Arizona Passes Sweeping Internet Censorship Bill

[John F Kennedy III]

Arizona Passes Sweeping Internet Censorship Bill

Legislation to make it illegal to use “offensive” language online

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
April 2, 2012

The state legislature of Arizona has passed a bill that vastly broadens telephone harassment laws and applies them to the Internet and other means of electronic communication.

The law, which is being pushed under the guise of an anti-bullying campaign, would mean that anything communicated or published online that was deemed to be “offensive” by the state, including editorials, illustrations, and even satire could be criminally punished.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund breaks down Arizona House Bill 2549:

“The bill is sweepingly broad, and would make it a crime to communicate via electronic means speech that is intended to ‘annoy,’ ‘offend,’ ‘harass’ or ‘terrify,’ as well as certain sexual speech. Because the bill is not limited to one-to-one communications, H.B. 2549 would apply to the Internet as a whole, thus criminalizing all manner of writing, cartoons, and other protected material the state finds offensive or annoying.”

First Amendment activist group Media Coalition has written to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, urging her not to sign the legislation into law.

The letter notes that the terms used in the bill are not defined in the statute or by reference, and thereby the law could be broadly applied to almost any statement.

“H.B. 2549 would make it a crime to use any electronic or digital device to communicate using obscene, lewd or profane language or to suggest a lewd or lascivious act if done with intent to ‘annoy,’ ‘offend,’ ‘harass’ or ‘terrify,’” the letter notes. … ‘Lewd’ and ‘profane’ are not defined in the statute or by reference. ‘Lewd’ is generally understood to mean lusty or sexual in nature and ‘profane’ is generally defined as disrespectful or irreverent about religion or religious practices.”

“H.B. 2549 is not limited to a one to one conversation between two specific people. The communication does not need to be repetitive or even unwanted. There is no requirement that the recipient or subject of the speech actually feel offended, annoyed or scared. Nor does the legislation make clear that the communication must be intended to offend or annoy the reader, the subject or even any specific person.” the letter continues.

In this respect the law could even technically be applied to someone posting a status update on Facebook.

“Speech protected by the First Amendment is often intended to offend, annoy or scare but could be prosecuted under this law.”The Media Coalition letter continues.

“A Danish newspaper posted pictures of Muhammad that were intended to be offensive to make a point about religious tolerance. If a Muslim in Arizona considers the images profane and is offended, the paper could be prosecuted. Some Arizona residents may consider Rush Limbaugh’s recent comments about a Georgetown law student lewd. He could be prosecuted if he intended his comments to be offensive. Similarly, much general content available in the media uses racy or profane language and is intended to offend, annoy or even terrify.”

“Bill Maher’s stand up routines and Jon Stewart’s nightly comedy program, Ann Coulter’s books criticizing liberals and Christopher Hitchens’ expressions of his disdain for religion, Stephen King’s novels or the Halloween films all could be subject to this legislation. Even common taunting about sports between rival fans done online is frequently meant to offend or annoy, and is often done using salty and profane language.”

This type of legislation is far from unprecedented. Last year, former president Bill Clinton proposed a law to censor internet speech. “It would be a legitimate thing to do,” Clinton said in an interview that aired on CNBC. Clinton suggested the government should set-up an agency that monitors all media speech for supposed factual errors.

“That is, it would be like, I don’t know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions, and their mandate would be narrowly confined to identifying relevant factual errors” he said. “And also, they would also have to have citations so that they could be checked in case they made a mistake. Somebody needs to be doing it, and maybe it’s a worthy expenditure of taxpayer money.”

Cass Sunstein, head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has also proposed banning speech on the internet that the government disagrees with. Sunstein proposed the creation of an internet “Fairness Doctrine” similar to the one that was used for years to limit and eliminate free speech on the radio.

This legislation represents yet another move to police and control freedom of expression via the internet. Once again it grants the state and the government the direct right to determine what is and is not “offensive” on a whim. It then allows for the prosecution of individuals and organisations based on such summations – an extremely dangerous precedent to set.


original article here:
http://www.infowars.com/arizona-pass...nsorship-bill/

[bolil]

I've just realized none of this applies.
"London" By William Blake
May his words haunt as long as they have teeth.

