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Newt Gingrich Says Visiting An ISIS Or Al Qaeda Website Should Be A Felony (techdirt.com) 406

Posted by BeauHD from the overcrowded-prisons dept.
flopsquad writes: Following the July 14th terror attack in Nice, France, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has called for U.S. Muslims to be tested for their belief in Sharia law, and if so, deported: "Western civilization is in a war. We should frankly test every person here who is of a Muslim background and if they believe in Sharia they should be deported," Gingrich said in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity. While the cleverest few might try to defeat such a test by answering "No," Mr. Gingrich laid out additional steps to shore up the plan: "The first step is you have to ask them the questions. The second step is you have to monitor what they're doing on the internet. The third step is, let me be very clear, you have to monitor the mosques. I mean, if you're not prepared to monitor the mosques, this whole thing is a joke." Gingrich also opined that "Anybody who goes on a website favoring ISIS, or Al-Qaeda, or other terrorist groups, that should be a felony, and they should go to jail. No word on the First and Fourth Amendment implications of his proposals, nor on where Gingrich plans to deport U.S. citizens who fail his Sharia test. Gingrich went on to say: "Any organization which hosts such a website should be engaged in a felon. It should be closed down immediately. Our forces should be used to systematically destroy every internet based source..." Mike Masnick from Techdirt writes: "Merely visiting a website should put you in jail? What if you're a journalist? Or a politician? Or a researcher trying to understand ISIS? That should be a felony? That's not how it works. This also assumes, idiotically, that merely reading a website about ISIS will make people side with ISIS. It's also not, at all, how the law works. Same with the second part about it being a felony to host such content."
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Newt Gingrich Says Visiting An ISIS Or Al Qaeda Website Should Be A Felony More

Newt Gingrich Says Visiting An ISIS Or Al Qaeda Website Should Be A Felony

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  • What a retard (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:07PM (#52521639)

    What a retard. How do these people even get into government?

    • Re:What a retard (Score:5, Funny)

      by Desler ( 1608317 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:20PM (#52521751)

      They're voted in by other retards.

    • Intelligent (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SeattleLawGuy ( 4561077 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:21PM (#52521767)

      No, he's actually intelligent. He is not saying this because it would be a smart thing to do, he is saying it to get press coverage and help with some strategic goal for his personal brand or for one of his current projects.

      • Re:Intelligent (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:29PM (#52521847)

        No, he's actually intelligent. He is not saying this because it would be a smart thing to do, he is saying it to get press coverage and help with some strategic goal for his personal brand or for one of his current projects.

        That's the difference between intelligence/cleverness and wisdom, right there.

        Take a power-hungry, shallow, irritating, belligerent douchebag, and somehow give him more intelligence. What's the result? He becomes more effective at being a power-hungry, shallow, irritating, belligerent douchebag. Give him a little wisdom somehow and he might be inclined to put his intellect to a more worthy and less self-centered use.

      • Re:Intelligent (Score:5, Funny)

        by Adriax ( 746043 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:29PM (#52521857)

        My first thought is, is he trying to tempt trump into switching to him as the VP choice?

        • That was my first thought, too. I see that your post got moderated 'funny', but I think it should have been 'insightful'.

          It's almost like the contest to be 'Trump's VP' is a mini-primary, in which moderate views are drowned out, and only the extreme view get any notice.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Adriax ( 746043 )

            Atleast it isn't a miss america style contest.
            The swimsuit portion would be the single greatest loss of life disaster the US has ever seen.

        • From what I've heard, Trump immediately regretted his choice, tried to get out of it, but then realized that he couldn't. When Trump and Pence walked out to make the announcement, they played the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want." That's an odd choice of music for announcing someone that was high up on your VP list.

      • Best guess is that he's running interference for Trump. While perhaps not quite as conspicuous as this, he has throughout his career taken up some rather crazy positions on things.

      • Re:Intelligent (Score:5, Funny)

        by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @09:19PM (#52522141) Journal

        No, he's actually intelligent. He is not saying this because it would be a smart thing to do, he is saying it to get press coverage and help with some strategic goal for his personal brand or for one of his current projects.

