Yes, yes, but the thread under discussion was about Saudi Arabia, and surely you know by now that Americans have to go out of their way to keep the Saudis happy? The US only pushes its democratic values onto people who are of no use to it; the nation that gave us 90% of the September 11 hijackers deserves better treatment than that!
hmmm… I’ll stir the pot a little here 
It may be possible that the Chicago Reader can in fact be subject to laws in other countries, providing a citizen/corporation etc in another country gets riled enough to take them to court. This was evidenced recently by an Australian man who has successfully elected to sue Dow Jones in Australia, under Australian law, for an internet article he considered to be defamatory that was published in the US. See here and here for more info.
Needless to say, this precedent has worried quite a few people/companies that may also be subject to similar situations.
the thread had to be closed we ALL could have been fined, jailed or worse
to see the legal reason look up
Amateur Action BBS Case
and
Sable
Communications of Cal., Inc. v. F.C.C.
This result is supported by the Supreme Court’s decision in Sable
Communications of Cal., Inc. v. F.C.C. where the Court rejected Sable’s
argument that it should not be compelled to tailor its dial-a-porn
messages to the standards of the least tolerant community. 492 U.S. 115, 125-26
(1989). The Court recognized that distributors of allegedly obscene
materials may be subjected to the standards of the varying communities
where they transmit their materials, citing Hamling, and further noted that
Sable was “free to tailor its messages, on a selective basis, if it so chooses,
to the communities it chooses to serve.” Id. at 125. The Court also found no
constitutional impediment to forcing Sable to incur some costs in
developing and implementing a method for screening a customer’s location and
“providing messages compatible with community standards.”
i don’t know which least tolerant community we will have to use Saudi Arabia or Utah 
Heh. I don’t think we imagined that there would end up being a thread for just about every single ghoddamned thread closure, banning or other decision we make. The idea was to keep the stuff complaining about the administration out of the other forums, so that those members who just wanted to eradicate ignorance could do so in peace.
What’s perplexing to me is the dearth of emails. Email preceded the www by several years. Does no one know how to use it? Why always a thread?
So in this instance, for example, it wasn’t against the rules or anything for you to open a thread. But why not email? You know what’s gonna happen when you open a Pit thread instead of emailing. I gotta tell 'ya, as a mod (but not on behalf of the mods), thread after thread after thread gets pretty damn tiring.
That reads snippier than I wrote it. Pretend there’s about a million smiley faces in it – I really was just asking you, along with venting a little frustration in general (as opposed to in this case specifically).
UncleBeer, what kind of libertarian kowtows to the barbaric religious tyranny of the Saudis?
Hmm, so if a given act is illegal in a given jurisdiction, the SDMB will not be a party to it or give any support to it in any way? Well, I plan to violate Virginia’s sodomy law tonight–twice if I have the energy.
But seriously, I wonder what UncleBeer’s reaction would have been to a Chinese poster describing his participation in the decidely illegal events of June 4, 1989. Would he have closed a thread giving a minute-by-minute description of Tiananmen Square?
Not all laws are worthy of respect. Some governments should be defied.
Parenthetically, I may be a big ol’ 'mo, but I stand with my hetero brothers in defending their God-given right to look at nekkid boobies.
Manhattan
Well, yes, I take your point, I can see how it would. However, I think Dewey was correct to start a thread, at least in this instance. You should send an e-mail when you want to know something in particular, e.g., “Why was Czarcasm banned?”
However, if you want to discuss something, you should start a thread. "Czarcasm was banned for refering to Manhattan as ‘Banhattan.’ I disagree with this because . . . " That’s what Dewey was doing and I think correctly. It’s obvious that “Don’t ever do anything that violates any law anywhere” is an unworkable standard. It benefits everyone, The Reader, mods and admins included, to have an open and constructive discussion about how to apply it.
I, at least, am not sniping at the mods. I recognize that these things are judgement calls. It’s just that a thoughtful discusion may provide food for thought and make those judgements better.
Right on, brother. God is cool. I stand by your right to look at, um, guy parts. Dammit, even on the internet, where I have it on good authority from istara there may be some “questionable material”. Who knew? I, of course, only use the internet for the Straight Dope and Google.
Manny: was going to respond to your post but then saw that Truth Seeker said everything I would have said, only better. 
You know, wrangling about the administration of the SDMB (which I actually appreciate, regardless of what I think) aside, I was wondering about this very issue.
Even though it’s unlikely in the extreme that such a case would be prosecuted, is it AT ALL possible for a website to be held criminally liable for facilitating the breaking of anti-sodomy laws, either here or abroad? This is something I’m actually quite curious about…
Just out of curiosity, gobear, what do you think of jury nullification? I don’t believe I’ve seen you post on those threads, though I could be wrong…
As for me, though, there’s something about this statement that makes me uncomfortable, though I’m not sure I can put it into words right now. Maybe I’ll post later if I can figure out how to express it…
Beagle I am so sorry to have revealed that it’s not all photos of kittens and online scrabble!
