First Amendment?
I’ve seen the detention of the producer of Innocence of Muslims being characterized as an attack on free speech, even freedom of religion, rather than the standard probation violation it is.
It turns out that the guy’s name is actually Mark Basseley Youseff and: “Prosecutors say Youseff had eight violations, including lying to his probation officers and using aliases. Youseff also goes by the name of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.” He is also known as Sam Bacile, which does support the violation that is claimed.
Youseff was convicted of fraud involving the Internet. When he was released on probation, that release was conditioned on Youseff following certain specific rules. He didn’t follow those rules, so his probation officer wants him returned to prison. Understand, there are no new charges, and his sentence won’t be increased, but he will serve it in prison, not outside on probation.
Note: The deaths in Benghazi were almost certainly the action of a terrorist group in Libya, and not associated with the reaction to the film.
4 comments
The funny thing is that I don’t see those same “defenders of the 1st Amendment” speaking out about the many detentions of Laura Poitras, who makes films about the impact of U.S. wars overseas that the U.S. government doesn’t want made. It seems that these “defenders of the 1st Amendment” only support the 1st Amendment when it consists of slurs against Muslims, but when it presents the Muslim side of things… [crickets].
It is amazing how selective the Bill of Rights seems to be for some people, as if they only applied to people who thought like they do, and not everyone.
There are tons of case law that say they apply to everyone in the US, citizen or not, which is a result of the post-Civil War amendments and they status of former slaves. That’s why there are no “illegal immigrants” only “undocumented”. If they were charged with a crime, the full spectrum of rights would be theirs, but as an administrative violation they can be deported quickly with a minimum of paperwork or protections.
The same people who are complaining about this case would support banning books and sedition laws.
This guy’s problem is that the publicity about the film highlighted his activities that conflicted with what he had been telling the probation officers. It’s never a good idea to become famous when you’re on probation or parole.
The thing that has offended me the most recently is the USCCB’s howling “you’re violating my First Amendment freedom of religion!” when an Obama admin policy under the ACA requires insurance companies… which, last I looked, are not part of the Catholic Church… to offer contraception coverage. A tiny, self-obsessed tail is wagging a very large dog here.
USCCB are acting like a subsidiary of DonoWho, who has a patent on Catholic outrage and victimhood. It is almost as if they are trying to chase people away from the Church.
They should be cleaning up their act, not complaining about other people. They have lost any assumption of moral purpose over the pervert scandals, and aren’t doing anything that people accept as credible to correct their institutional problems. Criticizing the nuns over their work with the poor certainly wasn’t the best PR move they could have made, and openly favoring the Republican Party was just as bad.