        Newt's "personal brand" is in the shitter. Can you imagine that you're not good enough to be Donald Trump's running mate? For that matter, I hope they have Chris Christie under suicide watch. He was last seen picking up Trump's dry-cleaning and sobbing into a grande caramel mocha frappuccino. With sprinkles.

        • Chris Christie will be just fine, he gets to go back to governing New Jersey. ...oh shit yeah let's get this poor guy a padded room and 15-minute life checks.

    • What a retard. How do these people even get into government?

      People fall for their bullshit and vote them into office. That's how it happens.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )

      even bigger retards that vote for them.

    • What a retard. How do these people even get into government?

      The same way maggots get into rotting meat.

    • How about 'being Newt Gingrich' is a felony?

    • What a retard. How do these people even get into government?

      Retards elected them.

    • What a retard. How do these people even get into government?

      they run for office and are elected by the voters.

      • they run for office and are elected by the voters.

        Indeed. Go talk to some typical voters in Georgia's 6th congressional district, and you will no longer wonder why Newt was two bullets away from the presidency.

  • Jesus Newt (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:08PM (#52521653) Journal

    Jesus Newt, you can take off your crazy pants now. Trump didzn't pick you as his running mate.

  • Another day, another idiot (Score:5, Insightful)

    by davmoo ( 63521 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:10PM (#52521665)

    I always find it interesting when I see someone complaining about Sharia law, and the person doing the complaining has no problems at all with the idea of shoving Christian law on everyone.

  • I agree (Score:3, Funny)

    by penguinoid ( 724646 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:10PM (#52521667) Homepage Journal

    See here [isis.com] for more info.

  • Book Tour (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:14PM (#52521693)
    Now that he's no longer in the running for Veep he's gonna use the bump to sell as many of his books & merchant to frightened old people as he can. As for how extreme his nonsense is, it's kinda like when the Nigerian scammers write nonsense about long lost princes. You want to weed out the less bat shit crazies so you don't waste you're time with anyone who isn't a mark.

    The sad thing is a major half of American politics revolves around this. I forgot who but somebody on /. pointed out that for the rest of the world thinking about the country with the most nukes/largest military tolerating this much crazy is unnerving...

    • Now that he's no longer in the running for Veep he's gonna use the bump to sell as many of his books & merchant to frightened old people as he can.

      Everybody's got to make a living. Plus, Calista is starting to get a little long in the tooth. It's time for an upgrade. He's just waiting for the right time to tell her he wants a divorce, like the morning after she has a mastectomy.

  • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Don't give who visas? The citizens who are already in the US and who have never lived anywhere else who just happen to be Muslim?

      And so deport anyone of Muslim background who believes in Sharia law? Which means we only accept Muslims who don't believe in Sharia law, or in other words, Muslims with poor morals? That's absurd.

      Sure, if someone has a crazy idea to ban visa to Saudi citizens based upon human rights records in Saudi Arabia, then that is one thing and can be discussed separatey. But to ban som

      • And so deport anyone of Muslim background who believes in Sharia law? Which means we only accept Muslims who don't believe in Sharia law, or in other words, Muslims with poor morals? That's absurd.

        I'm still trying to figure out what kind of "test" he's going to give Muslims to see whether or not they believe in Sharia law.

        Of course, no Muslim who is planning on attacking a target in the US would ever lie. Maybe he thinks Sharia law shows up in the urine.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by J053 ( 673094 )

          I'm still trying to figure out what kind of "test" he's going to give Muslims to see whether or not they believe in Sharia law.

          Just make them eat a bacon cheeseburger.

    • Iran protests just about everything Saudi Arabia does, so I'd bet they include that. Or at least their Jewish MP does.

  • If he had put it in these terms there would be a lot less complaining.

