it cannot be used as the basis for discrimination, neither can race or religion. Being an inflammatory racist is not (and should not be) protected.

Right, it should be. So GoDaddy et al would get more than just bad press if they suddenly decided to unlist gay rights websites. Which brings me to my point. Protected classes are arbitrary and discriminatory in themselves. Did you know that it is not possible to discriminate against someone under 40 based on their age? Only people over 40 are a protected class for age discrimination. Why should the protections of th…

It's interesting - it's perfectly fine legally to discriminate against someone for being ugly. Isn't this terrible? Why is it worse to discriminate on the basis of race or sex?

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#120

Post by Boothroid »

angerbot wrote: post #11
mankash666 wrote: post #4

This is the proper thing to do for DreamHost. On an un-related matter, domain registrars (Google, Go-Daddy) shouldn't be the ones censoring free speech of the alt-right by revoking Daily Stormer's registration. However vile and despicable the views expressed on the site, they have a constitutional right to it. If they indulge in illegal activities, alerting law enforcement is the recommended course of action, just li…

Google and Go-Daddy also have a constitutional right not to associate or do business with the alt-right (or really, anyone else they disagree with). You are protected from the government restricting your speech, no one else has any obligation to put up with you.

I guess we'll see alt-left sites being taken down also then?
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