"I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:
How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse. "

We already do not approve, all is left and thats for us to choose.
They are still our fellow human beings, only the most complicit should find no compromise, and we should welcome them back into the fold.

[GuerrillaXXI]

I won't post what I think citizens should do to anyone who attempts to enforce such a law, should it happen to pass. Arrests of people for speech that merely annoys or offends someone CANNOT be tolerated. That is pure, naked tyranny.

[Xhin]

Source: http://mediacoalition.org/mediaimage...egislature.pdf (red is text that was removed; blue is text that was added)

Summary of the censorship part of it:

"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."

"Any person who violates this section is guilty of a class 1 misdemeanor" (12 months in jail)

This is an absolute crock of shit. Basically, if you get on the internet and call someone a fag, you get 12 months in jail.

[John F Kennedy III]

Source: http://mediacoalition.org/mediaimage...egislature.pdf (red is text that was removed; blue is text that was added)

Summary of the censorship part of it:

"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."

"Any person who violates this section is guilty of a class 1 misdemeanor" (12 months in jail)

This is an absolute crock of shit. Basically, if you get on the internet and call someone a fag, you get 12 months in jail.

I'm getting a life sentence.

[Lishy]

Okay, sure, they wanna pass a new law... But why? Why is this even necessary? Are they just bored, and need a bill to vote on, no matter how ridiculous?

[speciallyblend]

the more i hear about AZ. The more it sucks.

[osan]

http://www.infowars.com/arizona-pass...nsorship-bill/

This is a prime example of what I have spoken of many times here: the Tenth Amendment and so-called "states' rights" that it ostensibly protects is a load of baloney. The Ninth Amendment is the only valid guarantee between them.


To be honest, part of me hopes Brewer signs it into law and I hope they go ape-wild with it. Then let it be challenged and let it come to the SCOTUS and let them uphold it. I seek this outcome because it appears that it is precisely this sort of a smack across the face of the nation that will be required to illustrate that the "rights" of the state, any state whether federal or otherwise, do not exist and that to accept otherwise it so accept the tyrant's prod and whip. No state may legitimately overcome the right of the individual, yet that is exactly what some here have advocated, albeit perhaps unintentionally.

"States' rights... states' rights... states' rights..." Weeping Jesus, give it a rest. HUMAN RIGHTS are all that count in the sphere of our polity. To leave the door to one's freedom ajar with even the narrowest crack by which the state may enter is to invite your own destruction, nay to demand it in the manner of little Krushchevs pitching wild tantrums whilst banging their shoes on a pulpit.

States' rights, my ass. In at least one previous post I drove home just how this sort of thing is possible, that the individual territories we call the "states" are the other edge of the tyrant's sword we call the "federal government" here in America. Devolve all so-called "rights" away from the federal governors and into the hands of the individual legislators and you will have the same tyranny, only with slightly differing faces as one passes his feet over arbitrarily drawn and imaginary lines. Let the states' rights advocates explain and demonstrate how that is different in principle, and even in practical terms from more centralized tyranny.

If one believes in true and proper human freedom, then one must reject this notion of states' rights where the "state" imposes itself upon the individual in violation of his natural, inborn, and objective rights. The concept of "states' rights" is one of contractual prerogative in the context of the presumed agreement between the individual state and the federal government. Given that there is no such thing as either the federal government or a state government other than that they exist as abstract concepts whose real purposes are to serve as conventions and frameworks by which individual persons comport themselves in mind and act with respect to certain societal functions, contracts such this do not exist and are therefore null and void.

When we relabel "government" to more properly reflect what it really is and is not, which is to say that it is nothing more than a subset of the population assuming powers over the rest and that it holds no material reality of any sort or degree above or beyond this, it becomes clear that 99.99...% of everything that so-called "government" does is invalid, illegitimate, and therefore null, void, and absent of any moral authority. This, of course, does nothing to stop them from acting otherwise, employing force and the threats thereof via men with guns in concert with the ignorant and fearful compliance of the general population.

