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Yet another example of waking up in the morning (late night last night), opening HN, clicking on the article, and doing a spit-take of my morning tea. It's good

by x0054 11y ago

Yet another example of waking up in the morning (late night last night), opening HN, clicking on the article, and doing a spit-take of my morning tea. It's good that they overturned it, but it was LEGAL at some point to jail people for releasing truthful information about actual crimes taking place? In America? And it's still LEGAL in some states? How about we pass another, federal law. Any politician who votes for or promotes any law that actively and intentionally seeks to violate the first amendment is guilty of treason.

nsajko 11y ago
Just remember that even the Supreme Court's opinion changes through the ages, so it's hard to say for sure that a law violates the Constitution.
- late2part 11y ago
  No it's not hard to say what's Constitutional. It's just hard to say that the Supreme Court will uphold the Constitution. We can disagree on what we each think it means, but it's not clear that the Supreme Court really knows either. And [1] is a sort of self-authority granted. [1] Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803)
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Determining what a law means is an essential part of resolving controversies under that law, and Art. III expressly extends the judicial authority of the United States, vested in the Supreme Court and subordinate courts, to, among other things, all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution. "Judicial review" is simply resolving cases and controversies arising under the Constitution, and could not be more express of a power.
  - kelnos 11y ago
    You're contradicting yourself. The idea of people disagreeing on the meaning of various bits of the Constitution is the very definition of it being hard to say what's Constitutional.
mc32 11y ago
What if these kinds of laws are passed via some kind of referendum? Grassroots initiative process based? These kinds of seemingly whacky laws aren't always pushed thru by conglomerates but by local support, like coal in west Virginia.
- giltleaf 11y ago
  That doesn't seem to be the case with Ag-Gag laws. "Ag-Gag laws are notoriously unsupported by the public. Nationwide thirty-two similar Ag-Gag measures have failed. Currently, seven states have Ag-Gag laws on the books. This Idaho decision is just the first step in defeating similar Ag-Gag laws across the country." http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/4001/idaho-ag-gag-law-overturned-ruled-unconstitutional-in-federal-court http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/4001/idaho...
JoshTriplett 11y ago
It's still the law of record in some other countries to prevent all reporting about trials and defendants before a conviction.
rosser 11y ago
Oh, it actually gets much worse than ID's law. WY, for example, has managed to class this sort of thing ("fraudulently" getting a job in a meat packing plant in order to surreptitiously film their operations for documentary purposes) as an act of terrorism, with all the legal implications that follow from that. EDIT: Doing some fact-checking, I'm unable to substantiate this claim, beyond ALEC's "model law", written in 2002, called, the "Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act", and a number of proposed and sponsored bills in state legislatures, none of which appear to have passed with "terrorism" verbiage intact. Sorry for the noise. Summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag
tedunangst 11y ago
> Any politician who votes for or promotes any law that actively and intentionally seeks to violate the first amendment is guilty of treason. Wow, that's going to be lots of fun. That would include every politician who voted for the campaign finance limits overturned by Citizens United. And every one who voted for the Affordable Care Act would have been on very thin ice, although the Hobby Lobby case ended up not being decided on 1st Amendment grounds. Careful what you wish for.
- x0054 11y ago
  Well, that's where the "intentionally" part comes into play. People who voted for the campaign finance limits or the ACA, were not seeking to limit speech. Not every law that is eventually found to violate the first amendment right to free speech intended to do so. But laws like in the OP are specifically designed to silence speech. Any way, it was a half joking outrage at the state of our union, not a real proposal :)
dragonwriter 11y ago
> How about we pass another, federal law. Any politician who votes for or promotes any law that actively and intentionally seeks to violate the first amendment is guilty of treason. Were Congress to pass a putative law which purported to do that, and were any effort made to enforce it, it would no doubt be quickly struck down by the federal courts for the cavalier way in which it flies directly in the face of U.S. Const., Art. III, Sec. 3, clause 1.
- x0054 11y ago
  Would you not consider active and intentional erosion of the very cornerstone of the United States Constitution an act of War against the union. Couldn't one argue that by undermining the very definition of what makes America America, these people are directly giving aid to our enemies, what ever those might be?
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Yeah, that's exactly the kind of "anything that I think harms the country is Treason" logic that the Constitutional definition of Treason was put into place to negate, the trend of defining new and creative forms of "treason" having been familiar to the founders. Treason's not a hammer to beat your political opponents over the head with. Electoral accountability and separation of powers between the branches is the control on unconstitutional laws, not Treason prosecutions. And, on a more practical level, if you don't have the federal executive and the judiciary on your side, your new federal "Treason" definition does you no good against politicians pushing laws that would violate the first amendment. But if you have the federal executive and judiciary on your side, all the laws violating the first amendment in the world that can be passed aren't going to have any effect. So, aside from its unconstitutionality and undesirability on a theoretical level, there are in practice no situations where your law would both (a) be needed, and (b) have any effect.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    Fun fact: the Bill of Rights didn't even apply to the states until 1925. At the time of the founding when the Constitution was presumably still all American and whatnot, a law like this to protect the unique interests of an agricultural state would've been kosher. There might have been a state constitutional issue, but those are much easier to amend. The idea of a federal court striking down a law duly enacted by a state legislature (by more than 2/3 of each house) on the basis of the federal constitution, as happened here, would have been very disquieting to the framers.
yellowapple 11y ago
I'm with you on "votes for", but not on "promotes", since charging promoters of laws which violate the First Amendment with treason would in and of itself be a violation of the First Amendment. (Note that I'm assuming "promote" to be defined as "communicate a desire for"; should other definitions be applicable, said definitions may be more or less subject to First Amendment protections)
thaumasiotes 11y ago
> but it was LEGAL at some point to jail people for releasing truthful information about actual crimes taking place? In America? And it's still LEGAL in some states? Isn't this still legal under the various "wiretapping" laws prohibiting the recording of conversations without all parties' consent? Those are criminal laws.

