Subpoenas, Comments, and Gag Orders.

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Subpoenas, Comments, and Gag Orders.

Postby sunglasses » Thu Jun 25, 2015 5:15 pm

Why is this in "From the Web?" Because it is literally from the web. Except for the subpoena and gag order. Those were quite IRL.

So what the heck happened? The full story is available at Reason.com and Popehat. Now, despite my not being a Libertarian by any means, I still read Reason.com sometimes. I disagree with them sometimes and sometimes I like what they say. Just depends. But, I really disagree with what happened. To sum it all up:

`Reason.com posts a blog post about the life sentence given to Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht by judge Katherine Forrest. (Holy shit a life sentence is a bit much, imo).
`Commentors on Reason.com did their commenting thing and make comments about the judge. Some of the comments stated that the judge should "burn in hell," "be taken out back and shot," etc.
`The U.S. attorney for the Southern New York district court thought the comments represented a real threat and subpoened Reason.com for any and all identifying information they had on said commenters- I.P. info, etc.
`Reason was suggested to not tell anyone about the subpoena. They did warn the commenters that were being subpoenaed.
`Reason was then given a gag order

Eventually they did get the subpoena and gag order dismissed but this seems a little heavy handed.
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Re: Subpoenas, Comments, and Gag Orders.

Postby cmsellers » Thu Jun 25, 2015 5:41 pm

Yeah, I saw this on Popehat the other day.

Like I said on some article about some Southern state violating the Establishment Slause: This sort of thing doesn't shock, appall, or even surpise me any more. And that's probably more more worrying than the behavior itself.
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Re: Subpoenas, Comments, and Gag Orders.

Postby Tesseracts » Thu Jun 25, 2015 6:00 pm

I would say the life sentence is a bit much if all he did was start a drug empire. Unfortunately, he also attempted to hire an assassin. I'm somewhat involved in the Bitcoin world, and the sympathy so many of them are showing for this man is really annoying.
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Re: Subpoenas, Comments, and Gag Orders.

Postby PSTN » Thu Jun 25, 2015 6:19 pm

I read about this on Ars a couple days ago. My opinion is that the comments made on Reason were juuust on the line between standard internet troll shit-headery and something that would warrant action being taken. At the time I read the article on Reason I didn't see any comments that displayed any intent or that would be reasonably worrisome on their own (nobody posted her address, or phone number, or anything like that). So I think the move to prosecute these people is, at best, over-zealous.

The gag order is concerning though. There's no reason to do this in secrecy, and any trend towards reducing the transparency of government agencies (especially the judiciary) should be met with extreme skepticism. It's why I'm against things like the FISA courts.
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Re: Subpoenas, Comments, and Gag Orders.

Postby sunglasses » Thu Jun 25, 2015 8:06 pm

Tesseracts wrote:I would say the life sentence is a bit much if all he did was start a drug empire. Unfortunately, he also attempted to hire an assassin. I'm somewhat involved in the Bitcoin world, and the sympathy so many of them are showing for this man is really annoying.


That I did not know.

I mean, I see people say things like "Hang the N*gger" on facebook all the damn time in talking about the Prez and to my knowledge no one has been subpoened or taken to court for that threat. And like PSTN said, no one was posting her address or info, no one was saying "Tomorrow, I'm going to buy a gun, go to her work, and shoot her."

Now, I'm not for harrassment in the comment sections but by their own laws they have very strict guidelines of what counts as a threat. When people are being harrassed and stalked online the cops blow it off a lot but someone said something mean about a powerful political figure in the comments and we go full stop? That seems a bit odd to me.
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Re: Subpoenas, Comments, and Gag Orders.

Postby FieldMarshalFry » Fri Jun 26, 2015 10:58 am

I don't see why death threats over the internet should be taken any less seriously than if sent by mail or said in the street
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Re: Subpoenas, Comments, and Gag Orders.

Postby sunglasses » Fri Jun 26, 2015 12:43 pm

FieldMarshalFry wrote:I don't see why death threats over the internet should be taken any less seriously than if sent by mail or said in the street


Which I agree but there is a difference between "that person makes me so angry I hope there is a special place in hell for them," "I wish you would die," and "I'm going to shoot you, bitch."
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Re: Subpoenas, Comments, and Gag Orders.

Postby NathanLoiselle » Fri Jun 26, 2015 7:12 pm

Bitch, I'm gonna shoot you ... full of my love juice!
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Re: Subpoenas, Comments, and Gag Orders.

Postby PSTN » Fri Jun 26, 2015 7:13 pm

NathanLoiselle wrote:Bitch, I'm gonna shoot you ... full of my love juice!


That's... not a lot better.
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