Quantum Windbag
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- May 9, 2010
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By refine they, of course, mean make it better by making it at the privilege of the government, getting rid of another pesky right that makes it harder for the government to lock people up for saying the wrong thing.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Four New York Democratic Senators: “Proponents of a More Refined First Amendment Argue That This Freedom Should Be Treated Not as a Right But as a Privilege”
The sentence reads, in a context that shows the authors agree with the argument:Proponents of a more refined First Amendment argue that this freedom should be treated not as a right but as a privilege a special entitlement granted by the state on a conditional basis that can be revoked if it is ever abused or maltreated.Thats whats written in the recently released Cyberbullying: A Report on Bullying in a Digital Age, published by the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of Jeff Klein, Diane Savino, David Carlucci and David Valesky. The theoretical explanation of this more refined First Amendment in the report is pretty general and abstract, but the concrete proposal in the report seems quite consistent with the disdain for the First Amendment that the phrase this freedom [of speech] should be treated not as a right but as a privilege suggests.
That proposal has two parts. First, the senators say theyll introduce a bill that, among other things, would make it a crime to intentionally, and for no legitimate purpose, engage[] in a course of conduct using electronic communication directed at a child under the age of twenty-one years when the actor knows or reasonably know that such conduct ... causes material harm to the mental or emotional health ... of such child. And the bill would clarif[y] that a single electronic communication can be considered a course of action if it is directed at a child under the age of twenty-one years and transmitted to multiple recipients - even if the child is not one of them.
So lets consider this (assume all the actors here are teenagers, unless otherwise specified):
The Volokh Conspiracy » Four New York Democratic Senators: “Proponents of a More Refined First Amendment Argue That This Freedom Should Be Treated Not as a Right But as a Privilege”