🚀 go-pugleaf

clays@panix.com (Clay Shirky) writes:

> In <Co4vBv.IEs@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> rjwells@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.
>
> >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
> >violation of Canadian law.. but there's no doubt some middle ground
> >threat which is fine under Canadian law (what's a president?) but
> >totally illegal in the U.S.A.?
>
> You could do this, of course, but it is hardly a parallel case. You
> would be breaking US law without helping keep information free form
> the dictates of national sovereignty or helping any percentage of the
> US populous aquire information they want but are denied by their
> government.
>
> If you want a parallel case, make sure to break our infomation bans
> when they arise.

   You're suggesting that the case isn't parallel because the justification
for breaking the ban is noble.

   The masters of the Spanish Inquisition thought that their cause was noble.

   The lunatic who sprayed gunfire in a mosque in Hebron a couple of months
back thought that his cause was noble.

   Justice Kovacs' stated justifications for the ban are noble: a fair trial
for a man who is accused of very serious crimes.

   I'm not objecting to you disapproving of the ban (I do also), I'm objecting
to you *judging* that threatening the President is not worthy of comparison
with revealing banned details of the Homolka trial.  The issue is the right to
say what you want, regardless of whether someone else agrees that you should
have said it.

Geoffrey Welsh geoff@zswamp.uucp, [xenitec.on.ca|m2xenix.psg.com]!zswamp!geoff
"NT: Neverending Tedium" - Matthew Desmond