Politics US Edition Volume II

[Zoraptor]

His argument is that lying to the police is not (inherently) a crime in most places outside the US, ie if the police asked you in Finland if you stole a car and you say 'no' do you get arrested and charged with lying to the police along with stealing the car if they think you did it?

If they eventually think you didn't do it or there isn't enough evidence to charge you with the theft, but you lied about where you were at the time do you then get charged with lying to the police?

If the police already had a recording of where you were and ask you anyway, suspecting you'll lie and they can use that lying to charge you with lying, is that OK, or is it entrapment?

At which point do you become a suspect rather than a witness or person of interest if they think you'll lie, they're prepared to catch you lying and lying is itself a crime? If that's the approach the entire interview is an attempt to get you to commit a crime by law enforcement you wouldn't commit otherwise, which is text book entrapment.

In this case the FBI already knew that Flynn lied to Pence because they had a recording. They were clearly expecting him to maintain that lie- they're the FBI after all, not someone raised in a convent who expects everyone to tell the truth- and hence commit a different crime from the one they were ostensibly investigating, all based on them interviewing him and knowing that he'd probably lie. In most places those circumstances would mean that you'd have to explicitly treat the person as a suspect, and be very very careful around entrapment laws. In most places Flynn would (could) be charged with some sort of 'spying' charge, but not with lying to investigators because someone who has committed a crime is expected to lie about it.

(I don't actually have any strong feelings on the matter at all, since it's near pure US domestic stuff, but Skarpen's view is far from unreasonable)

[Malcador]

3 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

If they eventually think you didn't do it or there isn't enough evidence to charge you with the theft, but you lied about where you were at the time do you then get charged with lying to the police?

Doesn't entrapment require incitement to break the law, though.

[Chairchucker]

I think the way I saw entrapment described is that it requires the police to induce someone to break the law where they wouldn't have usually. If a cop asks a drug dealer for meth and the drug dealer gets them meth, not necessarily entrapment. But if the cop asks someone for meth and they're like um I don't actually know how to get meth, but the cop is all like c'mon I heard you were cool, c'mon be a bro and get me some meth, c'mon man, I'll be your girlfriend if you get me meth (ok so in this example the cop is a woman and also I stole the example from Boston Public) then it might be a bit more entrappy.

 

I don't think asking someone to tell the truth and they then lie counts.

[ComradeYellow]

I'm reading a Bloomberg article about how Westerners defeated the evil censorship inducing commies and established a free world and everything was perfect until Trump came along and threatened this perfect "free" world order.

What's funny here is that I have been shadowbanned from Twitter and hard banned from other sources controlled by liberals even Xbox Live has deleted some of my content because it's quite out of line with "freedom and democracy opinion".

Define irony here, you literally cannot make this stuff up.  Lot's of parallels here between the USSR collapse and now what's left of Liberal World Order.

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Doesn't entrapment require incitement to break the law, though.

Here, in a Flynn type situation you'd have to caution him if you suspected he was going to incriminate himself, or if you suspected he'd committed a crime. If you don't, you risk everything being thrown out. Here's a decent summary from the CAB/ CL

I'm only using entrapment in a generic sense, not as big E Entrapment. Of course here lying to police is only a crime under specific circumstances (false complaint, wasting police time, misidentification if driving and a few others) anyway, so Flynn would not be guilty of that. OTOH, if he were really guilty of 'espionage' or plotting to kidnap Gulen his chances of getting off via plea bargain here are almost zero since plea bargains are extraordinarily rare. Best he'd get is minimum sentence for co-operating, not the zero jail time Mueller was recommending.

[Skarpen]

8 hours ago, Elerond said:

"And if by your own words he was lying to avoid charges"

It was comment to this claim that I have never made

Huh? Then who did claim this: 

13 hours ago, Elerond said:

Later on Flynn plead guilty to purposefully lying FBI during that interview when in order to avoid charges of illegally receiving money from foreign power. 

Because is seems to me you did claim this since it's your post and all.

[Chairchucker]

2 hours ago, ComradeMaster said:

What's funny here is that I have been shadowbanned from Twitter and hard banned from other sources controlled by liberals even Xbox Live has deleted some of my content because it's quite out of line with "freedom and democracy opinion".

omg ur so brave keep fighting the good free speech fight

[Skarpen]

3 minutes ago, Chairchucker said:

omg ur so brave keep fighting the good free speech fight

Your corporate masters must be so proud of you.

