If you’re wondering how much right-wingers truly hate America, you need look no further than Republican-sponsored Oregon Senate Bill 1534, which would create the felony crime of “aggravated solicitation” for, you know, tweeting…
(2) A person commits the crime of aggravated solicitation if, with the intent of causing two or more other persons to engage in specific conduct constituting a crime, the person uses an electronic communication to command or solicit other persons to engage in that conduct at a specific time and at a specific location.
(3) In a prosecution under this section, the state need not prove that the electronic communication was received by specific persons or that the defendant intended for specific persons to engage in the criminal activity.
That’s right, if you use Twitter, or Facebook, or a blog, or email to help organize, or even just let people know about some event, where some crime is ultimately committed, you could be found guilty of a felony, punishable by as much as 20 years in prison. And prosecutors don’t even need to prove that anybody actually read your tweet, or that you ever intended for a crime to be committed.
For example, let’s say you tweeted (or retweeted) “Come join me at today’s Occupy Portland protest at Chapman Square”, where some folks were ultimately arrested for misdemeanor trespassing. Under SB-1534, you could be charged with a Class C felony!
More after the jump…
Sure, the bill is DOA in Oregon’s Democratically controlled Senate Judiciary Committee, and likely unconstitutional to boot (it is one thing to criminalize yelling “fire” in a crowded move theater, it’s another thing to criminalize tweeting “Hey, let’s go to the movies”), but the very fact that a full third of the Oregon State Senate would attach their names to such an offensively anti-free speech piece of legislation, illustrates just how quickly our nation could slide into fascism.
This is the type of legislation that dictators would use to crack down on and repress an Arab Spring. No American legislator who advocates for such a stunningly anti-American piece of legislation should ever be taken seriously again. And yet, they are.
PROCEDURAL GRAND-STANDING. YAWN.
Let them do it and then break their own laws come campaign time.
Thank you, dearest Washingtonian, for bringing this to our attention. We Oregonians take these matters very seriously and will look into the matter.
A full third of the Oregon State Senate would probably throw in their lot with the Confederacy if we could find enough flying DeLoreans to take them back to 1861.
I think you need to improve your reading comprehension skills.
It says “intent of causing two or more other persons to engage in specific conduct constituting a crime”. 1) You have to solicit activity that constitutes a crime — not just any old conduct where crime happens to occur in proximity to the conduct solicited, and 2) You have to have intent. And intent is always much harder to prove than conduct. So not only do you have to be able to show that someone asked someone to go rape, pillage, and plunder, but you have to show that they had the intent to actually have someone rape, pillage, and plunder. This, btw, was explained by the proponent of the law in the Oregonian article fairly succinctly.
Seems like good law.
After reading their bill, they are outlawing advertising ! Good for them.
Goldy, starting with the line “If you’re wondering how much right-wingers truly hate America”, you lose half your audience right off the bat.
I think by saying “right wingers” you probably mean “Republicans” who, in case you didn’t know, want to SAVE America and it’s Constitution. They want less government in their lives. They want to stop the speeding train of a 13 trillion dollar debt from crashing and burning in a default.
I think you are either narrow-minded, or ignorant, or both.
All voters who read this, if you care about America, think long and hard about your vote in 2012.
More of the same will get you more of the same (or the last 4 years, just two to three times worse)
God bless America.
Wake up and smell the roses, buttercup.
The bill’s sponsors, WHITSETT; Senators ATKINSON, FERRIOLI,
GEORGE, JOHNSON, KRUSE, MORSE, OLSEN, STARR, TELFER, VERGER,
WINTERS are all knuckle-dragging, backward-looking, job-killing Republican trogdolytes. All of them should be defeated by the 99% crowd in their districts come November. They represent only the 1% crowd.
Ah fuck you, Whaler. And fuck your imaginary god.