Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 June 10

= June 10 =

Is calling for "Bastille Day" on a forum illegal?
In this posting I argued for people who have access to classified information to start leaking information. Someone replied saying that my posting is in itself a violation of the law:

"You do understand that this post is treason under federal law right? You are calling for an over throw of the government, that's what "Bastille Day" was, the start of the French revolution... your comments are very, very dangerous, and I know for a fact... the secrete service, FBI, NSA and other government agencies are monitoring ALL of these boards and they know your true identity... This is a very, very foolish post, and it is too late to take it down they know where you are... not smart."

Count Iblis (talk) 08:36, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * If you encourage someone to break the law, then you are certainly laying yourself open to a conspiracy charge. But the broader issue- aren't people calling for tugged overthrow of the government all the time? SWP, etc.? There is also presumably a difference in advocating something and actually doing something to further that end. &mdash;  O Fortuna   semper crescis, aut decrescis  08:47, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't actually find any indication in conspiracy (criminal) that encouraging someone to break the law can be conspiracy. Conspiracy is an agreement to break the law, and usually requires at least one overt act by one of the conspirators.  As to whether it's possible to prove the existence of an agreement without two-way communication, that's beyond my limited expertise.
 * In the United States, my understanding is that it's generally legal to advocate the overthrow of the government, even the violent overthrow, as long as it's a theoretical political position. See Yates v. United States.  Of course, this should not be taken as legal advice by the orginal poster. --Trovatore (talk) 09:19, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Exactly. SWP for example. Although I wasn't really focussing on US law, more that of &mdash;  O Fortuna   semper crescis, aut decrescis  13:09, 12 June 2017 (UTC)


 * As you know, you tied our hands a bit by telling us about the background of the question. Without presuming to offer legal advice, I would suggest that Brandenburg v. Ohio and imminent lawless action may be of interest. --Trovatore (talk) 09:01, 10 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Expressing an opinion is covered by the First Amendment. The respondent may have been bluffing you - like they do with "legal threats" here. But to be on the safe side, you should probably contact an attorney. Although that could snowball. Your best bet might be to just stay away from that topic in public venues. And by the way, I do concur with the writer's comment about Bastille Day. That was a poor analogy. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:13, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You know that there's a yuge difference between expressing an opinion and encouraging treasonous actions, right? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 08:25, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Treason is very narrowly defined in America. Mere words seldom amount to treason. Taking up arms against the United States would be a different story. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:37, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * And so does leaking classified information during a time of war! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 12:08, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Has the most recent arrested one, something-Winner, been charged with treason? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:24, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The US has prosecuted only about 30 treason cases in its entire history. The last one was Tomoya Kawakita for actions during World War II.  So no, no one recent has been formally charged with treason.  While there is some ambiguity, many believe that the law requires giving aid to an enemy nation upon which the US has formally declared war.  Despite engaging in many military conflicts, the US has not issued a formal declaration of war since World War II.  Dragons flight (talk) 21:42, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually Adam Yahiye Gadahn was indicted. If they hadn't offed him extrajudicially, we might have someday had a test of the question of whether you can have an "Enemy" in the meaning of Article III section 3 without a formal declaration of war.
 * In any case, whether or not al-Qaeda was an "Enemy" in the relevant legal sense, it's quite clear that Gadahn did "adhere" to them. The idea that calling abstractly for the end of government secrecy could be "adhesion" to a particular "Enemy" strikes me as extremely strained.  But once again, no one should take this as legal advice, and I am not a lawyer. --Trovatore (talk) 22:04, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It is if the leaked secrets aid the enemy even slightly! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 02:48, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. Evidence or go away. --Trovatore (talk) 03:32, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The definition of treason is all the evidence I need: "levying war against [the United States], or in adhering to their enemies, GIVING THEM AID AND COMFORT" -- so if you leak government secrets and this ends up helping the enemy, then THIS FALLS INTO THE THIRD AND LAST CATEGORY OF TREASON (giving the enemy aid and comfort)! So admit that you lied and shut your yap! