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House Homeland Security Committee Subpoenas 8chan Owner

83 points by tareqak 7y ago

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
Hopefully the IRS audits him too.
- big_chungus 7y ago
  This is not a good thing to hope for. We don't weaponize clerical agencies for criminal, civil, or political purposes. It's a very bad idea, and will come back to bite you when the "other side" gets power.
  - martin8412 7y ago
    Isn't that typically what happens though when you can't nail someone on anything else? It's how they nailed Al Capone after all.
  - chocolatebunny 7y ago
    Yup. Everyone remembers what happened with the whole IRS/Teaparty thing.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    If white nationalist extremists take control of the White House again, I think that IRS audits will be the least of anyone's worries, especially for minorities and immigrants.
    - the_optimist 7y ago
      Please stop spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt. There is unambiguously zero evidence that any of the constructs you have cited are an accurate representation of reality.
      - rconti 7y ago
        https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-administration-aims-to-make-citizenship-more-difficult-for-immigrants-who-rely-on-public-assistance/2019/08/12/fe3f8162-b565-11e9-8949-5f36ff92706e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-administrat... It seems like a reasonable conclusion. It's certainly a slippery slope. Is not the next step to decide that anyone who has received health insurance marketplace benefits are a drag on society? Social security? (oh, wait, they need the votes of the elderly). Education?
        pnw_hazor 7y ago
        Oh my. A President that is enforcing laws that have been on the books for years. Likelihood of becoming a public charge has been grounds for inadmissibility long befor Trump came along. And, Clinton signed the law requiring sponsors to pay back any benefits their sponsored immigrant(s) may have used. (All legal immigrants require a sponsor who swears to cover any and all expenses associated with the immigrant in the case where the immigrant cannot pay themselves) The sponsor is on the hook until the immigrant naturalizes or has done 40 months of legal work in the US. Note, there are plenty of exceptions for refugees and such.
        rconti 7y ago
        > The new criteria for “Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds,” due to take effect Oct. 15 New criteria.
        pnw_hazor 7y ago
        As far back as 1952 "paupers, professional beggars, or vagrants" have been inadmissible. (Actually first introduced in 1882) Since then there have been many amendments (usually adding exceptions). It is not unreasonable, but for specific exceptions, to deny visas to persons that are likely to require public benefits. The federal statutes have been that way for a long time, currently 100,000s of immigrants have to under go public charge scrutiny. Trump is expanding the criteria/test but it still looks like it is within the law.
mLuby 7y ago
I have two questions; maybe someone more in-the-know on procedure can answer them: 1. Sounds like this will be done by phone call. Will there be recordings or transcripts made public; is it closed even to reporters? 2. Is this expected to be mostly technical/fact-finding or emotional/political posturing? Frankly I'm not even sure how the usual Democrat/Republican split looks in this case.
- Kaveren 7y ago
  > "The bill could create a bipartisan commission of experts tasked with drawing up recommendations to deal with the "intersection of homeland security and social media," a committee spokesperson told The Hill." This is just going to be political theater. Everyone already knows that unmoderated anonymous boards are cesspools of hate, the obvious recommendation is to do moderation. The government can't infringe on free speech, so this is a waste of time. What are you hoping to get out of him? Only way this turns out to be substantive is if it leads to a push from the Democrats toward a constitutional amendment in regards to hate speech, which I could see happening.
  - mjevans 7y ago
    I'm not sure there is a 'right answer'. This is a tough question that I do not expect the lawmakers to get correct. A more valid answer might involve increasing taxes, and actually funding a department within an existing agency so that existing laws could actually be executed. It might involve directing IT at those offices to provide a stable submission interface that would be useful for outside interests such as browser creators and website administers to direct reports of abuse to. That could then be used to actually review the content and forward it to local enforcement authorities and/or courts if necessary. Offhand, I think that's probably the closest thing to a real solution I can come up with in 5-10 min.
    - Kaveren 7y ago
      I don't expect attempts at solutions like these to be brought up, and I don't think a session like this is necessary to bring forward an attempt like that. What can the owner of 8chan provide as useful information about this? The relevant legal procedures for violent speech are already known to Congress.
bjt2n3904 7y ago
> The House Homeland Security leaders previously asked Watkins to "provide testimony regarding 8chan's efforts to investigate and mitigate the proliferation of extremist content" This seems... fairly self evident? What do they want his testimony for, except a dog and pony show?
- malandrew 7y ago
  > efforts to investigate and mitigate the proliferation of extremist content Since the focus is "content", this reaks of trying to violate the 1st amendment. Sometimes I wonder if our government should be involved in this at all given that (1) the country was founded by people that would have been characterized as extremists by the crown prior to 1776, and (2) the ability to challenge the government through violence if necessary is natural right of the people when that government no longer represents the will of the people. As much as I disagree with those fomenting the violence in this instance (El Paso, Dayton and others), my fear in allowing government additional powers beyond what they already have is that some day it might be me, my family, my community and others that share my values that find themselves at odds with the government of the day, and if that day should come I don't want there to be an omnipresent, omnipotent government that curtails unalienable rights that afford us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The US government is supposed to be subservient to the people and the states by design, not vice versa.
