proud to speak your mind? Think again...

[lagilman]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/anniesj/331112.html


Mind you, I understand the need for awareness. Most of the Secret Service guys I've met have been pretty cool (even the ones I dunked with a bucket of water). There are a lot of crazies out there, and they fixate on public figures, and the SecSer and the Feds need to be aware and on top of things. But these was...extreme. And for a LJer to have turned the poster in -- the mind boggles. Satire, people. It is still protected. Mostly.


And don't think that locking your posts can protect you -- nope. It's a matter of a simple subpoena under the Patriot Act for them to get access to that (unless LJ should happen to have a massive melttdown and memory wipe just before the Feds busted down the door, which, y'know, these popular services, it can happen)

Personally, while only a portion of what goes into this journal is public access, I never lock my political rants. So I'll say right here that I'm scary only in the sense that I have a brain and use it to think. If that's something the Feds need to be investigating, well then, bring it on. You know where to find me.

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm still making up my mind about that post.

Two givens - yes, it is heinous for an LJ user to have turned another one in over what appears to be blowing off steam. Yes, it is frightening and scary for the SS to show up on your doorstep.

On the other hand, and this comes from someone who has been investigated multiple times simply because of the city I live in, the friends I have, and the job I do, I wonder... just what the frick did she SAY? And what did the person who turned her in say? Because the government as a whole, even now and even at the height of election jitters, does have a sense of perspective. Between the ratting out and the men in black knocking on her door, more than one person read that entry, and they must have seen something in the wording that made them say "this requires investigation" rather than snorting and dumping it. Hundreds of us are blowing steam on our LJs during this contentious election, but we're not getting knocks on our doors.

Since by her own admission the Secret Service went away happily and the post has gone down, I think this is going to blow over happily. And if it's any consolation to the original poster, I'm betting a buck that there's a file on the whistleblower too - and that both files will promptly be covered in dust and ignored.

Wanna hear the bucket of water story someday!

[terri-osborne.livejournal.com]

Agreed. 100%

Honestly, I think the fact that I haven't been visited yet may prove the NYPL isn't submitting to the Patriot Act. Considering that I've been researching things like espionage, POW camps, the IRA, military weaponry and the Troubles, I'd think there would be a couple of red flags for the FBI or the CIA in there somewhere.

And, for the record, should Big Brother be watching, I'm scary for exactly the same reason.

[lagilman]

From what I can gather, she did an entire "may God do thus and thus unto him" in rather graphic but satirical detail within the context of a rant. In less Government-heavy times, odds are someone in the SecSer offices would have scanned the post and round-filed the complaint.


What astounds me is the entire "informer" mentality. Y'know, I see an abandoned bag, I'll report it. I see someone venting in their own personal space, I either respond or move on.

And I'll tell the bucket o' water story another time, when I have more energy. It's worth retelling.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

In less Government-heavy times, odds are someone in the SecSer offices would have scanned the post and round-filed the complaint.

Not entirely sure that it's BushCo's fault here - for example, the Columbine shooters also vented on the web pre-shooting.

Agree with you on the informer bit, wholeheartedly. This isn't turning in someone because they're doing wrong, a la Abu Garib, this seems to be turning in someone for the sake of being nasty to them. And in that it scared the original poster into taking the post down and locking it, it has been effective.

You're wetting my appetite for the bucket of water story!

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

It was essentially a riff on how Dubya talks to Jesus and thinks Jesus talks to him, so Annie decided to talk to Jesus and asked him to please kill George Bush. And for his body preferably to be found on top of a male hooker or something. She wasn't even saying *she* wanted to do anything to him, she was sarcastically asking Jesus to.

I have no doubts the SS were just doing their job, and I'm glad they did. The real lesson here is that there are plenty of assholes out there reading your journal whether you know it or not.

[kalligraphy.livejournal.com]

On one side of things, this can easily happen. Making a threat against the President, is a felony. It doesn't matter if you don't mean it, or that you were just blowing off steam, whatever, if you make a statement that could be construed as a threat against the President, you can be charged and prosecuted for it. Simple, straight forward. There has been more than one occasion when I have thought about saying something on LJ and stopped myself because I realized that it could be misconstrued. Be careful what you say or how you say it in a public setting.

