How'd It Age? -- "Free Speech Under Attack from All Angles"
Checking in on an article from a year ago
Bill Rice said posting old articles is a great way to introduce new subscribers to content they may not have seen before. Since I always listen to Bill Rice, (and I’m not going to be able to finish my current longform article today) here’s an article from exactly one year ago today — along with a poll asking how it aged. After all, it’s important to look back into the past to see how things said then hold up today! **cough** FAUCI **cough** Enjoy!
Free Speech Under Attack from All Angles
Worldwide, tyrants are tightening their grip
MAY 2, 2022
It’s been a couple months since Canada’s been in the news, but over the weekend the “Rolling Thunder” convoy…..…ummm……rolled into downtown Ottawa to protest the continuing vaccine mandates still required to leave the country. It was all very Canadian:
(In case you missed the original protest saga, you can catch the first half in provided links, then read the remaining stories right here until you’re all done. The main highlight for today is that the government of Canada froze bank accounts of protestors.)
In what may be dangerous evidence that Tyrantosaurus Rex is capable of learning and adapting, Trudeau immediately called in the big guns. To keep peace, you know.
The city soon declared that “people can protest, not vehicles”, creating a ‘motor vehicle exclusion zone’ just outside Parliament.
This gives me a wonderful excuse to post this snippet of the best article I’ve ever read about why money is speech:
Of course, money is not "speech." Money is money, a car is a car, and a ribbon is a ribbon. These are objects, not speech. But all of these objects, and many more besides, can be used to facilitate free speech. Consider a car. The government can lawfully impose all sorts of restrictions on how, when and where we can drive a car, and no one would argue that those restrictions implicate the First Amendment.
But suppose a city enacts a law prohibiting any person to drive a car in order to get to a political demonstration. Such a law would clearly implicate the First Amendment, not because a car is speech, but because the law restricts the use of a car for speech purposes.
Similarly, a ribbon is a ribbon. A ribbon is not speech. But a law that prohibits anyone to wear a pink ribbon for expressive purposes would clearly implicate the First Amendment, because it restricts the use of a ribbon for speech purposes.
Like a car or a ribbon, money is not speech. But when government regulates the use of money for speech purposes, it implicates the First Amendment. Suppose, for example, an individual at an Occupy protest burns a dollar bill to convey her disdain for corporate America. A dollar bill is not speech, fire is not speech, but a government law prohibiting any person to burn money as a symbolic expression of opposition to corporate America would surely implicate the First Amendment.
The point is simple. Even though an object may not itself be speech, if the government regulates it because it is being used to enable free speech it necessarily raises a First Amendment issue.
Luckily for Trudeau, he doesn’t have to deal with pesky things like the First Amendment. Neither does the European Union, which has always waded in the waters of censorship but now looks to be ready to dive in face-first.
If you want a glimpse of what this would look like in practice, just look to Ukraine, where the government passed ‘anti-collaboration’ laws before arresting citizens for speech.
The middle-aged man came to the attention of Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, after what authorities said were his social media posts praising Russian President Vladimir Putin for “fighting with the Nazis,” calling for regions to secede and labeling the national flag “a symbol of death.”
“Yes, I supported (the Russian invasion of Ukraine) a lot. I’m sorry. … I have already changed my mind,” said Viktor, his trembling voice showing clear signs of duress in the presence of the Ukrainian security officers.
“Get your things and get dressed,” an officer said before escorting him out of the apartment. The SBU did not reveal Viktor’s last name, citing their investigation.
Viktor was one of nearly 400 people in the Kharkiv region alone who have been detained under anti-collaboration laws enacted quickly by Ukraine’s parliament and signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion.
See how easy it is? Declare some forms of speech illegal and you can arrest whoever’s a giant pain in your ass that day! Why go through all the work of banning people off social media when you can just send them to the gulag where there’s no internet access at all?