- henryfjordan 7y ago
  I had the same thought, there's not much he has to do and the first amendment protects him. Maybe there's some potential civil liability if he profits off running 8chan and provides the white nationalists haven, but that's it. Maybe they'll accuse him of Aiding and Abetting?
- jcims 7y ago
  Did 8chan even have any legal obligations to do what they are asking about?
  - manfredo 7y ago
    If the content it hosts violates the law, then yes. Granted, 1st Amendment protections extend beyond what I typically find people believe it covers. Illegal content mostly falls under the category of: 1. Credible, specific, and actionable threats. 2. Illegal videos & images (CSE, I think revenge porn might fall into that category now). 3. Recruitment or tangible assistance to terrorist groups. Even things like broad threats of violence are protected by the 1st Amendment (e.g. calling for killing of groups of people, provided the statements do not amount to specific or actionable threats). See this case as one example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio
bediger4000 7y ago
I'm a bit confused about House committee subpoenas. It seems like they're really not all that important. Some folks, notably Attorney General William Barr, and ex-White house lawyer Don McGahn. Former White House staffers Hope Hicks and Annie Donaldson (McGahn's aide) were told not to comply by the White House. But clearly some people do have to comply, otherwise the subpoenas would be invitations, right? I'm confused about who has to comply, and for who a subpoena is optional.
- tptacek 7y ago
  Refusal to respond to a subpoena will result in you being found in contempt of Congress. Congress then has several options, ranging from referring you to the DOJ for prosecution to referring the citation to a federal court, effectively converting the subpoena/contempt into contempt of court, or literally imprisoning you in the House basement, which will never happen but it's amusing to note that they technically have that authority. Subpoenas of administration officials complicate this because the primary vehicle Congress has for enforcing contempt citations is a referral to the DOJ, which is part of the administration; a civil referral is, I think? its own kind of civil suit, which is time-consuming and complicated, and it's likely that the House majority will keep their powder dry on referrals about administration officials until they have a really good case. But random civilians aren't so fortunate, and can effectively be compelled to testify, and it's likely that Congress would not have much trouble getting their subpoena enforced.
  - schoen 7y ago
    > or literally imprisoning you in the House basement, which will never happen but it's amusing to note that they technically have that authority Surely someone needs to feature this possibility in a movie somehow!
    - tptacek 7y ago
      That movie definitely needs to feature the Mace of the US House Of Representatives, which is A Thing You Should Definitely Go Look Up.
raintrees 7y ago
I remember reading posts from Watkins on gab.com recently along the lines of the manifesto being posted first to Twitter - If true, I expect that to change things, all else being equal.
- faissaloo 7y ago
  He claimed it had been posted to Instagram first, Hotwheels contests this and it would have been unlikely considering it was posted to 8chan in a PDF and the user would have had to go through the trouble of compiling images from Instagram into a PDF
shiado 7y ago
Doesn't the guy who runs it live in the Philippines? Is the USA playing Team America: World Police or do they have jurisdiction?
- almost_usual 7y ago
  If you read the article you would know he's currently visiting Reno, NV and is voluntarily going
  - shiado 7y ago
    You caught me. But it is bewildering that somebody in his questionable legal circumstances would willingly visit the USA. Most of the other people who run sites like 8chan relocate to obscure regions with no extradition.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      What "questionable legal circumstances"? He runs a forum, he's not selling drugs and guns on the dark web...
- faissaloo 7y ago
  He's still a citizen of the US and 8chan operates as a US company.
mindslight 7y ago
Sheesh, the fourth estate (whom Congress ultimately answers to) is really beating the drum around the democratization of media-incited violence. Disruption is a bitter pill to swallow! The truth of the matter is that these recent senseless acts of violence are better seen as a scaling down of the status quo. Historically, mass media would rile up the entire country against a different whole country, creating an all-out war. This new trend is of isolated groups egging on lone members to directly commit an act of "war" at an intrinsically small scale. The Iraq War was an act of media-incited senseless violence, with around 60,000 direct deaths. None of its cheerleaders were criminally prosecuted for speaking the untruths used to fuel it. Why are we panicking and abandoning our longstanding value of Free Speech over a comparatively tiny number of casualties from what are better described as ordinary crimes? Every single human death is its own tragedy, but wisdom cannot prevail when ignoring a sense of scale.
peterwwillis 7y ago
Praying that his phone accidentally goes off mid-finger-wagging. "Never gonna give you up..."
tareqak 7y ago
Here is a graph of how this thread trended: http://hnrankings.info/20709448/ http://hnrankings.info/20709448/ .
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 7y ago
  Would you please stop doing this? Also, please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't submit stories like this. Garden-variety politics is dime-a-dozen and off topic here. "Committee issues subpoena" is not a significant story, let alone an intellectually interesting one—even less than "politician introduces bill".
  - tareqak 7y ago
    Sorry 'dang. I’ll stop submitting stories like this one. As for linking the graph of how a thread ranked, I’ll stop doing that too. However, could you also please call it out in the guidelines too then? The second last point of In Comments seems like the most appropriate place: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