  • And this is how fascism starts (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wickerprints ( 1094741 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:23PM (#52521783)

    How easily the lessons of history are lost upon the ignorant. When you threaten to imprison people for:

    1. Having certain thoughts
    2. Belonging to a specific ethnic, religious, or social group
    3. Viewing, possessing, or accessing information

    This is exactly the sort of thing that leads to totalitarianism and genocide. That is not to say that the dissemination of certain ideas are not dangerous (e.g. incitement to mass murder), or that certain forms of information/content should not be illegal to possess or distribute (e.g., child pornography). Yes, ISIS materials and websites that promote terrorism are awful, but merely *accessing* these, in of themselves, should not and cannot be regarded as criminal, since you would not only criminalize their supporters and sympathizers, but you'd criminalize anyone attempting to investigate them for the purposes of covert surveillance or academic research.

    Terrorism, by its nature, is not the incitement of terror in a society for its own sake; no. Terrorism is a strategy by which individuals seek to overthrow a state by attacking its civilians; who, in their fear, appeal to the state to protect them through ever-increasingly draconian policies, such as those proposed by Mr. Gingrich. The state, whose interests are not to protect the people but to consolidate power and wealth into its own hands, makes the deliberate choice to restrict freedoms, until the people become so oppressed that they overthrow the government. This is how terrorism wins.

    If the world wants to defeat ISIS and the like, the solution is to prevent their ideas from having any appeal. By threatening the same people that ISIS is trying to attract, all in the name of "national security," those who run the government are sending a very clear signal to anyone with a brain that in fact, they are not interested in stopping terrorism, but are all too happy to leverage fear as a way to gain power.

    • It should be noted that a lot of these attacks are perpetrated by people who either have psychological issues, often petty criminals, drug users, men with failed marriages. Often they people who weren't known as being very religious at all. One description I've read suggests they may be Muslims, but they're often rather bad Muslims, with poor grasp of the religion.

      • Wrong, still (Score:4)

        by s.petry ( 762400 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @11:52PM (#52522677)

        The rhetoric sounds good but simply has no basis in reality. 30% of the Muslim population average across the globe wants Sharia law to be the rule of their Government. If you believe the statistic 1.5 Billion Muslims that is 500 million people that want you dead if you are not a Muslim (go read up on what Sharia law is). 50% believe that anyone leaving the Muslim faith should get the death penalty. More than half say that it's okay for a guy to hit his wife (as long as she deserved it), and that the death penalty is fine for adultery. Adultery almost always applies to women since a woman's testimony is worth 1/4th a mans, so if a woman gets raped it's her own fault and she should be killed for it.

        Sorry that facts don't back the common rhetoric, but if we can't admit what's real we can't begin to contemplate a solution.

  • Malware (Score:3)

    by ShaunC ( 203807 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:26PM (#52521803)

    "Anybody who goes on a website favoring ISIS, or Al-Qaeda, or other terrorist groups, that should be a felony, and they should go to jail

    Who's going to be the first person to create some malware that visits ISIS and Al-Qaeda websites, and deploy that malware to members of Congress?

    • Probably a few decades after they make malware that does that with child pornography. Although on a smaller scale, trolls could share some tinyurl links (or other link shortener that turns the link into concise gibberish), and hackers could share such a link from a hacked famous person's account.

  • Holy Shit (Score:5, Informative)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @08:28PM (#52521839) Journal

    Newt gets stupider by the minute.

    Don't forget- this is the guy who was having an affair while his wife was sick cancer, and who had her served divorce papers while she in the hospital recovering from surgery to remove a tumor. What a sweetheart.

    And, to top it off, he was having the affair while he was trying to impeach Bill Clinton for.....having an affair. No hypocrisy there, no siree.

    • Don't forget- this is the guy who was having an affair while his wife was sick cancer, and who had her served divorce papers while she in the hospital recovering from surgery to remove a tumor.

      Wait, the kicker of that story is that his excuse for cheating on his sick wife was that he just loved America too much. I'll bet it was the first time that patriotism was used as an excuse for an extramarital affair - but I'm sure it's not the last.

      http://nymag.com/daily/intelli... [nymag.com]

      "There's no question at times of

  • Why are we paying attention to him? He's been discredited as a hypocrite, with bigger moral failings than those he was accusing of not being of good character. He should be all rights be a non-entity at this point and doing nothing more political than talking at the local Oddfellows club.

