3 ms·

I thought it was an alleged terrorist's phone? Or has innocent until proven guilty gone out the window?

• dcvuob 11y ago
  Terrorists cannot be innocent. /s
• tajen 11y ago
  Good point. "terrorist" is almost always misused anyway, since no-one fears to be blown up tomorrow in the US. The only thing to fear is the power of the government, its officers and the low-level education of their thugs. The thugs with the law on their side are the ones who currently reign with terror, not like terrorists, but like Nazi law enforcement officers in 1936. Wow. I might have escalated quickly, but I'll leave it here to see what you people think.
• roywiggins 11y ago
  "Innocent until proven guilty" only applies in a criminal trial. The man in question died in a shootout with police; he will never be proven guilty, because you can't put a dead man on trial. You can't libel or defame a dead man, from the point of view of the law. There has to be a point where media can call someone a terrorist short of conviction in a court of law. You can argue that that point hasn't been reached in this case, but there has to be a point, since otherwise we'd have to call Bin Laden an "alleged terrorist."
  • switch007 11y ago
    As a very general comment as I do not know anything about the San Bernardino case, I think we need to apply extreme caution when using the word "terrorist" because of extreme, far-reaching legislation based on the broad definition of terrorism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Acts#List_of_legislation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Acts#List_of_legisla...