Pedo's web site - is he doing anything wrong?

[Jamougha]

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I would love to hear your suggestion.

BTW, free speech is not restricted to political or scientific viewpoints or opinions, nor does anyone who believes in free speech think it should be.


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I didn't say that free speech should be restricted to certain areas. However, if you support restrictions on incitement to violence (as your previous posts imply) then you clearly think there are some types of speech which it is OK to bar, in principle. The question then becomes whether this is one of those, and I think this can reasonably be regarded as an edge-case bordering on incitement to commit a criminal act. Thus the difference is quantitative, not qualitative.

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As I said before, it is exactly this type of loathsome, morally reprehensible speech that the First Amendment was designed to protect. That is why it seems strange to me that you say it would be easy to make this site illegal without violating the First A. Again, the First Amendment means less that nothing if it only protects "approved" or "non-offensive" speech.

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Of course my point has nothing to do with his speech being offensive, so this is irrelevant.

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You'd just like to figure out a way to make it illegal?

I find your casual willingness to make websites illegal because you don't like their content distasteful. And evident of fascist tendencies. So if the shoe fits...

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So even though I don't want to ban this I'm a 'fascist' for... wanting to ban it? You appear to be attempting to make up my position to suit your refutation. You're meant to do things he other way round.

[MicroBob]

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Drew,
I am very pro free speech and I am happy that there are groups like the ACLU which fights to protect anti-semites, nambla members, and homophobes.

That said, I believe that giving a bunch of pedophiles the address where vulnerable children is not protected by the first amendment. I think that if a child is abducted at one of the book fares that are posted on this perv's website that he can be found guilty of incitement of a crime, something that is not protected speech.

Again, I am not a lawyer and I hope that those more knowledgeable than I am can chime in on this topic.

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this sums up my views nicely.

If he wants to make his arguments for why it should be legal to have sex with an 8-year-old and that he thinks it's truly awesome, etc etc then go for it.
I support his right to offer the most disgusting opinions.

But I believe that giving other pedos instructions and dates/locations on where to find such children for such pedo-activities is a different animal entirely.


Similar to the KKK making whatever arguments they like about the inferiority of blacks and other minorities and even how they think it should be okay to kill them all.
But that's different from actually killing them or just giving KKK members instructions on where they can go to kill them or even intimidate them.


I'm actually much more ACLU-ian than many when it comes to free-speech issues in this country.
But the line has to be drawn somewhere.
This is why it's not okay to post child-porn even though you can argue 'freedom of speech/expression'.

[Forbin]

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It would probably even be legal for him to post a picture of some kid and say, "This is Johnny, he walks alone to baseball practice at Spruce Park every Tuesday and Thursday at 3:30 pm, and walks back home at 5 pm. I like taking his picture." He isn't telling people to go kidnap/molest Johnny, or expressing a specific desire of his own to do so. "Spruce Park" could be a link to google maps showing where the baseball field is, and "baseball practice" could be a link to the website for his little league team. He still would have done nothing illegal, though I'm sure if Johnny was abducted on his way to baseball practice, he better have a very solid alibi putting him somewhere else.


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Actually, no, as I understand it. Johnny is a private citizen and you have no right to publish private information about him. It's not criminal, but if Johnny (or his parents) object, it is actionable. Thinking again, it may be criminal if a child is involved, e.g. it may be endangering the welfare of a child, which is a crime, although I don't know if that specific law would apply here, but it seems like it could on the surface, especialy if something happens to the child.


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Everything from my example is public information. Things you do in public for everyone to see are not private. Unless what was published is false (and, I believe, intentionally false), there really is no recourse. You could sue, but I don't think there would be any case for it.

I think you are letting your dislike for his thoughts/opinions cloud your reasoning. As much as you would like it to be criminal or illegal, I don't think my example would be. I certainly don't think the existing, much more benign website this guy talks about is in any way illegal.

As someone said earlier, just because you think something is "wrong" doesn't mean it is illegal. The same applies in reverse. Just because something is legal doesn't necessarily make it "right."

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Freedom of speech does not include the right to publish whatever you feel like about other private citizens. For instance, publishing a list of every neighbor, when they are away from home, when they are on vacation, and a list of their TVs, jewelry, rare paintings, and their alarm code on your website easypickings.com is not protected by the First Amendment, even if you don't "suggest" anything.