83 points by tareqak 7y ago

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago

Hopefully the IRS audits him too.

big_chungus 7y ago
This is not a good thing to hope for. We don't weaponize clerical agencies for criminal, civil, or political purposes. It's a very bad idea, and will come back to bite you when the "other side" gets power.
- martin8412 7y ago
  Isn't that typically what happens though when you can't nail someone on anything else? It's how they nailed Al Capone after all.
- chocolatebunny 7y ago
  Yup. Everyone remembers what happened with the whole IRS/Teaparty thing.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- gamblor956 7y ago
  If white nationalist extremists take control of the White House again, I think that IRS audits will be the least of anyone's worries, especially for minorities and immigrants.
  - the_optimist 7y ago
    Please stop spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt. There is unambiguously zero evidence that any of the constructs you have cited are an accurate representation of reality.
    - rconti 7y ago
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-administration-aims-to-make-citizenship-more-difficult-for-immigrants-who-rely-on-public-assistance/2019/08/12/fe3f8162-b565-11e9-8949-5f36ff92706e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-administrat... It seems like a reasonable conclusion. It's certainly a slippery slope. Is not the next step to decide that anyone who has received health insurance marketplace benefits are a drag on society? Social security? (oh, wait, they need the votes of the elderly). Education?
      - pnw_hazor 7y ago
        Oh my. A President that is enforcing laws that have been on the books for years. Likelihood of becoming a public charge has been grounds for inadmissibility long befor Trump came along. And, Clinton signed the law requiring sponsors to pay back any benefits their sponsored immigrant(s) may have used. (All legal immigrants require a sponsor who swears to cover any and all expenses associated with the immigrant in the case where the immigrant cannot pay themselves) The sponsor is on the hook until the immigrant naturalizes or has done 40 months of legal work in the US. Note, there are plenty of exceptions for refugees and such.
        rconti 7y ago
        > The new criteria for “Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds,” due to take effect Oct. 15 New criteria.
        pnw_hazor 7y ago
        As far back as 1952 "paupers, professional beggars, or vagrants" have been inadmissible. (Actually first introduced in 1882) Since then there have been many amendments (usually adding exceptions). It is not unreasonable, but for specific exceptions, to deny visas to persons that are likely to require public benefits. The federal statutes have been that way for a long time, currently 100,000s of immigrants have to under go public charge scrutiny. Trump is expanding the criteria/test but it still looks like it is within the law.

