Would you like some Orwell with your coffee?

[lapsedmodernist]

To my peers on lj given to political hollering
Here is an educational post for all of us:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/anniesj/331112.html

Comments

[never-the-less.livejournal.com]

good lord. i'm going to have to remove lj user="FBI" from my friends list.

no really, this is scary. not nec. surprising, but scary.

Breaking my silence to say this

[lurkgi.livejournal.com]

It's a terrifying story, but I'm saddened by the highly paranoid conclusions everyone seems to have reached.

Anniesj claims Homeland Security can bust anyone for any type threatening comment against any government official, no matter how absurd or ludricous. This is simply not true - but clearly they do have the power to make intimidating visits and until someone challenges this it's going to continue. I hardly expect her to be a martyr for livejournal, but it's sad to see the government force someone to grovel over what was obviously not a threat. Clearly the visit was meant to intimidate and it worked.

Plus recent rulings about net privacy and so on have hindered the power of Homeland Security.

More depressing is the sudden "ooohhh, watch what you say about ANYONE, they might do something or take it the wrong way." Having had to deal with a troll who likes to call the cops, I can say they only get the power you give them. I fled the net because he was crank calling and willing to pull pranks like signing me up for junk mail, but really there was little he could actually do besides piss me off. In the past he did try to give someone grief and got his ass spanked by the law.

So to watch folks be frightened into censoring morbid and nasty humor - that's just sad.

The Net ain't Vegas, but more of what goes on here usually stays on here except in the most extreem of circumstance.

Dear god, this government is out of control.