Now that being said, I recently saw an article written by a long term republican. The author of the article went on to detail why he was quiting the republican party and voting democrat this year. The reason was that several people at a Bush rally were wearing T-Shirts that said, "Support Civil Liberties". When the Bush brown shirts saw the shirts, they gathered up the offending Civil Libertarians and tossed them out of the rally. The current administration does not believe in Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Speech or anything else that it finds threatening to it's ability to remain in power and push it's agenda. Just one more reason to be fearful of where this country is going.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

The informer mentality is, indeed, ass. But I suspect the post in question would probably have gotten you a knock on the door under the last administration, too.

It's google cached, FWIW. Also--

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/baskil/anniesj-screencap.jpg

Yeah, what Suri said.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

I've not read all 12 pages of comments over there, but someone who'd read the original thread asked 'wasn't this the post where you said [thus-and-such] in so many words?'
http://www.livejournal.com/users/anniesj/331112.html?thread=9202024#t9202024


I agree with fgwriter's comment on 'the informer bit'.
Yet it strikes me that, 1) in a time of war and 2) with a government known for being Orwellian in their approach to civil liberties, writing out threats toward high government officials -- or anyone else -- even in jest, is unwise. It's akin to making joky references to hijacking while waiting to board an airplane. Simply asking for trouble.

aitchellsee channels her inner Treebeard in a rant about orc-talk in public discourse">

Also, it's like the issue of 'coarsening of public discourse' that was a factor in that whole hoo-hah over Daniel Okrent at the NYT 'outing' in his column the name and town of the guy who'd e-mailed Adam Nagourney that he 'hoped Nagourney's kid got his head blown off in a Republican war'. I'm thinking of the discussion of all that in Kathryn Cramer's blog,
http://www.kathryncramer.com/m2/newarchives/2004/10/come_on_people.html
and her position (as I understand it) that people too often seem to feel free to express themselves in terms that really are, for want of a better word, vile. Unnecessarily vile.

Orc-ish thoughts in orc-ish words, you might say (hoom hommm...burrarrum etc)

Understand me: I AM a child of the Sixties, and I'm OK with using the 11 nasty FCC-banned words in some profusion in casual conversation, for emphasis or earthy humor. And I'm convinced that true obscenity and indecency lie in the deeds and words of those whose policies poison the common air, earth and water, exploit the powerless, kill the innocent, and lay waste the world for material gain or partisan power. Not in the words of those who need strong language to approach the depth of their disgust/anger with the despoilers. (I loved some of the raunchier protest signs I saw in this August's big Protest March in NYC, or some of the stuff on Fafblog). But.

But I noticed, back in '95 when I finally got on the Internet, middleaged innocent that I was, that it had become more common "in the heat of discussion", for people to spew forth violent, degrading,derogatory, venomous language, real verbal assault, towards strangers, people they perceived to be on the other side.
Well, Usenet trolls, of course, but also folks with whose positions I was in sympathy; decent human beings, but who felt free to e-mail me that, e.g., if I took a moderate stance on a governance issue threatening to destroy a particular organization, I was simply bending over to be sodomized (in graphic detail) by the particular leader whose alleged misdeeds had helped to spark the scandal du jour.

And it felt like hate speech to me. And I don't think the proliferation of hate speech can be used to improve the world, even if its use sometimes represents the lancing of a boil and the necessary release of pressure. Because that may get the pus out of a particular wound, but it can set it free to infect anyone it contacts. And that can't be healthy, can it? (Argh! Mix those metaphors!)

Oy, sorry to hijack your LJ off on this tangent -- this is an issue about which I've been conflicted for 30 years, sometimes coming down more on the Free Speech side and sometimes on the "but it poisons the conversation" side. And it's made me tongue-tied to the point that I'm more likely to lurk than to try to wrestle my thoughts into a succinct format. But I'm trying to be less silent this year. So whoops! Feel free to delete, or ask me to take it to my own LJ or something.

