2 ms·

How are gag orders like this even allowed in our country? What is the point of a gag order that restricts talking about "The FBI wanted customer records" other

• bmelton 9y ago
  > I would like to see any intelligent person make the argument that the gag order is a necessary part of due process. I can't personally fathom an argument that justifies it as necessary to due process, but I can sort of imagine a hand-wavy explanation as to how it's necessary to security against terorrism / drug dealers / pedophiles / for the children / whatever the cause du jour is at the moment. I'm of the relatively staunch belief that this is what happens when people run around making claims about how 'no right is absolute' over whatever policies they don't like at the time, in the hopes of those rights being abridged to whatever degree they prefer. As much as the 'slippery slope' argument gets deployed against a perceived over-broad expression of civil liberties, the inverse is at least as true -- every time we diminish the absolutism of a civil right we don't like, we make vulnerable the rights that we do. When we try to put limits on speech, because somebody somewhere is saying something potentially harmful, or allow for exceptions to due process for "really bad people", we poke holes in the fabric of judicial scrutiny that makes all rights viable.
  • sova 9y ago
    Very well said. I wish more people held this valuable understanding.