Practicing Law Without a Clue

~~Girderman~~ · 12-31-2006, 06:03 PM

Can a web-site forum face "legal trouble" (i.e. investigation by Federal Authorities, etc...) if one of it's members posts the belief that the President of the United States should be impeached ?

~~Wozer~~ · 12-31-2006, 06:18 PM

I'm sure our founding fathers would roll over in their collective graves over that concept, considering that subject was part of the logic used when the 1st amendment was written...

from what I presently understand the editing done in the closed thread was because of another word being used, which was rather OTT for any respectable forum...

dai · 12-31-2006, 06:51 PM

more likely they would take a keen interest in the poster

yustr · 01-01-2007, 06:33 AM

It is absolutely within the right of any American to say, think, feel, write, make a bill board, sky write, side walk chalk, wear it or yes, open a web site ... that expresses their belief that Bush should should be impeached. There will be no investigation, no shutting down of such sites...

SEE HERE

Or HERE (warning slow)

Or HERE

Or Here

These are just a few that came up on "The Google"

The fact is Bush himself is sworn to protect and defend the poster against another government official trying to apply legal pressure to the web site.

By the way, I don't think Bush should be impeached - although he's certainly done more than enough to justify it. It's VP Cheney that needs the boot.

~~Ben123~~ · 01-01-2007, 07:41 AM

Sorry, Yustr didn't check all the links (too tired). But I am thinking of a recent Californa ruling tthat said websites can't be held accountable legally for what their members write... So a precedemt has been set.

I don't see any trouble for saying the President should be impeached, but I think that there are things that people know they shouldn't say anywhere. There are somethings that if you write them, it is like yelling fire in a theatre... I would tell you what I think some of them are, but I don't want to get in trouble. Catch-22.

EDIT: And a girl was contacted by the secret service for having an avatar on myspace that had a picture of President Bush, and it had a banner reading "kill Bush." I know the forum I moderate was sued (successfully) because someone posted another user's daughter's information and threatened her... and we got in trouble once because someone had posted about the WTC attacks being a good, and that we should make sure there are more.

~~Girderman~~ · 01-01-2007, 11:39 AM

Quote:

and we got in trouble once because someone had posted about the WTC attacks being a good, and that we should make sure there are more.

I'd be interested in getting a link that describes/discusses that one.

~~Ben123~~ · 01-01-2007, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Girderman

I'd be interested in getting a link that describes/discusses that one.

Trust me, every reference to that is gone from my forum. Except in the moderators discussion group, there is no reference,

But since there is interest here is the story.

Someone posted that he thought there should be more attacks because it was due to America for meddling in other people's affairs. It was off topic for the forum, and none of the 4 mods caught it (for some reason no one was on for 12 hours.) I was the first one on and there was a thread with almost 300 responses in 12 hours, so I locked it, because it was getting nasty.

We deleted the thread, but people were creating threads on the same topic and kept referring to it, and we just let it go, as long as it was civil.

About 2 months later the forum went down. The host was asked to remove it by some groups claiming to represent the families of those who died on 9-11. So we got the site back up, and about a week later they were shut down again, a lawyer contacts the owner, and the host, and told us that we were liable for damages etc etc. I don't really know exactly what happened. Needless to say, in a forum with about 7800 member (~1000 active) this was huge...

The end result was that everything in reference to the attacks being a good thing was removed, and we have been fine ever since... I'm sure that my forum wasn't the first to have the happen to us... I'm sure some intense Googling and scowering the internets would find you at least a few instances of the same type of thing...

And the time we actually got sued for the IP of another member - that was crazy. He posted the name, age, and a picture of this guys daughter, as well as her school and he said, "ill b at her wizord of Oz play nxet saturdya." I remember it well, it was freaky.

Maybe saying we got into trouble was an exageration, it should have read, we almost got into trouble.

12-31-2006, 06:03 PM	#1 (permalink)
~~Girderman~~ Troubled Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 2,096 OS: XP Pro	Practicing Law Without a Clue Can a web-site forum face "legal trouble" (i.e. investigation by Federal Authorities, etc...) if one of it's members posts the belief that the President of the United States should be impeached ?

12-31-2006, 06:51 PM	#3 (permalink)
dai Manager, Hardware Forums Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: west australia Posts: 56,637 OS: win 7 32x 64x rtm	more likely they would take a keen interest in the poster __________________

01-01-2007, 06:33 AM	#4 (permalink)
yustr Asst. Manager, The Conversation Pit Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Connecticut shore Posts: 6,050 OS: XP Pro My System	It is absolutely within the right of any American to say, think, feel, write, make a bill board, sky write, side walk chalk, wear it or yes, open a web site ... that expresses their belief that Bush should should be impeached. There will be no investigation, no shutting down of such sites... SEE HERE Or HERE (warning slow) Or HERE Or Here These are just a few that came up on "The Google" The fact is Bush himself is sworn to protect and defend the poster against another government official trying to apply legal pressure to the web site. By the way, I don't think Bush should be impeached - although he's certainly done more than enough to justify it. It's VP Cheney that needs the boot. __________________ If there are lawyers or politicians involved, logic may be a very poor tool for reaching a conclusion. Last edited by yustr; 01-01-2007 at 06:35 AM.

01-01-2007, 07:41 AM	#5 (permalink)
~~Ben123~~ Register user Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Springville, NY Posts: 81 OS: Windows Vista/ Windows XP/ OS X 10.4.8	Sorry, Yustr didn't check all the links (too tired). But I am thinking of a recent Californa ruling tthat said websites can't be held accountable legally for what their members write... So a precedemt has been set. I don't see any trouble for saying the President should be impeached, but I think that there are things that people know they shouldn't say anywhere. There are somethings that if you write them, it is like yelling fire in a theatre... I would tell you what I think some of them are, but I don't want to get in trouble. Catch-22. EDIT: And a girl was contacted by the secret service for having an avatar on myspace that had a picture of President Bush, and it had a banner reading "kill Bush." I know the forum I moderate was sued (successfully) because someone posted another user's daughter's information and threatened her... and we got in trouble once because someone had posted about the WTC attacks being a good, and that we should make sure there are more. Last edited by Ben123; 01-01-2007 at 07:47 AM.

12-31-2006, 06:18 PM	#2 (permalink)
~~Wozer~~ Troubled Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 1,038 OS: 2kpro/XP pro/MCE	I'm sure our founding fathers would roll over in their collective graves over that concept, considering that subject was part of the logic used when the 1st amendment was written... from what I presently understand the editing done in the closed thread was because of another word being used, which was rather OTT for any respectable forum...