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There is no absolute right to anonymity in the US constitution. (The courts have "recognized relatively strong First Amendment presumptions on behalf of purvey

There is no absolute right to anonymity in the US constitution. (The courts have "recognized relatively strong First Amendment presumptions on behalf of purveyors of anonymous speech, especially for those that are statements of opinions rather than obvious falsehoods, while recognizing that government sometimes has the right to identify such speakers when they have used their platforms to harass, engage in slander or sexual predation, make true threats, or allow foreign governments to influence U.S. elections")

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
How is one supposed to exercise their right to anonymously express political opinions if anonymity is prohibited by law?
- krapp 2y ago
  There is no right to anonymously express political opinions. There is a right to express political opinions, but anonymity is a privilege, not a right.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    Then how do you explain these? https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/anonymous-computing/history/law.php3 https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/anony...
    - krapp 2y ago
      I see controversy and a lot of dissent among Justices, but no decisions that explicitly declare a Constitutional right to anonymity. And the modern Court explicitly declared that a Constitutional right to privacy does not exist, and one cannot have anonymity without privacy, so no.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        > I see controversy and a lot of dissent among Justices, Precedent is set by the majority, not the dissent. > but no decisions that explicitly declare a Constitutional right to anonymity. Weird then that there are several decisions striking down laws that violate the right to anonymous speech? > And the modern Court explicitly declared that a Constitutional right to privacy does not exist, and one cannot have anonymity without privacy One cannot refuse to turn over one's papers and effects in the absence of probable cause without privacy either. Consider the possibility that there could be a right to anonymous speech without a right to anonymous practice of medicine. A universal right to privacy would require both. Just because it isn't both doesn't mean it's neither.
        krapp 2y ago
        >One cannot refuse to turn over one's papers and effects in the absence of probable cause without privacy either. Yes. I believe a right to privacy once existed, but it was nullified as it formed the basis of the case for Roe V. Wade. As a result even the Fourth Amendment is weakened because it must be interpreted in the light of a right to privacy no longer existing. What I'm trying to put forth is that the assumptions you're working under are no longer valid and we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
        AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        > I believe a right to privacy once existed, but it was nullified as it formed the basis of the case for Roe V. Wade. It was kind of the other way around. There is clearly no explicit right to abortion in the constitution, so to find one it would have to be implicit, but the Court in Roe wanted to find one, so they made one up. The reasoning was something like, the constitution implies there is a general right to privacy and laws against abortion violate it. The people who liked the result were then stuck trying to defend its inconsistent reasoning for 50 years, because the same logic would cause all kinds of other laws to be a violation of the same right. Obvious example would be drug prohibition; government invading your privacy by trying to control what you put into your own body. Same logic as Roe. But Roe was never actually extended to any of that stuff, so overturning it didn't re-enable drug prohibition after it was struck down, since it was (inconsistently) never struck down to begin with. The cases having to do with anonymous speech are independent and use entirely different logic. The general idea is that people are deterred from speaking (chilling effects) if people can associate what they have to say with a physical person who can then be harassed for expressing an unpopular opinion. It doesn't have any of the same problems because there is no First Amendment right to morphine, which they could ban outright under the same justification as they ban heroin, so having to show your ID to get morphine isn't deterring you from exercising your right to free speech.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    The converse would have to be true then, that the government has the legitimate power to intimidate people to not express their opinion. This does not seem like a legitimate power for government to have, but now I need to be careful whether I express it at all.
    - krapp 2y ago
      Laws against slander, libel, intimidation, conspiracy, perjury, etc are based upon the government's power to intimidate people from expressing opinions. It is a felony in the US to express the opinion that the President should be killed. Speech in the US has never been a free for all.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        Those are not opinions, they're provably false statements or threats. Conspiracy is essentially committing a crime as a group rather than an individual, and the statements are the evidence of the crime rather than the crime in itself. The closest the government comes to prohibiting an opinion is copyright, but even then you can restate the opinion in your own words, and when an exact quote is necessary to make your point it's fair use specifically because it would otherwise violate free speech.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

How is one supposed to exercise their right to anonymously express political opinions if anonymity is prohibited by law?

krapp 2y ago
There is no right to anonymously express political opinions. There is a right to express political opinions, but anonymity is a privilege, not a right.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  Then how do you explain these? https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/anonymous-computing/history/law.php3 https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/anony...
  - krapp 2y ago
    I see controversy and a lot of dissent among Justices, but no decisions that explicitly declare a Constitutional right to anonymity. And the modern Court explicitly declared that a Constitutional right to privacy does not exist, and one cannot have anonymity without privacy, so no.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > I see controversy and a lot of dissent among Justices, Precedent is set by the majority, not the dissent. > but no decisions that explicitly declare a Constitutional right to anonymity. Weird then that there are several decisions striking down laws that violate the right to anonymous speech? > And the modern Court explicitly declared that a Constitutional right to privacy does not exist, and one cannot have anonymity without privacy One cannot refuse to turn over one's papers and effects in the absence of probable cause without privacy either. Consider the possibility that there could be a right to anonymous speech without a right to anonymous practice of medicine. A universal right to privacy would require both. Just because it isn't both doesn't mean it's neither.
      - krapp 2y ago
        >One cannot refuse to turn over one's papers and effects in the absence of probable cause without privacy either. Yes. I believe a right to privacy once existed, but it was nullified as it formed the basis of the case for Roe V. Wade. As a result even the Fourth Amendment is weakened because it must be interpreted in the light of a right to privacy no longer existing. What I'm trying to put forth is that the assumptions you're working under are no longer valid and we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
        AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        > I believe a right to privacy once existed, but it was nullified as it formed the basis of the case for Roe V. Wade. It was kind of the other way around. There is clearly no explicit right to abortion in the constitution, so to find one it would have to be implicit, but the Court in Roe wanted to find one, so they made one up. The reasoning was something like, the constitution implies there is a general right to privacy and laws against abortion violate it. The people who liked the result were then stuck trying to defend its inconsistent reasoning for 50 years, because the same logic would cause all kinds of other laws to be a violation of the same right. Obvious example would be drug prohibition; government invading your privacy by trying to control what you put into your own body. Same logic as Roe. But Roe was never actually extended to any of that stuff, so overturning it didn't re-enable drug prohibition after it was struck down, since it was (inconsistently) never struck down to begin with. The cases having to do with anonymous speech are independent and use entirely different logic. The general idea is that people are deterred from speaking (chilling effects) if people can associate what they have to say with a physical person who can then be harassed for expressing an unpopular opinion. It doesn't have any of the same problems because there is no First Amendment right to morphine, which they could ban outright under the same justification as they ban heroin, so having to show your ID to get morphine isn't deterring you from exercising your right to free speech.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  The converse would have to be true then, that the government has the legitimate power to intimidate people to not express their opinion. This does not seem like a legitimate power for government to have, but now I need to be careful whether I express it at all.
  - krapp 2y ago
    Laws against slander, libel, intimidation, conspiracy, perjury, etc are based upon the government's power to intimidate people from expressing opinions. It is a felony in the US to express the opinion that the President should be killed. Speech in the US has never been a free for all.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      Those are not opinions, they're provably false statements or threats. Conspiracy is essentially committing a crime as a group rather than an individual, and the statements are the evidence of the crime rather than the crime in itself. The closest the government comes to prohibiting an opinion is copyright, but even then you can restate the opinion in your own words, and when an exact quote is necessary to make your point it's fair use specifically because it would otherwise violate free speech.