Ask HN: Should Communications Laundering be a crime?

5 points by 001sky 12y ago ↗ HN

Should constitutionally 'free' speech include a provision or carve-out for anonymous communication? If communication can never be anonymous can it ever truly be private? If its never truly private can it ever be free? Shoud the 4th amendment be read to protect a right to private speech?

3 comments

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pezh0re 12y ago ↗

It's not just the 4th that alludes to privacy. The 3rd (quartering soldiers) infers a privacy of home, the 5th could be construed as privacy of personal information (specifically information that could be incriminating).

There's a ton more information here: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightof...

ScottWhigham 12y ago ↗

If communication can never be anonymous can it ever truly be private?

I don't guess I understand your requirement that "free speech" and "anonymity" be linked. There's always at least two sides to this argument:

1) People have a lot to say as long as their are no repercussions for them

2) The value of what someone says is diminished if they cower in anonymity to say it

These are obviously quite different and very polarized. You/me/anyone isn't going to change this - most people are going to identify strongly with one of these and that's that. It's a Liberal/Conservative, Right-to-life/Right-to-choose type of argument IMO - full of emotion, lots of heated debate, and neither side could ever convince the other to switch sides.

For the non-USA folks here, the 4th amendment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_...

asdf3 12y ago ↗

This has been asked and answered many ways over the last decade: large wealthy companies are protected, individual TOR users are not. If you doubt this, consider which group operates in the open and which pins its hopes on anonymity and not getting caught.

US supreme court finalizes gift of immunity to the telecom giants http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/10/supreme...

Tor operator charged for child porn transmitted over his servers http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/tor-operator-char...