by x0054 11y ago

nsajko 11y ago

Just remember that even the Supreme Court's opinion changes through the ages, so it's hard to say for sure that a law violates the Constitution.

late2part 11y ago
No it's not hard to say what's Constitutional. It's just hard to say that the Supreme Court will uphold the Constitution. We can disagree on what we each think it means, but it's not clear that the Supreme Court really knows either. And [1] is a sort of self-authority granted. [1] Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803)
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Determining what a law means is an essential part of resolving controversies under that law, and Art. III expressly extends the judicial authority of the United States, vested in the Supreme Court and subordinate courts, to, among other things, all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution. "Judicial review" is simply resolving cases and controversies arising under the Constitution, and could not be more express of a power.
- kelnos 11y ago
  You're contradicting yourself. The idea of people disagreeing on the meaning of various bits of the Constitution is the very definition of it being hard to say what's Constitutional.

mc32 11y ago

What if these kinds of laws are passed via some kind of referendum? Grassroots initiative process based? These kinds of seemingly whacky laws aren't always pushed thru by conglomerates but by local support, like coal in west Virginia.

giltleaf 11y ago
That doesn't seem to be the case with Ag-Gag laws. "Ag-Gag laws are notoriously unsupported by the public. Nationwide thirty-two similar Ag-Gag measures have failed. Currently, seven states have Ag-Gag laws on the books. This Idaho decision is just the first step in defeating similar Ag-Gag laws across the country." http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/4001/idaho-ag-gag-law-overturned-ruled-unconstitutional-in-federal-court http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/4001/idaho...

JoshTriplett 11y ago

It's still the law of record in some other countries to prevent all reporting about trials and defendants before a conviction.

rosser 11y ago

Oh, it actually gets much worse than ID's law. WY, for example, has managed to class this sort of thing ("fraudulently" getting a job in a meat packing plant in order to surreptitiously film their operations for documentary purposes) as an act of terrorism, with all the legal implications that follow from that. EDIT: Doing some fact-checking, I'm unable to substantiate this claim, beyond ALEC's "model law", written in 2002, called, the "Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act", and a number of proposed and sponsored bills in state legislatures, none of which appear to have passed with "terrorism" verbiage intact. Sorry for the noise. Summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag

tedunangst 11y ago

> Any politician who votes for or promotes any law that actively and intentionally seeks to violate the first amendment is guilty of treason. Wow, that's going to be lots of fun. That would include every politician who voted for the campaign finance limits overturned by Citizens United. And every one who voted for the Affordable Care Act would have been on very thin ice, although the Hobby Lobby case ended up not being decided on 1st Amendment grounds. Careful what you wish for.

x0054 11y ago
Well, that's where the "intentionally" part comes into play. People who voted for the campaign finance limits or the ACA, were not seeking to limit speech. Not every law that is eventually found to violate the first amendment right to free speech intended to do so. But laws like in the OP are specifically designed to silence speech. Any way, it was a half joking outrage at the state of our union, not a real proposal :)

dragonwriter 11y ago

> How about we pass another, federal law. Any politician who votes for or promotes any law that actively and intentionally seeks to violate the first amendment is guilty of treason. Were Congress to pass a putative law which purported to do that, and were any effort made to enforce it, it would no doubt be quickly struck down by the federal courts for the cavalier way in which it flies directly in the face of U.S. Const., Art. III, Sec. 3, clause 1.

x0054 11y ago
Would you not consider active and intentional erosion of the very cornerstone of the United States Constitution an act of War against the union. Couldn't one argue that by undermining the very definition of what makes America America, these people are directly giving aid to our enemies, what ever those might be?
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Yeah, that's exactly the kind of "anything that I think harms the country is Treason" logic that the Constitutional definition of Treason was put into place to negate, the trend of defining new and creative forms of "treason" having been familiar to the founders. Treason's not a hammer to beat your political opponents over the head with. Electoral accountability and separation of powers between the branches is the control on unconstitutional laws, not Treason prosecutions. And, on a more practical level, if you don't have the federal executive and the judiciary on your side, your new federal "Treason" definition does you no good against politicians pushing laws that would violate the first amendment. But if you have the federal executive and judiciary on your side, all the laws violating the first amendment in the world that can be passed aren't going to have any effect. So, aside from its unconstitutionality and undesirability on a theoretical level, there are in practice no situations where your law would both (a) be needed, and (b) have any effect.
- rayiner 11y ago
  Fun fact: the Bill of Rights didn't even apply to the states until 1925. At the time of the founding when the Constitution was presumably still all American and whatnot, a law like this to protect the unique interests of an agricultural state would've been kosher. There might have been a state constitutional issue, but those are much easier to amend. The idea of a federal court striking down a law duly enacted by a state legislature (by more than 2/3 of each house) on the basis of the federal constitution, as happened here, would have been very disquieting to the framers.

yellowapple 11y ago

I'm with you on "votes for", but not on "promotes", since charging promoters of laws which violate the First Amendment with treason would in and of itself be a violation of the First Amendment. (Note that I'm assuming "promote" to be defined as "communicate a desire for"; should other definitions be applicable, said definitions may be more or less subject to First Amendment protections)

thaumasiotes 11y ago

> but it was LEGAL at some point to jail people for releasing truthful information about actual crimes taking place? In America? And it's still LEGAL in some states? Isn't this still legal under the various "wiretapping" laws prohibiting the recording of conversations without all parties' consent? Those are criminal laws.