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The Two Leading Presidential Candidates -- Clinton And Trump -- Are Both Mocking Free Speech On The Internet

The Two Leading Presidential Candidates -- Clinton And Trump -- Are Both Mocking Free Speech On The Internet
By Mike Masnick

Yesterday, we wrote about Hillary Clinton's absolutely terrible plan for undermining both encryption and free speech on the internet as a way to "deal" with ISIS. I left out the worst quote of all that she stated in the process, mockingly:

"You're going to hear all of the usual complaints, you know, freedom of speech, et cetera..."
Free speech et cetera? That's handwaving it away. You can see the whole clip here, of the leading Democratic Presidential candidate who will almost certainly win the nomination:
Her full statement:
You're going to hear all of the usual complaints, you know, freedom of speech, et cetera. But if we truly are in a war against terrorism and we are truly looking for ways to shut off their funding, shut off the flow of foreign fighters, then we've got to shut off their means of communicating. It's more complicated with some of what they do on encrypted apps, and I'm well aware of that, and that requires even more thinking about how to do it.
Shut off their means of communicating? These tools are tools that everyone uses -- and, in fact, which Hillary Clinton herself did a tremendous amount of (good) work helping to spread around the globe as Secretary of State. And now she's trying to cut it all off?

And over on the other side of things, the leading Republican candidate, Donald Trump, basically said the exact same thing on Monday, just in a more Trump fashion.
We're losing a lot of people because of the internet. We have to do something. We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening. We have to talk to them, maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people. We have a lot foolish people.
You can see that one here:
Think about this for a second. You have the two leading Presidential candidates -- one from each party -- each advocating that we shut down entire parts of the internet and censor speech, because bad people can use the internet just like good people. And both of them flat out say that, sure, some people will complain about free speech, but they both dismiss such complaints mockingly with nothing more than a suggestion that you can't take anyone who cries "free speech" seriously.

I usually laugh off people who get deeply scared about one person or another winning the Presidency, as they usually overestimate how much power the President really has. But, either I'm suddenly turning into an old cranky guy, or we're facing one hell of a scary Presidential election next year where the major candidates are not just bad, but downright scary. It's become pretty cliche to argue "that's what the terrorists want" in response to various kneejerk reactions by politicians, but really, does anyone not think that certain people are getting a kick out of US politicians shoving each other aside to belittle to push aside one of the most cherished rights that is a key principle of our country -- the First Amendment -- at the first opportunity?

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December 8, 2015 at 11:35AM
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