Webmasters...be careful what you allow on your sites.

[HereSince1628]

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/03/1442239

The U.S. Government Wanted ‘To Make An Example Out of Me’: Young
Webmaster Heads to Prison for Political Website

By Amy Goodman and the staff of Democracy Now!
September 3, 2003—The 20 year-old Webmaster of a California-based site called raisethefist.com is to begin a yearlong prison term today. And when he gets out of prison next year, he will be banned from associating with anyone who wants to “change the government in any way.”

<Snip>

“ did not author the material in question,” said Merlin Chowkwanyun, an investigative journalist who has closely monitored Austin’s case. “He had a website and he offered free space to basically anyone who asked for it. If an activist asked for free space, Sherman would grant them an account, which would allow them to upload whatever they wanted to that. And so that's what the person who authored this material did, got some free space on Sherman's server, uploaded the material in question. Sherman provided a link to that on his front page.”

Austin says, “All I had on my website was a link to another website that wasn't associated with my website. On that other website, there was information about protests and things like security culture, and a small portion of the website that was stuff about explosives.”

[PsychoDad]

1. WTF....

What happened to America? Remember the first admindment? and....
"And when he gets out of prison next year, he will be banned from associating with anyone who wants to “change the government in any way.”
Where's this? China? Cuba? Saudi Arabia? Pakistan? Nope, Thats here in the good old US of A.

How sickining. Makes me want to blow u...... Off some steam, yeah thats it, blow off some steam.
Better watch what we all say.. It's not like we live in a free country or anything.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

8. Welcome to the United Soviet States of Bush

We'll be just like Communist China in a few more years, except that they will have all of our jobs!

[madrchsod]

11. ya but who put the bill

on a defense bill??? it wasn`t bush`s clowns-it was one of our clowns....

[HereSince1628]

12. The law was sponsored by Feinstein and signed by Clinton!

Which brings to mind the law of unintended consequences...

and the phrase..."Laws don't abuse civil rights, prosecutors do."

<Snip>
"....According to the tech news site CNet, Austin is the first person charged under this law, which has been criticized by First Amendment scholars. The law came into effect in 1997, after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) added it onto a defense-spending bill. Supporters of Austin have repeatedly noted that similar information has long appeared on other websites and in libraries. There is even a mirror of raisethefist.com run by a computer science professor at the Carnegie Mellon University. "

[HFishbine]

2. Terrible

This is astounding. The guy didn't even post the bomb-making material on his site, he just provided a link to another site that contained, among other things, bomb making instructions.

And to disallow his “associating with any person or group that seeks to change the government in any way be that environmental, social justice, political, economic, etc.” is beyond belief.

I guess that's what we've come to: criminalize the opposition.

[bleedingheart]

4. I guess librarians should be in prison for having books about

bomb-making or potential chemical reactions in their library...and if they don't have a book ...perhaps they have a book that has a reference to a book that might have a reference to another subversive book.

[HereSince1628]

6. I am sure that day is coming...

imagine the trouble a librarian will be in for getting the "wrong" interlibrary loan for the "wrong" person.

[Nlighten1]

3. What a load of shit.

This has to be unconstitutional.

[G_j]

5. associating with anyone who wants to "change the government in any way."

like Democrats, Greens, even Republcans?

[HereSince1628]

7. Don't include Republicans...they want to change it in EVERY way n/t

.

[G_j]

10. too true, LOL n/t

[madrchsod]

9. well it`s really

nice to hear that another stupid assed democrat decided to take away more of our rights.gee i only thought it was the terrible republicans who did these things..gee when conyers gets his bill passed we`ll all be headed to the federal courts..thanks john and dianne- you`re real americans.....

[TreasonousBastard]

13. Busted for including a link!

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

[Sick of Bullshit]

14. To paraphrase Pollyanna: Every day, in every way,

we're looking like freekin' Nazi Germany!

[ProudDad]

15. General thoughts regarding this obcenity

Did anyone notice that this kid's black? Not an incidental part of this atrocious denial of his civil rights, I'm sure. this is still a hugely racist country.

He was threatened with 20 years in prison under the mis-named "Patriot" act and forced to take the deal in the first place. Then he got a racist, fascist judge who double-crossed him and the prosocution.

The person who posted the information wasn't even charged. Don't try to tell me this wasn't an example of right-wing politics and racism.

Have you seen his site. It's very effective. Again, another reason why he was singled out for persocution.

Action possibility. When you're looking around at right wing sites and find any with information about any kind of weaponry, run "whois" on the url and report them and their host ISP to the FBI.

I'm so angry about this. Even in the midst of Viet-Nam and the worst days of Nixon; those bastards wouldn't DARE pull shit like this! It's time to pull the plug on these fuckin fascists! Anything to get rid of the bush/asscroft gestapo.

From definition of Fascism:
(Fascism encouraged militarism and nationalism, organizing the country along hierarchical authoritarian lines ) Sounds like what we've got, eh?

[proud patriot]

16. Excellent Action Idea

I think this it should also go to the inspector General as a back
up :hi:

[Woodstock]

17. He would have fought it if not for the Patriot Act

Earlier this year Austin pleaded guilty and was sentenced last month to a year in jail and then three years probation. If he had not pleaded guilty he could have faced 20 years in prison under anti-terrorism provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

“I wanted to go to trial,” said Austin. “But as I kept resisting the plea, we later found out that a terrorism enhancement was applicable to what I was being charged with. And what that is is, basically, if I were to go to trial and get convicted, the judge can add up to a potential 20 years on to my sentence. So now I would be facing a maximum of a potential 23, 24 years when I went to trial. So then I thought about it and I waited it out and I didn't feel like it was worth it…I didn't really want to martyr myself so I decided I was going to try to take a plea bargain.”

[oasis]

18. kick