Do not be fooled. Learn to think more powerfully. An absolute key to this is training yourself to strip away the false trappings and that cloud the essential issues at hand. Without a deep understanding of the fundamentals, true understanding becomes virtually impossible. Even if one manages to stumble upon truth by pure dumb luck it will avail him naught because he will not be able to defend it with overwhelming and unbreakable instruments of reason. His instinctual understanding will thereby be insufficiently complete and his opinions will be destroyed by those whose skills in defending the indefensible are well enough practiced.

There was an old thread I now recall that asked which of the Amendments would one see gone from the Constitution. I recall having responded by writing that I would see everything from the Eleventh on stricken. I was mistaken in that I should have included the Tenth because states have no rights, not even those contractual because a contract cannot be forcibly devolved upon people who have not and do not wish to enter therein. Such force defies the very definition of "contract" and even law forbids perpetuities in contracts, as I recall. How can one be born into a contractual agreement? It is impossible by the very definition of the term.

Therefore, the non-existent states holding no such non-existent contractual rights with the non-existent federal government, are in no legitimate position to be imposing their wills upon anyone, much less imprisoning and murdering them pursuant thereto. This leaves human rights as the only actual and extant rights of which one may truthfully speak and pursuant to which one may act.

In a more practical vein, were we to grant for argument's sake such states' rights, let it be said that states may hold a contractual "right" to decide what color the street signs shall be, but hold not the least authority to trespass upon the territory of divine human freedom and the rights that carry with it. This much should be glaringly obvious.

Let this legislation serve as a harbinger of things yet to come if we persist in defending this utterly demented notion of states' rights where the state is pretty well given (by whom?) carte blanche to its pleasure.

Finally, mercifully I suppose, may we please dispense with this most ill-conceived notion that if we do not like the way in which a given state governs that we may move to another state? The reductio ad absurdum of this is a circumstance where all states have been "used up" by an individual and there are no more to which one may move in search of his land of milk and honey, or at least a minimally tolerable dictatorship. What then? Go live on the seven seas? Shoot yourself? The absurdity of this philosophical position should be overwhelmingly absurd to those of even the most modest intellectual gifts. If human rights are to have any serious meaning, then no human being should be forced to move hither thither by virtue of the tyrant's whim and caprice. I should be able to park myself in any area of the nation and know that my basic rights shall be respected and, failing that, I am well within my rights and vouchsafed to stop with impunity all who trespass against me, up to and including killing them outright.

And finally finally, if you are still having conceptual troubles try this exercise: when considering any event that might be called "political" in nature, e.g. cops arresting some kid for smoking a joint, strip everyone's clothing away. Cops are buck naked such that you could not distinguish them from any other hoodlums with guns assaulting another naked person. Picture in your mind a world without clothing of any sort. Picture the buck kid in an open space, perhaps under trees or in a field. Judge's tits are peering out at you as the prosecutor reads the charges in the buff. The point here is that people are PLAYING ROLES and those roles are utterly and completely arbitrary. The shooting, the beating, the incarceration, the fear mongering, the oppression... all arbitrary bullshit having NOTHING to do with the protection of the sovereign rights of the individual. So, when in trouble, strip the world of its clothing and its symbols in your mind and proceed from there. Chances are that the absurdity of human political society will gain something of a better foothold in your thoughts and your heart.

Defy the tyrant at every possible opportunity. Defy him in the little ways if you cannot manage more, just so long as you continue to defy. It is the mindset that is most important. Keep it alive, for so long as it remains so there may yet be hope for freedom.

This concludes the lecture. Please pardon me for having gone on so.

[azxd]

Start shooting cyberbullies, let them continue to cause suicides to occur, or pass a law with some teeth ?

All in favor of shooting, say AYE !!!

[pcosmar]

Start shooting cyberbullies, let them continue to cause suicides to occur, or pass a law with some teeth ?

All in favor of shooting, say AYE !!!

I hope you are joking and not really the ass you appear to be.