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 04:13, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * No, there are only two categories. The first category is making War against the United States.  The second is adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.  To get into the second category, adhesion is required.  So basically you're completely wrong about this, as about everything else you've said about this thread. --Trovatore (talk) 05:28, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * LIAR -- the constitution says there are THREE categories, and giving the enemy aid and comfort constitutes treason either with or without adhering to them! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 07:22, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Please remember to assume good faith, which you did not on Reference desk/Humanities. Thank you, and happy editing!  &mdash;  O Fortuna   semper crescis, aut decrescis  08:34, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Why should I assume good faith in your case when you just BLATANTLY LIED about me -- I haven't visited the humanities desk in YEARS! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 08:45, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * More to the point than whether you assumed good faith, you are just simply wrong. There are only two categories. --Trovatore (talk) 09:28, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * YOU are the one who's wrong (regardless of whether or not you lied) -- there are THREE categories: waging war against the USA, adhering to their enemies, and giving them aid and comfort! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 10:01, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It goes a bit more than "overthrow of the government". The events commemorated by Bastille Day resulted in the summary killings of a great many of the aristocracy. Calling for a "Bastille Day" is calling for an armed uprising in which you intend persons to be unlawfully put to death. Akld guy (talk) 21:18, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * 'Lawfully', I think, following the masses' mandate of absolute power. &mdash;  O Fortuna   semper crescis, aut decrescis  08:25, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Lawful power resides in Congress and the President, not in the masses -- you understand this, right? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 08:27, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You realise this was regarding what Bastille Day actually was, right? You realise that is the context of the question, right? You realise you made a totally subjective assumption that deaths caused in 1787 were unlawful, right?
 * You don't? Right. &mdash;  O Fortuna   semper crescis, aut decrescis  09:09, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Of course they were unlawful under French law at the time -- that's not a subjective assumption, that's objective fact! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 12:11, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Using Bastille Day as a metaphor does not equate to violent overthrow of the government. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:37, 11 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Just on the face of it, your post falls under at least half a dozen different statutes: conspiracy to mishandle classified information, incitement to criminal activity, very likely also incitement to violence and/or incitement to terrorism (the "Bastille Day" reference can certainly be construed as such), conspiracy to aid the enemy during a time of war (this, BTW, is potentially a death penalty offense), and because of the context in which you made this post it likely also falls under the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (if so, this means, among other things, that it may fall under the jurisdiction of the military commissions established by President Bush, where you will not have the same rights that you would normally have in a US court.) And you may also have broken other laws which I forgot to mention, but this will do for a start.  In short: you are in one whole sh*tload of trouble (to put it mildly), and I certainly wouldn't want to be you! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 08:16, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You have provided no evidence for these baseless claims. Go read Brandenburg v. Ohio --Trovatore (talk) 08:47, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You go read the Authorization for Use of Military Force and the National Security Strategy Guidelines (which in combination supersede Brandenburg v. Ohio in terrorism-related cases such as this one!) 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 12:07, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Again, you've provided no evidence whatsoever for this absurd claim. Statute laws and executive-branch reports do not "supersede" case law interpreting fundamental constitutional principles. --Trovatore (talk) 19:39, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * They do if the military commissions are involved, because these are a completely separate system which is not part of the judiciary and not answerable to the judiciary! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 00:50, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Give evidence or go away. --Trovatore (talk) 03:27, 12 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I don't think the IP has a clear idea of how things work in America. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:29, 12 June 2017 (UTC)


