The decline of Facebook and the chilling effect of social media

Politics and religion
750

Defining “harm to US interests” can be very, very tricky. Lots of people here think voting for Trump is contrary to US interests. That’s the problem. (But yes, trading top-secret stuff is a well-defined exception. Oppo research on a candidate is not top secret).

An impingement of First Amendment rights needs to survive a strict scrutiny analysis to be constitutionally valid, which is an extremely hard standard to meet when you’re talking about chilling communications by media outlets with all foreign nationals about elections.

751

Probably, but one of the things we have learned in the last couple of years are that many things we consider best practices or precedents aren’t actually codified anywhere. But you’d think there’d be a general catch-all that would apply.

752

If I was making the rules, I would assume all foreign intervention in elections would cause harm. Better safe than sorry and all that.

753

North Korea has a similar attitude towards speech with foreign nationals! It’s not a great approach for them. It seems like we should limit not communications with foreign nationals, but financial contributions for electioneering purposes from them. It raises less First Amendment concerns.

754

Was this to me?

Hmm let’s see.
“foreign intervention in elections”.
vs. “speech with foreign nationals”.

Fight!

755

Whether we classify a meeting to discuss oppo research on Clinton with foreign nationals as mere “speech with foreign nationals” or “foreign intervention in elections” is critical to determining whether a crime occurred here.

756

I probably came in too late as the next question would be “What constitutes foreign intervention during an election?”

Doh! Knew that one was coming!

Better to be safe. Nuke them from orbit.

757

In other words take a seriously conservative stance here, erroring on the side of caution, 1st amendment be damned. I mean this is about Red Dawn.

758

So if I was arguing this in front of the supreme court, (and I look exactly like my little icon thingy but a lot angrier, and Anklebiter is my real name), I would play the national security card. Government folks love that and I bet I could win.

759

The reason you aren’t able to reveal classified data, is because you have previously signed a non disclosure agreement with the government.

When you are punished for leaking classified data, you are being punished for failing to meet the obligations you previously agreed to, not for the act of expressing yourself.

If someone with access to that data leaked it to you, they would be the one committing the crime. You wouldn’t be obligated to protect that data, since you hadn’t signed the NDA.

760

IATotallyNAL, but… are we sure that’s right or is it a legal theory? I’ve heard lots of debate on the matter, but then again people like to debate if the earth is round.

761

I’m almost certain on that.

762

Wow. Put’s a whole new spin on joining a game beta. Thems some serious business there.

So, If some superspy gave me all the Nuclear codes and I didn’t sign the NDA, I’m free to publish them on Reddit?

763

Yeah, i think so? Just like if someone gives classified data to the press, the press is free to publish it.

The press isn’t the one committing the crime, the source who gave it to them is.

When you get clearance, you are trained in the rules for handling data, and you agree to be bound by those rules, under penalty of various statutes.

764

Reading the classified disclosure statutes, there is no carve-out or exception for people who have not signed NDA’s. Flat-out, disclosing classified information, while knowing it’s classified, is a crime. : https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798

However, the reason the press is pretty much impossible to charge is that courts have interpreted the First Amendment as basically a shield against prosecuting the press for most leaks like this. In other words, applying the statute against the press would violate the First Amendment in many cases (I assume it would be OK to prosecute if we’re talking about, say, critical information that could kill millions if disclosed in an article – it’s something of a balancing test).

This is another of those situations where the constitution supersedes statute, as far as I can tell.

765

Yeah, the first amendment essentially protects all of that, because it’s clearly not the intention of the first amendment to protect speech, except speech the government says threaten it. If anything, speech is protected specifically from the government trying to decide what is ok.

Also, I’m pretty sure that this does not only apply to the press. It applies to everyone.

The reason that the NDA you sign when you get clearance is important, is that you are intentionally agreeing to certain rules, and are forfeiting any normally held first amendment rights in that narrow regard.

EDIT:
Upon further reflection, i suspect that in certain cases, you could be prosecuted under things like the espionage act, if the information you leaked didn’t really constitute any actual expression.

The first amendment protections are generally held as more important than virtually anything, including national security, according to NYT v US. However not all speech constitutes an expression.

In the case of nuclear codes, you wouldn’t really be making any sort of meaningful expression. You would simply be releasing data.

In cases like the Pentagon papers, they released classified data with the purpose of drawing attention to what the government was doing, which elevated it to an act of expression.

Still though, for people with clearance, they have signed away those rights. So the actual whistleblowers are absolutely able to be prosecuted under those statutes. Folks like Snowden, even if he was trying to shine light on what the government was doing, was directly violating agreements he had made.

766

Do candidates sign something like that in order to run for president? Do they sign anything? Seems prudent to have them sign something like, “will not knowingly communicate with foreign nationals in any way that might benefit their election.”

Of course I’m a lawyer, so for sure that verbiage could be used as is.

767

I assume that they minimally sign the same documents that anyone else with clearance of that level signs.

768

Huh. Would be interesting to know exactly what they sign. Can’t have loopholes like the first amendment letting them get away with getting the election edge through interaction with a foreign entity with a nefarious agenda.

769

Oh, i misread what you said. I thought you were talking about what they sign to get access to the classified briefings.

In terms of signing stuff to not interact with foreign nationals, i think that everyone just assumed they wouldn’t do the stuff Trump did.