From law.com: In attempting to maintain their anonymity, bloggers have claimed protection under the First Amendment. There is a rich history in the United States of protecting anonymous free speech. Long before the days of the Web and blogging, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, among many others, frequently used pseudonyms in authoring various papers assailing their political opponents. More recently, the Supreme Court of the United States in Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960) struck down a local ordinance that required the distributor of handbills to disclose the author's identity.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Times Newsweekly editorial on blogging
From law.com: In attempting to maintain their anonymity, bloggers have claimed protection under the First Amendment. There is a rich history in the United States of protecting anonymous free speech. Long before the days of the Web and blogging, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, among many others, frequently used pseudonyms in authoring various papers assailing their political opponents. More recently, the Supreme Court of the United States in Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960) struck down a local ordinance that required the distributor of handbills to disclose the author's identity.
18 comments:
Blogging kind of equalizes the smoke filled room now, doesn't it?
Question # 1 for this attack editorial: Why is it anonymous?
Question # 2: "Sickos get a charge out of making threats, an act that has prompted some authorities to propose a blogger code of conduct to clean up the quality of online discourse." Isn't this very sentence of threat of censorship? Censorship threats from a newspaper? A newspaper calling on the "authorities" to censor Blogs they dislike?
It's been said that the Federal Gov't routinely examines e-mail that contains certain "trigger words" i.e. "bomb", "nerve gas" etc. and will "snoop" certain sites , for a short fixed period of time until they have determined that their use doesn't pose a threat to national security.
There was a recent program on TV that mentioned a Gov't computer program that can scan ??? the entire contents of the Library of Congress (I believe they said) in 15 minutes!
Other than that....blog on....as is your 1st Ammendment protected right....anonymously!
Question # 3: If the Times Newsweekly (Ridgewood Times) actually worked at covering local events and controversies with even a tiny degree of honest skepticism, wouldn't that render the Blogs meaningless? No yellow journalism, no libels, just some hard, intelligent, complete coverage of local concerns. Use the elected officials' "press releases" as scrap paper. Attend the various "photo ops" and interview the ordinary citizens who attend and publish their comments. Interview the officials with hard, pointed, insider questions. The officials are not sacred cows. If they are here to collect money from taxpayers and various lobbyists while betraying their constituents, say so. Expose these parasites. That's the purpose of the First Amendment! It wasn't written so you could sell plumbing and real estate ads (and quarter-page plugs for the parasite class). If the officials cry at your newfound toughness, publish that and mock these fools!
Times Newsweekly and the rest of you? You're just cheap lays. You don't even compete. You probably could change. You'd flourish beyond imagination if you did. But, it is frightening to have to crawl out of those cozy pockets. So, we expect no improvement. Proof? Your readers are our readers, now. Ta ta!
When you control a people, you first must ensure that they have no other source of information.
For example, look at the destruction of Dutch Kills and LIC. When you are isolated from anything else, you will make the wrong choices for your community, or have no opportunity at getting any help to fight the city juggernaut.
Crap is something the clubhouse does not control. Unvarnished information to the public, an unfettered opportunity to people to meet, and second eye on what is really going on.
The machine will have to destroy it, or face a gradual death as it builds-up a loss of the public's confidence and credibility.
The difference btw our founding fathers and the anonymous writers on the queens crapper is that the founding fathers were not violating the personal rights of any individuals. Instead, the founding fathers were fighting against a tyranical, oppressive government. Hiding behind anonymity to promote libel and slander is not in any way similar to what our founders did. Claiming similarity to our fathers is probably causing them all to turn in their graves. This is a silly cite that I've now read for the first and last time.
To the previous poster:
Did they ever let you out of the clubhouse to read Silence Dogood?
These are indeed, the times to try men's souls.
As a matter of fact, our 'founding fathers' were quite in the minority in the colonies. A third of the public was indifferent, a third were loyalists for the crown, and a third were, well, crappie types.
History, as any one of us who regularly reads for what passes for 'offical' local news these days, know that it is written from the perspective of the owner of the printing press.
Come to think of it, look what happened to Francis Lewis. Now there is a patriot that got a raw deal.
You want to talk history?
The point here is that while the rest of the country was fighting to be free, loyalist Queens was firmly under the boot of Britain. Most citizens had sworn an oath of allegiance to the crown. Even then propaganda caused the populace to turn a blind eye to obvious wrongs, the landscape was being despoiled by foreign mercenaries, ice cream money had its sweet charms, and cozying up to the supposed rich and powerful was the order of the day.
That is until George and the boys marched down Broadway one fine day a few years later. Then, indeed, “the world had turned upside down.”
Just remember that this is the queens newsweekly that carries bill o'reilly's weekly column...so the editors might've taken a few lessons in the art of verbal attack from the good old falafel king..windbag billo
anyone got a luffa..?
Hey...."silly cite"....learn to spell....it's SITE!
Yeah...."silly cite"....and how come after all of your bravado BS you remain anonymous?
"Silly cite", Anonymous: What "personal rights" of any "individuals" are violated by Queens Crap?
Oh. You just said that to make your anonymous comment sound important. OK.
"Silly cite": can you please cite the libel or slander you find on this site?
Oh. You can't. You just said that to make your anonymous comment sound important. OK.
"Silly cite": may we please have your permission to continue exercising our right under the First Amendment to petition our government to redress our grievances? A government that we believe is tyranical and oppressive?
Please grant our wish. Please?
Why would you want to exercise your rights? The machine exmployes legal experts and media experts and experts of all kind who know how to do things very very well.
Its all so neat and tidy.
No need to leave exercising rights up to the amatuers, do we?
Things just get messy. The public gets upset. Just a bad scene, man!
The local newspapers have abdicated their mission to provide responsible journalism to the communities they serve. The young reporters that work on their staff have been reduced to stenographers. Investigative journalism is probably the province of the dailies so the weeklies can only fill their papers with politician’s press releases, photo – ops, and their advertising. They are part of the problem with the democratic process in Queens because there is only one party in Queens and they like it that way. Whether Queens Crap is full of crap or crappy is distributing the unvarnished truth it has become a very popular blog. The anonymity that it provides is like a 311 call or the ballot booth and definitely raises the question – what are our elected officials and commissioners of our agencies doing for the paycheck that they collect from the taxpayers.
the last place you should want your local newspaper is in the pocket of a politician.
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