mLuby 7y ago

I have two questions; maybe someone more in-the-know on procedure can answer them: 1. Sounds like this will be done by phone call. Will there be recordings or transcripts made public; is it closed even to reporters? 2. Is this expected to be mostly technical/fact-finding or emotional/political posturing? Frankly I'm not even sure how the usual Democrat/Republican split looks in this case.

Kaveren 7y ago
> "The bill could create a bipartisan commission of experts tasked with drawing up recommendations to deal with the "intersection of homeland security and social media," a committee spokesperson told The Hill." This is just going to be political theater. Everyone already knows that unmoderated anonymous boards are cesspools of hate, the obvious recommendation is to do moderation. The government can't infringe on free speech, so this is a waste of time. What are you hoping to get out of him? Only way this turns out to be substantive is if it leads to a push from the Democrats toward a constitutional amendment in regards to hate speech, which I could see happening.
- mjevans 7y ago
  I'm not sure there is a 'right answer'. This is a tough question that I do not expect the lawmakers to get correct. A more valid answer might involve increasing taxes, and actually funding a department within an existing agency so that existing laws could actually be executed. It might involve directing IT at those offices to provide a stable submission interface that would be useful for outside interests such as browser creators and website administers to direct reports of abuse to. That could then be used to actually review the content and forward it to local enforcement authorities and/or courts if necessary. Offhand, I think that's probably the closest thing to a real solution I can come up with in 5-10 min.
  - Kaveren 7y ago
    I don't expect attempts at solutions like these to be brought up, and I don't think a session like this is necessary to bring forward an attempt like that. What can the owner of 8chan provide as useful information about this? The relevant legal procedures for violent speech are already known to Congress.

bjt2n3904 7y ago

> The House Homeland Security leaders previously asked Watkins to "provide testimony regarding 8chan's efforts to investigate and mitigate the proliferation of extremist content" This seems... fairly self evident? What do they want his testimony for, except a dog and pony show?

malandrew 7y ago
> efforts to investigate and mitigate the proliferation of extremist content Since the focus is "content", this reaks of trying to violate the 1st amendment. Sometimes I wonder if our government should be involved in this at all given that (1) the country was founded by people that would have been characterized as extremists by the crown prior to 1776, and (2) the ability to challenge the government through violence if necessary is natural right of the people when that government no longer represents the will of the people. As much as I disagree with those fomenting the violence in this instance (El Paso, Dayton and others), my fear in allowing government additional powers beyond what they already have is that some day it might be me, my family, my community and others that share my values that find themselves at odds with the government of the day, and if that day should come I don't want there to be an omnipresent, omnipotent government that curtails unalienable rights that afford us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The US government is supposed to be subservient to the people and the states by design, not vice versa.
henryfjordan 7y ago
I had the same thought, there's not much he has to do and the first amendment protects him. Maybe there's some potential civil liability if he profits off running 8chan and provides the white nationalists haven, but that's it. Maybe they'll accuse him of Aiding and Abetting?
jcims 7y ago
Did 8chan even have any legal obligations to do what they are asking about?
- manfredo 7y ago
  If the content it hosts violates the law, then yes. Granted, 1st Amendment protections extend beyond what I typically find people believe it covers. Illegal content mostly falls under the category of: 1. Credible, specific, and actionable threats. 2. Illegal videos & images (CSE, I think revenge porn might fall into that category now). 3. Recruitment or tangible assistance to terrorist groups. Even things like broad threats of violence are protected by the 1st Amendment (e.g. calling for killing of groups of people, provided the statements do not amount to specific or actionable threats). See this case as one example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

bediger4000 7y ago

I'm a bit confused about House committee subpoenas. It seems like they're really not all that important. Some folks, notably Attorney General William Barr, and ex-White house lawyer Don McGahn. Former White House staffers Hope Hicks and Annie Donaldson (McGahn's aide) were told not to comply by the White House. But clearly some people do have to comply, otherwise the subpoenas would be invitations, right? I'm confused about who has to comply, and for who a subpoena is optional.