Speaking of Ukraine, Rep. Adam Kinzinger introduced legislation allowing US intervention in Ukraine if Russia uses chemical or biological weapons — which I believe is called the “How To False Flag Your Way Into World War Three” Act. These people simply can’t wait for an excuse to get involved and kick off the nuclear lightshow.
In another attempt to ratchet up the tension, Biden and the Gang are gung-ho about stealing stuff from Russians, and they want you to know it.
Why do they want you to know it? Because although the DGB has stated it won’t target Americans, we’re talking about a government agency here — and one tasked with election disinformation. (Remember when the USA PATRIOT Act wasn’t supposed to target Americans either?)
How long will it be before the DGB is telling Paypal who to ban, or telling DHS who is a ‘domestic terrorist’? After the success of Canada shutting down protestors and the increase in vaccine uptake after the mandates, government has decided that threatening your ability to feed your family is a viable (and efficient!) compliance tool. This is the logical next step of the fascist takeover of the country. Agencies with the guns will simply point to the DGB ‘proof’ as they steal your stuff and deplatform you, or worse.
That’s why my rule for banks is the same as the golden rule of crypto:
Hey SV, I just wanted to raise awareness about this bi-partisan US Senate bill that was recently introduced, the "Protecting Kids on Social Media Act" that is currently flying under the radar. While there are many legitimate concerns about children like transgender surgery for minors, the same pretext is being used in numerous bills to kill and/or cripple 1st and 4th amendment rights.
How it's sold:
https://www.schatz.senate.gov/news/press-releases/schatz-cotton-murphy-britt-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-to-help-protect-kids-from-harmful-impacts-of-social-media
The actual bill which I encourage reading since it's relatively short and straightforward:
https://www.schatz.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/protecting_kids_on_social_media_act_2023.pdf
If you read the bill, it will absolutely affect everyone here on Substack and practically the entirety of internet -- public comment systems such as the widely used Disqus, and message boards and old school forums and messaging apps that allow for communication among large groups, ncluding every obscure and niche communication mediums. That's because "social media" is defined as:
The term ‘‘social media platform’’ means an online application or website that—(B) allows users to create accounts to publish or distribute to the public or to other users"
(pg 2, line 20)
and while it lists some exemptions in the following page, such as email, businesses to end-users, teleconferencing with *limited or private distribution* and direct messaging, the bill also makes clear that anything that is "posted publicly or for broad distribution to other users;" is NOT exempt.
They explicitly state in the list of exemptions that these are NOT exempt:
"except for message boards or applications where users can add themselves to messaging groups consisting of large numbers of users"
business to end users are exempt, but dissemination of content by end users? NOT exempt:
"any other function that provides content to end users but does not allow the dissemination of user-generated content."
This one, like others such as the EARN IT act, is a subversive attack on Free Speech as in short, it attempts to protects the kids by literally tracking and identifying everyone online worldwide for any platform that services the US. The issue is always with the age-verification. It criminalizes any form of mass communication without first providing real world ID, thus mandating de-anonymization for everyone online. It also creates a pilot program to provide a federal digital ID managed by the US Secretary of Commerce that would also give them the ability to revoke any platform's permission to operate.
While the bill is clear that proposed federal digital ID pilot program is optional, they highly incentive its use by giving participants a "safe harbor" i.e. a liability shield from complaints. And even when the bill states that they
"Not retain copies of underlying governmental records after verifying the information provided by the user. " (pg 11, line 1)
nothing in there precludes the platform and the government from now recording your real name and DOB that is associated with every single account and user name and alias online, even if they expunge the scans of driver's licenses, passports, social security, etc. You can bet every provider for liability purposes, would keep at least that on file.
Not only is this a barrier to free speech, since it mandates everyone show real government ID before being able to communicate widely, this whole thing creates a privacy and security nightmare, not to mention being technically untenable for independent creators online and decentralized and distributed communications software.
Excellent older essay.