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Publishing public information about your neighbors would not be illegal. This could include their names and addresses, as well as when you saw them leave for vacation. Publishing the contents of their houses and the alarm code are a bit more bothersome, as I'm not sure how that would be considered public information. I bet you could certainly get away with posting a list of whatever you can see from the sidewalk, however.

It is also quite a bit different from publishing when a particular person regularly walks down the street to a public park. I think your dislike of his pedophile-ness is making you oblivious to the difference.

[Keyser.]

He shouldn't get in any trouble imo. He's directing people to where kids gather... is that really hard to figure out by yourself?

[DrewDevil]

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I would love to hear your suggestion.

BTW, free speech is not restricted to political or scientific viewpoints or opinions, nor does anyone who believes in free speech think it should be.


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I didn't say that free speech should be restricted to certain areas. However, if you support restrictions on incitement to violence (as your previous posts imply) then you clearly think there are some types of speech which it is OK to bar, in principle. The question then becomes whether this is one of those, and I think this can reasonably be regarded as an edge-case bordering on incitement to commit a criminal act. Thus the difference is quantitative, not qualitative.

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As I said before, it is exactly this type of loathsome, morally reprehensible speech that the First Amendment was designed to protect. That is why it seems strange to me that you say it would be easy to make this site illegal without violating the First A. Again, the First Amendment means less that nothing if it only protects "approved" or "non-offensive" speech.

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Of course my point has nothing to do with his speech being offensive, so this is irrelevant.

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You'd just like to figure out a way to make it illegal?

I find your casual willingness to make websites illegal because you don't like their content distasteful. And evident of fascist tendencies. So if the shoe fits...

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So even though I don't want to ban this I'm a 'fascist' for... wanting to ban it? You appear to be attempting to make up my position to suit your refutation. You're meant to do things he other way round.

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You keep saying that the website is bordering on incitement but no one has said the website even suggests, much less advocates, any criminal activity. How is this bordering on incitement?

I know you said you didn't want to ban it, but you also said it would be pretty easy to make the website illegal without offending the First Amendment.

To that I say, (1) how would you make the site illegal, and (2) to me, that implies that you'd prefer the site to be illegal.

In your post about easily making the website illegal, you said that you wanted to protect political and scientific speech and clearly implied that other types of speech were not as deserving of protection.

As for me, I am as close to an absolutist on free speech as you will ever find, and to answer your specific question, I do not think that "incitement to lawless action" should be censored.

My guiding motto for these issues is that speech is not action. You can advocate that someone do something illegal and/or criminal, but that person must decide to act on your speech. The actor is the criminal, not the advocate.

[CORed]

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He shouldn't get in any trouble imo. He's directing people to where kids gather... is that really hard to figure out by yourself?

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This is something that people seem to be losing sight of in their understandable reaction to the fact that this guy is (or says he is) a pedophile. It's not like the location of parks, playgrounds and schools is some kine of secret information that only this guy knows.

It wouldn't surprise me if the whole thing is some kind giant troll, and the guy is just doing this to see what kind of reaction he can get. If he didn't mention the pedophilia aspect, and said here are some places that cute kids play, probably nobody would get too excited.

[FUJItheFISH]

seems like one of those things where the cries for this guy to be locked up wont be heard until something bad happens because of his webpage.

example:
a pedophile sees the webpage, goes to a park, molests some kid, gets caught, arrested, and in his interview says its because he got info from xyz webpage.

hopefully it doesnt come to this and the problem is stopped immediately.

[suzzer99]

Watch the video, he's not a troll. I think it should be a crime to have a site who's sole purpose is to help pedophiles connect with each other. And I reeeeeeeeally don't give a crap about mental masturbation over free speech. Have some common sense.

[Forbin]

Online gambling is illegal. Perhaps it should be a crime to have a website where gamblers can connect with each other to both find out how to gamble online and how to get better at it? How can you possibly justify letting all those degenerates talk to each other, swapping techniques and methods? Gambling is wrong, so we really should outlaw talking about it. If we work hard enough, maybe we can eventually outlaw even thinking about it.

[suzzer99]

Great points! All crimes have the same magnitude and should be treated the same. Really solid thinking.