Item — HN Reader

> There is also laws around hate speech and so forth.

Not in the US (as far as I understand). See the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_Stat...

> In June 2017, the Supreme Court affirmed in a unanimous decision on Matal v. Tam that the disparagement clause of the Lanham Act violates the First Amendment's free speech clause. The issue was about government prohibiting the registration of trademarks that are "racially disparaging". Justice Samuel Alito writes:

> “Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express "the thought that we hate". United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U. S. 644, 655 (1929) (Holmes, J., dissenting).”

2 comments

There are still limits in the US. You have to promise that you’ve never been a member of a communist party on entry. It wouldn’t be wise to talk about bombs near an airport, or tweet about killing the president when he’s visiting your city. People who say controversial things, write controversial articles, or make controversial films tend to get detained and questioned at the border a lot, get harassed, and get their devices confiscated.

Absolute freedom of speech doesn’t really exist anywhere. The US is probably one of the most liberal countries on earth when it comes to policing it, but it’s not like anyone can say anything.

> People who say controversial things, write controversial articles, or make controversial films tend to get detained and questioned at the border a lot, get harassed, and get their devices confiscated.

Since when? How would that even work? The president orders the NSA to generate a list of disagreeable film makers and journalists and passes it to the TSA and customs? Do you have any evidence for that claim at all?

> It wouldn’t be wise to talk about bombs near an airport, or tweet about killing the president when he’s visiting your city.

Those are not free speech issues. It is not illegal to talk about bombs at an airport or to threaten the president. Just because you shouldn't does mean you're not free - freedom from consequences isn't the same as freedom of action. Restricted speech is exceedingly rare and, to my knowledge, only applies to public safety (falsely yelling fire in a theatre) and inciting violence (rallying everyone to get weapons and go shoot cops)

  How would that even work?

This works through a mechanism called a "terror watch list"

For example, imagine you're a Youtuber and you make a serious, fair film about the Israel-Palestine conflict. You successfully get access to senior people on both sides.

Except Hamas is a terrorist organisation, and to get that access you've visited online forums about the organisation, contacted people in the US associated with it, and flown to a terrorism hotspot to meet with terrorist leaders. That pattern is pretty similar to someone who had been radicalised and wanted to fight abroad!

So you're put on a terror watch list, and at the border you're subject to extra searches, with the random delays that entails.

I feel that a citizen should be able to appeal being on the terror watch list (or any watch list for that matter).

> "Since when? How would that even work? The president orders the NSA to generate a list of disagreeable film makers and journalists and passes it to the TSA and customs? Do you have any evidence for that claim at all?"

"We’ve learned about this fishing expedition through documents we obtained in a Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit filed on Poitras’s behalf to find out why she was constantly being stopped by federal agents during her travels. Border agents detained Poitras at airports over 50 times from 2006 to 2012. The detentions began after she directed and released documentary films about post-9/11 life in Iraq and Yemen that challenged the U.S. government’s narrative about the war on terror."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/11/government-documents-s...

I just read that article in full, and it doesn't claim the same things you claim it does.

Whatever your opinion of the government abusing surveillance power, Poitras wasn't detained because the government didn't like what she was saying, she was detained because the government suspected that she had foreknowledge of an attack that took place in Iraq where a U.S. soldier was killed and kept silent about the attack so that she could film it.

Now that belief was unjustified, ended up being wrong and in my opinion an absolute abuse of power by the government, but it is not a matter related to freedom of speech or censorship.

You are taking that situation and exploiting it to push an unrelated narrative, and I think that's disingenuous.

> It is not illegal to [...] threaten the president

It's generally illegal to threaten anyone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault#United_States

> Just because you shouldn't does mean you're not free - freedom from consequences isn't the same as freedom of action.

That exactly defines why you are not free to do it. - let's reword that sentence and test again -

"Just because you shouldn't murder someone doesnt mean you are not free, freedom from consequences isn't the same as freedom of action."

No-one said anything about the president or the NSA being involved. There are tons of ways this can work. And it actually happens.

Just once you're flagged and are inside The Machine you get detained upon entry whilst they confiscate your devices, try to see where you've been etc. Lookup the wikipedia page of Laura Poitras who for years lived in Berlin due to USA government surveillance. And this started way before her involvement with Snowden as a filmmaker.

> Since when? How would that even work? The president orders the NSA to generate a list of disagreeable film makers and journalists and passes it to the TSA and customs? Do you have any evidence for that claim at all?

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jul/14/citizenfour-dir...

"Citizenfour director Laura Poitras sues US over 'Kafkaesque harassment'

Film-maker whose documentary about Edward Snowden won an Oscar says she has been held for hours at a time by airport officials, told she was on a no-fly list and threatened with handcuffs for taking notes"

Actually yes. Just look at the McCarthy era witch hunts against 'communists' in Hollywood. The FBI and CIA were involved in drawing up the watch lists.

This should not be downvoted, this is a part of shared American history, and there are terror watch lists and no fly lists to this day.

>It is not illegal...to threaten the president

That may not be entirely true [1], although the same video makes the point that US courts have apparently ruled you _can_ incite another to harm them.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5bEwcJ8eCI

My comment was specifically about hate speech. I never argued that absolute freedom of speech was a thing or that anyone can say anything.

>There are still limits in the US

This is true, but your examples are pretty bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite...

Yeah but it hasn’t over turned: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauharnais_v._Illinois

As usual, it depends on how you measure

It’s a hodge podge in the US

This all says nothing about the tacit control given to corps to control the work we undertake, thus controlling conversations we are allowed 40+ hours of week (the bulk of our waking life).

Or how Citizens United is enabling purchasing and pushing speech of a certain kind which we can see modifies people.

“Who controls the past controls the future.”

“The best books tell you what you know already.”

“War is peace.”

American is living those quotes and has been for decades.

I don't get why this was killed.