[Chairchucker]

6 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

Your corporate masters must be so proud of you.

lol ok mate

[ComradeYellow]

24 minutes ago, Chairchucker said:

omg ur so brave keep fighting the good free speech fight

Not sure if sarcasm, but when the powers to be appear to be censoring and silencing dissenting opinions, it's irony and hypocrisy personified.  I mean come on you can't have all these impoverished and demoralized Americans starting any kind of progressive movement or anything.

[Gorth]

I guess different rules applies when you are arrested (something about what you say can and will be used against you), but I suppose he wasn't technically "arrested". I remember bugger all about what went on that long ago.

Anyway, might be old news by now, but the appeal in Pennsylvania got rejected

 

"The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals had been asked to consider a lower court's decision to dismiss the Trump campaign's attempts to invalidate millions of mail-in votes in Pennsylvania.

The lower court ruling had paved the way for the battleground state to certify Joe Biden's win, giving him 20 vital electoral college votes and effectively the presidency.

In giving the appeal court's opinion, Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote: "Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so.""

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-55109168

 

[majestic]

1 hour ago, ComradeMaster said:

Not sure if sarcasm, but when the powers to be appear to be censoring and silencing dissenting opinions, it's irony and hypocrisy personified.  I mean come on you can't have all these impoverished and demoralized Americans starting any kind of progressive movement or anything.

It's just weird coming from a Xi and Putin fanboy like you.  

[Chairchucker]

1 hour ago, ComradeMaster said:

Not sure if sarcasm, but when the powers to be appear to be censoring and silencing dissenting opinions, it's irony and hypocrisy personified.  I mean come on you can't have all these impoverished and demoralized Americans starting any kind of progressive movement or anything.

Censorship is when it's done by the government, not when it's done by an owner of a platform. If I run a gardening podcast and I decide to stop letting someone on my podcast because every time they come on my podcast they say something stupid like that petunias are better than tulips, that's not censorship, because that person is still allowed to start their own podcast with all the hateful petunia related opinions they want. That's just me exercising the rights inherent in me being the person who runs that podcast.

 

Same with Twitter. They're not obliged to give anyone a platform for their stupid opinions. If you want to scream your dumb opinions into the void, start your own website, start a blog or whatever. No one's stopping you from having all the free speech you want, but they're not obliged to host your comments on the website they own.

[ComradeYellow]

47 minutes ago, Chairchucker said:

Censorship is when it's done by the government, not when it's done by an owner of a platform. If I run a gardening podcast and I decide to stop letting someone on my podcast because every time they come on my podcast they say something stupid like that petunias are better than tulips, that's not censorship, because that person is still allowed to start their own podcast with all the hateful petunia related opinions they want. That's just me exercising the rights inherent in me being the person who runs that podcast.

 

Same with Twitter. They're not obliged to give anyone a platform for their stupid opinions. If you want to scream your dumb opinions into the void, start your own website, start a blog or whatever. No one's stopping you from having all the free speech you want, but they're not obliged to host your comments on the website they own.

And you realize most of these entities work very closely in proximity with the government, right?  Intelligence agencies have been all over social platforms and working with their controllers for many years. 

[Skarpen]

1 hour ago, Chairchucker said:

Same with Twitter. They're not obliged to give anyone a platform for their stupid opinions. If you want to scream your dumb opinions into the void, start your own website, start a blog or whatever. No one's stopping you from having all the free speech you want, but they're not obliged to host your comments on the website they own.

That's funny because people are doing exactly that right now with Parler and the corporate stoodges and media pansies are going crazy because of it.

[Chairchucker]

7 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

That's funny because people are doing exactly that right now with Parler and the corporate stoodges and media pansies are going crazy because of it.

I haven't really seen much in the media regarding Parler. What chat I have seen has been on other forums, and has been more or less along the lines of 'it's filled with Nazis or people who are Nazi adjacent who want a safe space to spew their hateful rhetoric without having other people rock up and call them out for their hateful rhetoric.'

 

Also apparently you have to provide your social security details to join up?

 

EDIT: My mistake, apparently it's just to access certain site functions. Also apparently they got hacked, lol. https://twitter.com/contentedindie/status/1331374839647653888

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Chairchucker

[Skarpen]

Nice try stoodge 

Was Parler Hacked? (snopes.com)

[Chairchucker]

It's 'stooge' btw

[Hurlshort]

Echo chambers are all the rage this year, I guess. We will all have our own social media platforms to fit our narrow views of the world , yay!