But there is a Santa Claus
That’s fine. Great. I’m happy for you and your partner. I hope ya had a great time. However, if I see a thread here wherein you are soliciting a partner, I’m gonna close it.
This is also good and fine. I agree—in principle. Just don’t do it on the goddamned message board. For instance, I think the gun bans in Australia, Cananda and most of Europe and Asia are stupid, too. But I wouldn’t expect to be permitted to start a thread here telliing the citizens of those countries how to find guns on the black market—guns which may help the subjects/citizens of those countries overthrow their oppressive (assuming those people consider their government oppressive) regime.
No. Because this person isn’t “actively soliciting advice, the provision of which, will enable him to break the duly constituted laws of a sovereign nation.” Exactly as I said when I closed the thread and just as I repeated above. (As I also said, I thought I explained this when I closed the thread and as you should now see, I indeed did.) This conforms wholly with our policy of allowing discussions of past drug use to take place, while locking threads wherein people are seeking information that will be used to break drug laws—the U.S version of which I consider “not worthy of respect.”
Do y’all unnerstand the distinctions now? A) Active solicitation of information used to break the law is prohibited and B) if you must discuss it, don’t fucking do it here. This is rather simple and I wish y’all would quit trying to portray it as anything but.
Fine. How about a Chinese Falun Gong adherent who wants to find fellow worshippers? Will the board shut him down?
Or the Cuban guy who wants to know where he can get a boat to Florida?
Or the North Korean who wants help making the trip through China to South Korea (see this week’s National Review for a vivd description of that harrowing trip)?
Or a guy who lives in any of the above regimes who wants to know about proxies just so he can get some damned unfiltered news once and awhile?
That was on page one and we are finishing page two. Hmmmm.
Personally I find it very disgusting that anyone would just blindly respect “the law” without regard to the morality of the law. All laws are not made equal and those who would support laws which are immoral are to be condemned. There is a difference between laws which you do not agree with and laws which are immoral and against basic human rights.
Laws enforcing apartheid in SouthAfrica, laws sentencing Jews in Nazi Germany, laws oppressing dissidents in communist dictatorships, are all immoral and against human rights and no decent person should provide any help in enforcing them, much less when there is no risk in not doing so. It is a shameful thing to do.
But I agree we should finish our drinks and go home as it is past closing time.
sailor, suppose my invisible pink rhinocerous sect firmly believes that the U.S. government is an oppressive regime and must be overthrown. Would you post those do-it-yourself neutron bomb plans for me?
Morality isn’t necessarily an objective thing.
Desmos: So what? If we can’t draw a distinction between zealots looking to nuke Washington D.C. and oppressed sects who just want to practice their faith in peace without hurting anyone, then our moral compasses need serious adjustment.
Dewey, did I not say earlier I refused to get caught up in deciding the limits of any individual case? Once that starts, you people will come up with hundreds of examples with thousands of nuances, millions of caveats, resulting in billions of permutations. I won’t be dragged into playing that game. Y’all will just have to use your best judgment as to what’s acceptable using the guidelines as stated. Just as the staff must do.
Yeah, I know. I’m weak. What can I say?
Again, as I’m certain should have been clear from my post just above, I agree. For the third everlovin’ time, I’ve only asked that discussions of, and information for, circumventing or breaking the law not be discussed here. You have other venues and sources available to you—some of which are willing to take the risks involved in dissmeninating information of this nature; the SDMB is not. Do not make the SDMB party to it. Your further comment that is is shameful to help enforce immoral laws has no applicibility to the subject at hand—it is a straw man. We are not helping enforce those laws; were we, the information in the closed thread would have been turned over to the Saudi government. We, for the last time, are only asking that our members do not discuss such here. Do you see the significant difference here and why your line of argument is invalid?
And yeah, it’s way past time to end this discussion. I should have stuck to the single post as nothing I have posted beyond that has modified anything I said when I closed the thread. I’m also slowly coming to the conclusion that some of you are deliberately misunderstanding me. It’s not possible for me to make the position of the Reader any more clear. And frankly, it ain’t that big a goddamned deal anyway. I mean, hell, it didn’t even result in an Official Warning to anyone. The only person warned was whoever posted the pornographic links and this is a long standing policy.
That’s precisely the point. You make the assumption that your moral compass points in the right direction. (I do, too, and mine probably points in pretty much the same direction as yours.)
Other people assume that their moral compass points in the right direction, too, and a lot of them don’t point in the same direction as ours.
If you leave the decision to the individual, and allow the defense of “I thought it was the right thing to do”, you may not end up with the kind of society you desire. You may get anarchy, or even Li***topia.
I guess the bottom line is, you want to be able to post things that you want to. The Reader wants to protect its own interests. In that competition, the Reader has to win.