And I do truely believe that, in the Secret-Service-At-The-Door situation that sparked all this, the original poster did handle the issue responsibly once it blew up -- warning the community of the possible consequences of careless talk. I just feel there's a trend today to believe "oh it was just words I wasn't serious" and ignore the fact that, er, Words Really Do Have Greater Power Than One Might Imagine.

But hey, no one knows THAT better than Writers!

Harriet/HLC

Re: Yeah, what Suri said.

[lagilman]

hey, this is The Place for Rants, pretty much.

And the fact that you take things on a case by case basis is a major point in your favor, rather than coating everything Red or Blue, as it were.

(colors I chose just to avoid Black or White, but hey, apropos, no?)

Re: Yeah, what Suri said.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

Oh! hello there!

I was trying to squeeze a couple more LJ-cuts into my screed, but I haven't mastered the technique. Or accidentally deleted something while cutting down from 5800+ characters to the 4300 char max. :-)

HLC
who was also distracted in mid-rant by the
arrival of a box containing Turn The Other Chick ;-)

Re: Yeah, what Suri said.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

Er, the fellow who verbally assaulted me in '95 felt like hate-speech to me, was what I meant to write. Not that Annie's post felt that way. Though, now that I see the link matociquala posted...hmmmm. But no, I was not using the term hate-speech for her.

Harriet
(wishing to clarify)

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Those of us who have been cursed with a few extra decades can remember similar cases coming around on a regular basis. Every few years, somebody has a few drinks or smokes and mutters (types) something that can be taken as a threat against a president. The Secret Service is _never_ amused. Doesn't have anything to do with Shrub, or Bush Senior, or whoever.

Plenty of things this administration _has_ buggered up. No need to reinvent old ones to blame on them.

[lagilman]

It's not so much the Pres as the atmosphere surrounding the Pres that has me worried, in this case. If the GOP hadn't been hauling off otherwise peacefully attending people at rallys because they were wearing non-party-line t-shirts or buttons, this might not have triggered such a reaction.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Yeah, now _that's_ something to get wound up about. But I do remember past cases where the Secret Service came down heavy on people with big mouths. Some were prosecuted and convicted.

Also, are you surprised that this president doesn't want to hear dissent? He has put on the whole armor of the Lord, and that includes earmuffs -- always has....

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Well said.

I don't do a lot of ranting on LJ--more likely to post interesting links. Always public for the politics--I want people to read and consider. The current administration might not care for the fact that I noticed what they were doing and mentioned it to friends, but I would think they'd be a lot more worried about the national blog or newspaper I linked to, rather than my little journal.

However--after Columbine, people really should use some common sense about written jokes referring to the death of anyone. It was a waste of the Secret Service's time, but if they hadn't investigated and something happened? Whoa--

In the meantime, if y'all haven't voted, get your fannies to the polls! Tuesday is gonna be a NUT HOUSE. I'm volunteering to drive people to the polls, but I already stashed my vote in the dubious protection of the E-slate daily back-up....

[tina-jens.livejournal.com]

It was clearly satire. And satire is a protected form of speech.... not, as others above have noted, that this administration has shown any belief in or respect for first amendment rights or civil liberties.

But I'm most offended by the snitch. I did not read through the 68 pages of comments posted - but what I want to know is this:

Did the person who turned her in have enough courage of convictions to stand up and say she was the one who did it?

What of the constitutional right to face our accusers?

Not to mention a certain moral responsibility for possibly f**king up this person's life.

I know a no-fly ban for me would jeopardize not only my ability to do business and make a living, it would make it nearly impossible for me to see many of my relatives ever again.

I'm afraid there are more than a few "informers" running around turning folks in as just one more way to express their political affiliation. It's not unlike the Bush campaign making folks sign LOYALTY oaths just to listen to one of his live speeches.

They're playing fast and loose with other people's lives not because they think there's a real threat, but because they don't like the other person's political beliefs. Being offended is not just cause for making a report to the Secret Security or FBI.