🚀 go-pugleaf

Justin Wells (rjwells@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca) wrote:

: In response to all you American types who think it's such a great
: idea to break Canadian laws from America via. the net:

: What would happen if Canadians, and other non-Americans, started
: posting death threats to president@whitehouse.gov?  Clearly this is in
: violation of *American* law.. probably an outright death threat is in
...rest elided...

There are many parallels to this situation already:

- Iraqis calling for the assassination of the President of the U.S.
- Americans calling for the assassination of Saddam Hussein

(This is actually a direct parallel to the point Justin Wells raised:
go back to the Gulf War period and you'll find dozens of Usenet
threads in which Americans debated the hows and whys of killing Saddam
Hussein. Was this "illegal" on the Net? By whose rules? Apparently
not. Thus, by extension, I would assume that a discussion by Iranian
and Iraqis of how to kill Clinton would result in nothing. A
discussion by Canadians of this would be different, as Canada is in
the pocket of Washington...no offense meant to Canadians, but that's
the truth.)

- discussion of how "we" ought to assassinate the Serbian leader is
commonplace, and so on

Fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view), there's a huge
distinction between idle talk about which leaders ought to be
assassinated and actual action. Most people saying that Saddam Hussein
ought to be killed or that Chief Butholezi is an obstruction and needs
to be taken out by the Green Berets have no plans to actually _do_
anything. Thus, I see no Big Deal with folks around the world adding
to the chatter about who ought to be taken out and shot.

Law authorities in each country may have their own views, but that
shouldn't be our concern.

If Canadians want to exercise their free speech in this way, more
power to them. Just as I'll continue to write about Karla Homolka's
admission of rape-torture and murder of her and Teale's victims.

The Net does not reside in any one country. Not even the U.S.

--Tim May

--
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."