Well, inasmuch as he was posting in this thread, I read his claim as including “…with respect to his Twitter account,” as opposed to a more sweeping declaration.
I could be wrong, of course.
I’m not sure that’s true, but then again, I’m not sure that would be true if someone hacked Lady Gaga’s account, or Justin Bieber’s account. I suspect if that happened, law enforcement might get involved – not because Lady Gaga is the President, mind you, but because prosecutorial discretion is often exercised in high-profile cases to pursue convictions that wouldn’t be sought in more minor incidents, even though the laws violated are the same. In the case of a Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, or RealDonaldTrump hack, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act at 18 U.S.C. § 1030 would likely cover such an act.
It also assumes that the person offering is also honest. It’s barely a worthwhile use of my time to set up and track an honest bet, let alone wonder, if they aren’t positively known to be scrupulously honest in both spirit and letter, if they will either try to weasel out of the bet with wording or just not pay at all.
Stop the hijack about the efficacy of wagering.
If you want to make a wager, offer a wager, or decline a wager, that’s fine. Discussion about the merits of wagering and the reasons for and against, not fine in this thread.
[/moderating]
You’re welcome to read the federal sentencing guidelines reachable through this link. Violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act are covered under § 2B1.1 with a base offense level of 6 (unless the hack was a repeat violation).
Now, the base level is affected by the circumstances of the hack, and this is the feature that makes the Gaga/Bieber/Trump hack eligible for a bigger sentence than hacking Ed Mokeser down the street. § 2B1.1(b) adjusts the guideline based on the financial damage done by the hack. Mokeser’s financial damages, with his 33 followers, will likely be far less than the damages incurred by those whose follower numbers are six or seven figures. “Financial loss,” in these cases, includes:
There’s also a “sophisticated means” enhancement in § 2B1.1(b)(10) and a “special skills” enhancement in § 3B1.3 which would probably apply to any hacker who used more devious means than simply guessing a password – which is the more likely possibility for Mokeser’s breach.
Note that these are not predicated on the Presidency in any way – merely the fact of a high-profile Twitter account and would likely be equally in play if the victim were Bieber, Gaga, or Trump.
An article by one lawyer that comes out with a strongly pro-First Amendment Counts Here position:
Shit–I had a great post then saw Bone’s Mod Note.
So…deleted.
That’s a fascinating question. Perhaps you could go look it up and share the answer with us, unless this was a particularly sad attempt at Socratic questioning and you really don’t care to know*
Otherwise, why are you spending your time in this thread trying to get who oppose your obvious point of view to research your side of the argument and make it for you?
*If it *is *an attempt at Socratic questioning, you’re doing it completely wrong!:eek:
In answer to Bricker’s request for info upthread:
That suggests he’s used both an iPhone and an Android device. No statement about who owns them; the fact the NYT says they are unsecured suggests they are NOT government supplied.
I don’t agree that those are fair inferences, much less the only reasonable ones. As the article states, it is most likely a staff device.
But I’ve lost interest. I think we agree on the basic legal framework (still being widely misunderstood in this thread) and just disagree about what evidence exists to show state action.
Just had to plagiarizer Stephen Colbert’s observation:
You’re not wrong. But he still is (in stating that the resolution of this issue is obvious).
For the record, I don’t oppose his obvious point of view. I am agnostic on this question, for want of a better term. There are arguments on both sides, and ultimately I don’t think existing law adequately addresses the issue. Trump is apparently the first POTUS to use his personal Twitter account to discuss policy; as far as I can tell, Obama only used his personal account for campaigning (and used @POTUS for Official Things).
You’re saying that this issue could have been resolved earlier had Obama used his personal twitter account for policy discussion?* Thanks, Obama!
*I keed.
Volokh has had direct interaction with the party to the lawsuit and has published their and his own subsequent response. It seems to mirror discussion in this thread.
Kentucky governor Matt Bevin is also blocking people on social media. I mentioned this in the “Stupid Republican” thread in The Pit, but I think it’s worth mentioning here, too.
Bevin has said that, to combat the crime problem in Louisville, he wants to organize groups of people to go around crime-ridden neighborhoods, praying.
I’m of the opinion that an elected official shouldn’t block members of his constituency merely for disagreeing with him. It’s one thing if there are threats of violence to him, his co-workers, or his family. I think he’s completely justified in blocking people then. And I’m okay with the authorities looking into those posters. But blocking people merely because they disagree with him is making him into a snowflake, just like Trump.
I’m not sure why the technology changes the legal analysis. What if Dwight Eisenhower told his secretary to simply throw away any mail received from JFK because he did not want to read it. Would that be a First Amendment violation (that is denying JFK the right to petition the government for redress of grievances)? I think obviously not.
But suppose a court held otherwise. What would be the remedy? Trump must unblock everyone on Twitter? Must he read every tweet? Must he accept and read spam? Must the spam filter be turned off on his email account?
I think this falls under the general caselaw of the Petition Clause which has never held that the government must carefully consider every petition received. Nor must the government receive every petition by means I choose to submit it. If I submit a petition to Congress asking for legal child murder, must it be read into the record? Debated? Given a full vote?
I see your overall point: Trump has opened Twitter as a medium for communication. If I follow him and say “Good job, President Trump! Give 'em hell!” he will not block me. If I tell him he is a terrible President, he may arguably block me thereby chilling my First Amendment freedoms and foreclosing only critics from addressing him on his preferred medium.
However, our government is still staffed by people. The remedy for this supposed violation would be untenable if it actually had any substance. Would the court appoint a special master to make sure he actually read the tweet instead of just clicking past it? Would we institute a time limit (President Trump, you must look at the message for at least five seconds, sir!)? What if the tweet was an unintelligible mishmash of nonsense asking him to arrest Orrin Hatch for his complicity in the RFK assassination? Does he have to read every word, or does the fact that it sits in his inbox unread serve some sort of silly meaningless purpose?
The problem here is not that Trump isn’t reading people’s tweets. It’s that he is denying them the opportunity to broadcast them to his audience based solely on viewpoint. In other words, it’s like Eisenhower taking away all the Congressional stationery from Democratic officeholders (though without the separation of powers issue and to a much lesser degree). It does seem like there were a few people arguing that it was the right to petition that was implicated early on, but I agree that any such question is nonjusticiable.
Not exactly. You can create as many accounts as you like and if you are found to harass someone, that may be an issue, but creation of multiple accounts isn’t.
Also incorrect. In the app it is easy to switch back and forth between accounts without logging in and out. However, even if blocked, you can see others replying to a tweet and participate. The blocker just won’t see any replies with the blockee included.
Look, it is ridiculously easy to get around being blocked to the point of being a real issue with twitter if you are being harassed. However, if you create a new account and keep your head down, there is no issue. I loathe Trump, but see this as no different than town hall meetings where questions are limited to select attendees.
Also? He already can narrow who he sees replies from. In your notifications, you can select to only get those from people you follow, so without blocking a single person he can “quiet” voices. And verified accounts can narrow even further to only reading other verified accounts.
Knowing how twitter actually works would help in these conversations.
Not true. If you are blocked by Trump and reply to someone else replying to his original tweet, it still appears in the conversation related to the original tweet. Let me clarify. If someone on here has you blocked, or whatever the term is I forget, you can still participate in the conversation and everyone else can read it. Same as on twitter.