    Rejecting someone based on belief in Sharia is stupid. Sharia does not mean someone believes in overthrowing the US, or in violence, or anything like that. No one practicing Sharia in the US is cutting off the hands of

  • If we required them to stitch gold stars on their clothing (or pink triangles, Red triangles, blue triangles, purple triangles or black triangles) they could be easily identified. I mean who are they trying to assimilate to the culture they are living in.
  • How about we propose that anyone visiting Newt Gingrich's website should be charged with a felony? It's just as harmful.

    His proposal does just as much to undermine the Constitution of the United States as any AQ or ISIS propaganda. Let's all be glad he no longer holds public office, and hope he never does again.

  • Many people don't remember the 90's when the news was full of whatever vomit spewed from this man's mouth. When he cashed in his all his political favors for the millions of dollars that he was given by big corporations after serving in office, I thought we had heard the last of him. Makes sense that the worse of the worse would come crawling out of the woodwork. Thanks Trump.

  • That makes just about as much sense, but - then again - hypocritical Bible-thumpers are just Christian Ayatollahs with a different God, and so why would anyone expect anything less from such a mind(less)-set.

  • Dear Newt: the sick and the tired [youtu.be] need to get out of government.

    Please hand over the matches and head for the nearest exit, and don't get cranky if security decides to perform a strip search.

    Just a question. What's Arabic for "glasnost?"

  • OK (Score:2)

    by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
    Fine Newt. So what is the penalty for THIS [wordpress.com]?

  • How about making it a felony to suggest stupid, unenforceable or simply outright impossible to uphold laws? Every time a politician suggests a law that can easily be shown to be beyond idiotic by someone who, unlike said politician, knows something about the subject the politician wants to regulate, the politicians collects 30 days of jail time.

    I swear, by the end of a 4 year term the average congressmen is in for life. And then some.

  • still just trying to get invited to the front of the plane.

  • Any organization which hosts such a website should be engaged in a felon

    Engaged "in a felon?" How does that compare to being engaged to a woman while your ex-wife dies of cancer, after you've told her she isn't young enough or pretty enough to be a First Lady? Ah, the party of family values. Newt Gingrich is an unrepentant piece of shit of a human being and nobody should be paying any attention to what he suggests.

  • The US and the EU have a bet going to see who can pass the dumbest ideas on Earth :|

    I'll see your ban on encryption and raise you a felony just to look upon words ! :|

  • Anyone who reads a book or watches TV depicting criminal behavior should be charged with said behavior. A service that provides support or hosts a site that is pro ISIS should be guilty of a felony ?? How about they be notified and asked or told under some valid law or jurisdiction to take down such a site first.

    She turned me into a Newt
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • what is this nazi germany 2016? and is the next move put all Muslims into Internment Camps? trump is not that extreme.

  • Because knowledge and freedom means imprisoning and removing the legal rights from those who's belief system differs. Well done Newt... Sieg Heil!!

  • Monitoring mosques (Score:3)

    by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @10:23PM (#52522443)

    French intelligence have been monitoring its own mosques for a while. Extremists know that and recruit outside of mosques.

  • First and Fourth Amendment implications (Score:4, Insightful)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Friday July 15, 2016 @11:10PM (#52522555)

    No word on the First and Fourth Amendment implications of his proposals

    Get a clue. The Bill of Rights is no longer in effect and much of the rest of the Constitution is or soon will be dead. How the hell can we defeat the enemies of freedom unless we take away all American's rights, assume they are guilty unless proven innocent, and deport everyone who doesn't accept the Truth of the One Christian God? (Including the split personality disorder and the zombiesm.) The enemies of this country have a paranoid hatred of us and we must defeat them by proving them right.

  • Trial Balloon (Score:3)

    by redelm ( 54142 ) on Saturday July 16, 2016 @01:41AM (#52522961) Homepage

    Can you not recognize a trial balloon? More common in the UK, where someone less senior (_NOT_ the big cheese) throws out details for an established theme to see reaction. Easily deniable if excessively opposed, easily co-opted if insufficiently opposed. Look for a payoff as an Ambassadorship or Cabinet post.

    As for legality, please show me the Feds care. They certainly did not when Senator Joe McCarthy abused subpoena power. Both before and since, the Feds have lawyers who will argue that zero is one.

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