Freedom of Speech

[kentonio]

I don't know, do you? People disrupt my life everyday as it is. Ever driven anywhere? Christ, people are dumb.

I can't argue with that.

[Wezil]

Following somebody isn't really "picketing" though is it?

I understand your angst but it all comes back to feelings.

[kentonio]

I think you discard 'feelings' a bit too easily. Mental health is as important as physical health to peoples wellbeing, so why should deliberately setting out to hurt someone at their most vulnerable time be acceptable?

[Wezil]

As I said earlier - Hurt feelings are the easiest thing to claim and impossible to disprove. Where would it end?

[kentonio]

As I said, protection for funerals would not be dependant on the opinions being espoused by the protesters, I think its a perfectly fair area to apply a blanket protection to. I would apply the same protections to the funeral of a serial killer or a traitor as I would to the funeral of a soldier or a child.

[notyoueither]

Yup.

[Imran Siddiqui]

1.) Welcome to the New World Order...Political Correctness > Free Speech

You realize most other places than the US don't have such a huge priority of absolute free speech. Not sure this is a "New World Order" at all.

[OzzyKP]

"We" probably have laws of that sort on the books but "we" (in my case Canada) don't understand the concept of free speech as well as the US does.

USA

[Dauphin]

I'm not happy if hate crime is an offence all by itself. It should be an aggravating circumstance. I'm intrigued to read that he was done for racially aggravated incitment to violence. Wonder what he said to incite violence.

Public Order offences

fear or provocation of violence (Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986)
intentional harassment, alarm or distress (Section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986)
harassment, alarm or distress (Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986)

Interesting though, compare it the John Terry case and you wonder why he's got preferential treatment. Oh, right......

[Dauphin]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17576745

The government will be able to monitor the calls, emails, texts and website visits of everyone in the UK under new legislation set to be announced soon.

Scary.

[onodera]

I don't know, I just think there needs to be protections at some point. If someone was following a bereaved parent around laughing at their loss, then surely it would be necessary at some point to prevent that as it would be clearly harrassement? I just don't see a difference between that and this.

Would it really cause such a massive harm to freedom of speech to limit it in close proximity to a funeral? There are already plenty of specific instances where freedom of speech is already curtailed, so why not this one?

The best solution would be to protect the freedom of beating people that harrass you up.

[ColdWizard]

Arizona

Arizona marches to the beat of its own drummer. But if that drummer gets upset and starts hollering on the Internet, he might get tossed in the clink.

After spending years targeting illegal aliens, the Grand Canyon State is turning its sights on obnoxious Internet users (commonly called 'trolls'). A new update to the state's telecommunications harassment bill could make the practice of harassing people online illegal.

Arizona House Bill 2549 has already passed both of the state's legislative bodies and is currently sitting on the desk of Governor Jan Brewer. While there's a lot in there that doesn't concern trolling, here's the line that has people worried:

It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use ANY ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL DEVICE and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.

Violators could be charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor and face up to 6 months in jail. If electronic devices are used to stalk someone, the charges then become a Class 3 felony, with penalties ranging from a minimum sentence of two and a half years in jail for non-dangerous offenders with no prior record to 25 years.

At the heart of the bill is an anti-bullying agenda. Cyber-bullying has been on the rise in recent years and has been in the news lately. A 2010 report in The New York Times found that one of out five middle-school students said they had been victims of cyberbullying.

Despite its good intentions, the Arizona law is already being called "overly broad" by critics. By using vague terms like "annoy" and "offend," it could easily encompass Internet forums or even comments like the ones found at the end of this story.

Free speech groups say they don't believe the law would ever stand up to court scrutiny if Gov. Brewer does, in fact, sign it. And many have pointed out the flaws in the bill to the governor herself.

"Government may criminalize speech that rises to the level of harassment and many states have laws that do so, but this legislation takes a law meant to address irritating phone calls and applies it to communication on web sites, blogs, listserves and other Internet communication," Media Coalition wrote in a letter last week.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Freedom of speech does not exist until you can stand up proudly a criminal court, look the judge in the eye and call him a ****- with no fear of repercussions such as, for example, being held in contempt of court.

[kentonio]

Err doesn't that bill literally make it illegal in Arizona to tell someone on the internet to go **** themselves?

[Aeson]

It's very clear that the legislature of Arizona meant to annoy me with that bill, are threatening me with jail, and colluded with Yahoo and ColdWizard to do so on the internet. They should all be jailed (and of course strip searched... with everything that politicians pull out of there ass it's a necessary precaution)! Land of the FREE!