[ComradeYellow]

13 minutes ago, Hurlshot said:

Echo chambers are all the rage this year, I guess. We will all have our own social media platforms to fit our narrow views of the world , yay!

Well yeah it tends to happen when society becomes polarized.  People tend to gravitate towards others who are more or less on the same page.  It's just there's people out there who dislike both Trump and libtards alike and have no political home in the U.S. at the moment.  I simply do not subscribe to either major party and believe we need a 3rd party to cement the (un)Holy Trinity.

[Chairchucker]

7 minutes ago, ComradeMaster said:

Well yeah it tends to happen when society becomes polarized.  People tend to gravitate towards others who are more or less on the same page.  It's just there's people out there who dislike both Trump and libtards alike and have no political home in the U.S. at the moment.  I simply do not subscribe to either major party and believe we need a 3rd party to cement the (un)Holy Trinity.

Well you're gonna need to do something about that voting system y'all got there. 

[Malcador]

2 hours ago, Chairchucker said:

I haven't really seen much in the media regarding Parler. What chat I have seen has been on other forums, and has been more or less along the lines of 'it's filled with Nazis or people who are Nazi adjacent who want a safe space to spew their hateful rhetoric without having other people rock up and call them out for their hateful rhetoric.'

 

Also apparently you have to provide your social security details to join up?

 

EDIT: My mistake, apparently it's just to access certain site functions. Also apparently they got hacked, lol. https://twitter.com/contentedindie/status/1331374839647653888

 

Sounds more like Voat.  Often sadly people most zealous about free speech and rules seem to just want to yell racist nonsense

[BruceVC]

5 hours ago, majestic said:

It's just weird coming from a Xi and Putin fanboy like you.  

QFT, I like Comrade but there is a real irony with someone espousing the autocratic states of China and Russia and then complaining about censorship from the likes of Twitter and FB 

These companies only ban people who are in contravention of their very relaxed policies around acceptable content and things you can and cannot say. So I wonder what offensive comments Comrade made that got him banned because the fault more than likely is with him and what he said ?

 

4 hours ago, ComradeMaster said:

And you realize most of these entities work very closely in proximity with the government, right?  Intelligence agencies have been all over social platforms and working with their controllers for many years. 

No I didnt know that because that is an exaggeration and not true , these global IT companies are almost all listed companies and they independent from the US government. In fact over the last couple years companies like FB, Google and Twitter   have been IMO unfairly vilified and hurled before numerous US and EU congressional hearings to respond  to questions " how are you going to stop people making offensive comments and posting fake news " ....so now its the companies fault somehow because some people dont know how to engage using basic decorum and manners

And then Apple even still refuses  to help the FBI crack iPhones that belong to terrorists ( obviously I dont agree with the author of the link below )

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-22/apple-still-won-t-help-the-fbi-break-into-iphones-good 

So its the opposite of what you suggesting, these social media companies get criticized by many governments including the USA .....so there is no " great, close working relationship " 

 

[BruceVC]

5 hours ago, Chairchucker said:

Censorship is when it's done by the government, not when it's done by an owner of a platform. If I run a gardening podcast and I decide to stop letting someone on my podcast because every time they come on my podcast they say something stupid like that petunias are better than tulips, that's not censorship, because that person is still allowed to start their own podcast with all the hateful petunia related opinions they want. That's just me exercising the rights inherent in me being the person who runs that podcast.

 

Same with Twitter. They're not obliged to give anyone a platform for their stupid opinions. If you want to scream your dumb opinions into the void, start your own website, start a blog or whatever. No one's stopping you from having all the free speech you want, but they're not obliged to host your comments on the website they own.

This is a very good post and articulates nicely the difference between government censorship and when a private company bans you or censors things people may say 

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

Sounds more like Voat.  Often sadly people most zealous about free speech and rules seem to just want to yell racist nonsense

There's been a handful of attempts to fork reddit and twitter that fall apart like that, Gab was something similar I think.

There is something to be said about private companies having too much control over communication and using it to silence views they don't like, but when it's coming from folks who are otherwise fine with companies doing whatever they want or censorship it's kind of hard to take seriously.