Thursday, April 20, 2017

Government Trying to Identify Critics - A Real Attack on Free Speech

Anonymous Contributions to Right Wing Candidates -OK, Anonymous Speech on the Internet Crticizing Right Wingers - Verboten

Conservatives hate attempts to require disclosure of names of those who support conservative causes, a blatant violation of free speech they say.  But if someone criticizes them, they go to court to unmask the critics.  From the WaPo.

"Twitter filed a lawsuit Thursday to block an order from the Department of Homeland Security that seeks to reveal the user of an account who has been critical of the Trump administration's immigration policies.
Tweets from the account -- @ALT_uscis -- indicate that it is run by someone who is an employee of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services division of Homeland Security.
Free speech advocates said the DHS order appeared to be the first time the government has attempted to use its powers to expose an anonymous critic -- a development that, if successful, would have a "grave chilling effect on the speech of that account" as well as other accounts critical of the U.S. government, Twitter said."

No justification here by DHS, just intimidation.

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