tptacek 7y ago
Refusal to respond to a subpoena will result in you being found in contempt of Congress. Congress then has several options, ranging from referring you to the DOJ for prosecution to referring the citation to a federal court, effectively converting the subpoena/contempt into contempt of court, or literally imprisoning you in the House basement, which will never happen but it's amusing to note that they technically have that authority. Subpoenas of administration officials complicate this because the primary vehicle Congress has for enforcing contempt citations is a referral to the DOJ, which is part of the administration; a civil referral is, I think? its own kind of civil suit, which is time-consuming and complicated, and it's likely that the House majority will keep their powder dry on referrals about administration officials until they have a really good case. But random civilians aren't so fortunate, and can effectively be compelled to testify, and it's likely that Congress would not have much trouble getting their subpoena enforced.
- schoen 7y ago
  > or literally imprisoning you in the House basement, which will never happen but it's amusing to note that they technically have that authority Surely someone needs to feature this possibility in a movie somehow!
  - tptacek 7y ago
    That movie definitely needs to feature the Mace of the US House Of Representatives, which is A Thing You Should Definitely Go Look Up.

raintrees 7y ago

I remember reading posts from Watkins on gab.com recently along the lines of the manifesto being posted first to Twitter - If true, I expect that to change things, all else being equal.

faissaloo 7y ago
He claimed it had been posted to Instagram first, Hotwheels contests this and it would have been unlikely considering it was posted to 8chan in a PDF and the user would have had to go through the trouble of compiling images from Instagram into a PDF

shiado 7y ago

Doesn't the guy who runs it live in the Philippines? Is the USA playing Team America: World Police or do they have jurisdiction?

almost_usual 7y ago
If you read the article you would know he's currently visiting Reno, NV and is voluntarily going
- shiado 7y ago
  You caught me. But it is bewildering that somebody in his questionable legal circumstances would willingly visit the USA. Most of the other people who run sites like 8chan relocate to obscure regions with no extradition.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    What "questionable legal circumstances"? He runs a forum, he's not selling drugs and guns on the dark web...
faissaloo 7y ago
He's still a citizen of the US and 8chan operates as a US company.

mindslight 7y ago

Sheesh, the fourth estate (whom Congress ultimately answers to) is really beating the drum around the democratization of media-incited violence. Disruption is a bitter pill to swallow! The truth of the matter is that these recent senseless acts of violence are better seen as a scaling down of the status quo. Historically, mass media would rile up the entire country against a different whole country, creating an all-out war. This new trend is of isolated groups egging on lone members to directly commit an act of "war" at an intrinsically small scale. The Iraq War was an act of media-incited senseless violence, with around 60,000 direct deaths. None of its cheerleaders were criminally prosecuted for speaking the untruths used to fuel it. Why are we panicking and abandoning our longstanding value of Free Speech over a comparatively tiny number of casualties from what are better described as ordinary crimes? Every single human death is its own tragedy, but wisdom cannot prevail when ignoring a sense of scale.

peterwwillis 7y ago

Praying that his phone accidentally goes off mid-finger-wagging. "Never gonna give you up..."

tareqak 7y ago

Here is a graph of how this thread trended: http://hnrankings.info/20709448/ http://hnrankings.info/20709448/ .

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dang 7y ago
Would you please stop doing this? Also, please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't submit stories like this. Garden-variety politics is dime-a-dozen and off topic here. "Committee issues subpoena" is not a significant story, let alone an intellectually interesting one—even less than "politician introduces bill".
- tareqak 7y ago
  Sorry 'dang. I’ll stop submitting stories like this one. As for linking the graph of how a thread ranked, I’ll stop doing that too. However, could you also please call it out in the guidelines too then? The second last point of In Comments seems like the most appropriate place: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.