Decius wrote:

Jello wrote:
Boingboing indicating that this site had stories about sex with children... I'm not exactly feeling like championing this as an example of the new war on pron, myself.

Civil liberties aren't about stuff that you like. Stuff that you like doesn't need to be protected. Freedom of speech is about speech you don't like. As I said, from what I've read this site wasn't the sort of thing that you'd really want to read. In fact I'm sure that there are some really bad people associated with it. That is very much not important. It doesn't matter who, it matters why. What is important is that they've raided someone for writing stories. Stories don't exploit people. They are expressions of thought. Even if you really really don't like them, they are expressions of thought.

If you beleive that people ought to have the freedom to determine for themselves what they want to think, and to express those thoughts if they wish, then this case ought to be a problem for you. Its a litmus test, so to speak. If you don't think that these people ought to be able to do what they are doing, then you really don't beleive that people ought to have the freedom to determine their own thoughts. If you don't have the stomach to oppose this, then you don't really get what freedom of speech is all about.

It ought to be obvious that right out of the gate the FBI isn't going to start rounding up beat poets. They haven't enforced these laws in years. They are going to start with some cases that they think are easy wins. Furthermore, this site may have been valuable because the owner seems to indicate that they may have had personally identifying information about members. Its a big laundry list of people to check out. Maybe they'll find a real criminal on the list.

But put this in context. I don't mean to raise this site as a poster child for whats wrong with this sort of effort. However, its worth noting that this has actually started, and its worth noting where it is headed. They will build upon initial successes to pursue more ambitious cases. This case creates a framework wherein communities of people who are merely using the internet to communicate thoughts may find their computer systems confiscated and the government may be able to go through the membership lists and inprison the owners. Because of what they think. That framework is a problem, and if it is allowed to take hold and blossom it threatens all kinds of things that you DO like, including sites like this one.

The next time Vile shows up and spews a bunch of intentionally offensive crap at someone he doesn't like do I need to be worried that the FBI will shut the site down? No, but that day may be coming, and it makes sense to be aware that it is much closer now then it used to be.

First they came for the communists...

I agree with you that it is wrong that this site was shutdown. It's an affront to freedom of speech. That being said, it seems like every time I broach the topic of the administration going after adult porn with a conservative, they say that they're really going after kid porn. In this case, it seems that the site was hosting pedophile eroticism. I think I'll have a hard time convincing many people that the site should still be around because of that. Even self-proclaimed champions of free speech.

To be honest, I posted this link on a popular off topic web board, which has a hardcore erotica forum, in addition to many others and where there are frequent personal attacks. I posted the link in the erotica forum as a warning to its members and to the site owner, and encouraged them to write their congress-persons. Then I took it down, because I read the bit about the kids. I would have been called a sicko, and I really didn't care for that. I didn't want to be associated with the link. I didn't wanna get googled about it. Which is what I mean when I say that I am uncomfortable championing this as an example of injustice.

But hey, I agree with you in principle. And I'm not afraid to say it here. I think there will be other cases that don't involve minor-eroticism, very soon. Like the porn store article linked on boingboing, and the suicidegirls case.

RE: The Bush Administration's porn war has begun