 * The evidence is, the Authorization for Use of Military Force gives all the authority to deal with terrorists to the PRESIDENT, not the courts! And the National Security Strategy Guidelines further make ANY action which helps terrorists in ANY way an act of terrorism in itself -- so, technically, making any ruling which hinders the President in fighting terrorists would make the judge a terrorist! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 04:19, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Let's see Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Rasul v. Bush, Boumediene v. Bush, etc. The Supreme Court of the United States has been unambiguous in their authority to review and overturn decisions related to military tribunals if they violate the constitution.  I'm sure the Justices will be surprised to learn that you think that makes them terrorists, which is just total nonsense.  Dragons flight (talk) 04:33, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * See also Ex parte Milligan &mdash; you can't try civilian citizens in military tribunals in the first place, terrorism or not. (Not that there's any connection between calling for the disclosure of secrets and terrorism, anyway.) --Trovatore (talk) 05:44, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The last case of these is superseded by the Authorization for Use of Military Force, and in the other three the supreme court has BLATANTLY OVERSTEPPED ITS POWER to even HEAR them, and committed TREASON by overturning the President! So they ARE terrorists as per the National Security Strategy Guidelines, and President Bush should have had them dragged off to Camp Gitmo (and in any case should have disregarded their illegal and treasonable rulings, just as Lincoln had done in Ex parte Merryman)! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 07:27, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It's really quite impressive. Every single thing you have said in this discussion is wrong!  100% batting average, and out of a lot of at-bats too. --Trovatore (talk) 07:45, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * What part of "The President is authorized to use all necessary and proper force against those nations, organizations and/or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the 9/11 attacks, or harbored those persons" don't you understand?! And note that it DOES NOT say "except US citizens" or "unless the supreme court says otherwise"! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 08:50, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Laws that violate the Constitution are invalid. But in any case, force that violates the Constitution is not "proper". --Trovatore (talk) 09:23, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * If you've sided with Al-Qaida, you're an ENEMY at WAR with the United States and are NOT protected by the constitution, period! By your standards, bombing Dresden during WW2 was unconstitutional because those poor innocent Germans (many of whom were in fact diehard Nazis) were killed without due process!
 * Also, WTF do you mean, "every single thing" I said here is wrong?! Do you deny that Hamdan and Rasul (the plaintiffs in 2 of the cases listed above) are terrorists who deserve to die for murdering thousands of Americans?! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 09:59, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Trovatore has it right. The relevant rule in the US is that the First Amendment broadly protects speech even when advocating criminal activity, except when the speech is designed to produce an imminent lawless action.  This standard requires both that the speech advocates for criminal activity that is imminent (and not merely at some indefinite time in the future) and that the speech is likely to produce such criminal activity.  I won't offer an opinion on whether your post meets that standard, but I've never heard of any prosecutions for inciting imminent lawless action as the result of broadly directed comments made in a public forum.  Every imminent lawless action prosecution I've ever heard of involved a speaker with actual knowledge that specific members of his audience were likely to act on his call to violence / criminality.  Of course, anyone (including the government) can look at your comments and judge you positively or negatively based on their content.  But that is different from the consideration of whether an actual crime was committed.  Dragons flight (talk) 11:13, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You posted this on the Washington Post's newsblog, which is moderated. The first thing that might happen is that someone complains about your post and it is taken down. The next thing is that the Washington Post could disable your account. If they take it very seriously they could report you to the FBI. Then you would get some FBI officers coming to talk to you to persuade you not to put such things up in future. Since neither of the first two things have happened, the third isn't likely to either. If it does, you could contact the ACLU. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:32, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, in Britain (which like the U S is a common law jurisdiction) sometimes judges produce a decision which conflicts with the law as everyone thought existed at the time.  In those circumstances Parliament may pass a statute expressly saying that the law is what it was thought to be.   So far as I know, Congress can amend the Constitution by passing a statute ("amendment") to change it. 213.104.49.143 (talk) 19:59, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * No, an amendment is much much much harder to pass than a mere statute. You're correct that it can be done, technically.  It requires a 2/3 majority in both houses, then ratification by 3/4 of the states.  (Unlike a statute, an amendment cannot be passed by Congress alone; it requires the assent of the states.)
 * (There is another possible technique, a constitutional convention, which bypasses Congress altogether and sends amendments for approval directly to the states. It has never been used.  There was a constitutional convention, but that was the one that wrote that procedure.) --Trovatore (talk) 20:05, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * See Constitutional amendment. I'm surprised we don't have a standalone article, but maybe it's redundant with Article Five of the United States Constitution, which also see.
 * I was wrong that a convention bypasses Congress altogether; seems that it would have to be Congress to call the convention in the first place. However Congress doesn't actually have a choice in the matter, so I was almost right.  They have to do it whenever 2/3 of the states request one, and there doesn't seem to be any way for them to do it otherwise. --Trovatore (talk) 20:23, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * To do what we're expected to do here, and draw people's attention to our own articles, the IP (the one who has up to this point been regarded as being consistently wrong- except by themselves) can see a recent object lesson, here. In front of thousands of people, an American citizen publicly stated that "that if the same laws were applied to U.S. presidents as were applied to the Nazis after World War II [...] every single one of them, every last rich white one of them fromTruman on, would have been hung to death and shot—and this current administration is no exception. They should be hung, and tried, and shot. As any war criminal should be", referring, of course, to the administration of George W Bush. And regardless of the meltdown that Fox News went into, no-one got arrested, charged, or convicted of treason  :)   &mdash;  O Fortuna   semper crescis, aut decrescis  08:54, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Only because the National Security Strategy Guidelines are not being enforced like they should be! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:E957:E363:9DD1:1743 (talk) 09:00, 12 June 2017 (UTC)


 * It occurs to me that if Bastille Day implies the revolutionary overthrow of legitimate government by force, then surely the Fourth of July must mean the same thing. Wymspen (talk) 11:05, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Bill Stepien, Bridgegate, Trump
Why wasn't Stepien prosecuted for his role in Bridgegate? Also, what has Donald Trump said about Stepien after taking him on as political director?2602:306:CFC8:DDB0:ACC0:1F97:E6AD:B0E5 (talk) 23:59, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The article indicates that they didn't really have anything on him. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:29, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I disagree. The article indicates the opposite--1.) the "cover" text, and 2.) the claim by Wildstein that Stepien was in on it. I'd like to know why he wasn't prosecuted. I'm also interested on any comments by Trump or the White House concerning Stepien when he was hired as Political Director. Thanks.2602:306:CFC8:DDB0:790A:A48D:2C1C:AA9C (talk) 14:16, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * the "cover" text message wasn't mentioned in the article, I just realized.2602:306:CFC8:DDB0:FCD6:929D:31DF:E0F9 (talk) 18:55, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Hat per WP:BLP μηδείς (talk) 00:52, 12 June 2017 (UTC)