Law Professor: ISIS Is, Like, Totally Scary, So Let’s Do Away With The First Amendment

Wednesday, December 16, 2015
By Paul Martin

by Mike Masnick
TechDirt.com
Wed, Dec 16th 2015

Law professor Eric Posner is no fan of the First Amendment. Never has been. Back in 2012, he argued that Americans basically need to get over the First Amendment because free speech upsets people. Earlier this year, he argued for restricting the speech of college students because students are children who don’t deserve free speech. A few months ago, he also argued that the US should adopt a “right to be forgotten,” because sometimes it’s better to make speech disappear entirely.

So it comes as little surprise that he’s now arguing that we should just dump the First Amendment, because ISIS is, like, super scary, yo.

It has become increasingly clear that terrorist groups such as ISIS can extend their reach to American territory via the Internet. Using their own websites, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms, they lure young men and women to their mission—without having to risk the capture of foreign agents on U.S. soil. The Americans ensnared in ISIS’s net in turn radicalize others, send money to ISIS, and even carry out attacks.

Never before in our history have enemies outside the United States been able to propagate genuinely dangerous ideas on American territory in such an effective way—and by this I mean ideas that lead directly to terrorist attacks that kill people. The novelty of this threat calls for new thinking about limits on freedom of speech.

Posner’s proposal? Make it a crime to even visit a website that supports ISIS or to make any vaguely pro-ISIS statement:

But there is something we can do to protect people like Amin from being infected by the ISIS virus by propagandists, many of whom are anonymous and most of whom live in foreign countries. Consider a law that makes it a crime to access websites that glorify, express support for, or provide encouragement for ISIS or support recruitment by ISIS; to distribute links to those websites or videos, images, or text taken from those websites; or to encourage people to access such websites by supplying them with links or instructions. Such a law would be directed at people like Amin: naïve people, rather than sophisticated terrorists, who are initially driven by curiosity to research ISIS on the Web.

The Rest…HERE

Leave a Reply

Join the revolution in 2018. Revolution Radio is 100% volunteer ran. Any contributions are greatly appreciated. God bless!

Follow us on Twitter