issued a cease-and-desist order
WTF, shouldn't interfering in an election on that level deserve a 5yr prison term?
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
329 points (98.5% liked)
politics
19096 readers
3598 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
And an immediate end to their corporate charter at every chain in the process.
This is the first half of a proper sentence. The second is personal charges against all directors or and/or major stockholders for the crimes had they been committed personally.
And cops arriving with a warrant to search and preserve their records before even announcing anything.
Should be a major felony. This is straight up sedition. Trying to subvert democracy.
Seems like this should fall under 18 U.S. Code § 912 - Officer or employee of the United States
Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such, or in such pretended character demands or obtains any money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
It would hinge on whether or not the company could be said to have obtained a "thing of value(PDF)" which if you read the linked PDF you'll see is a complicated question. This passage from the PDF seems relevant to me.
The words “thing of value” “are found in so many criminal statutes throughout the United States that they have in a sense become words of art,” wrote the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. “The word ‘thing’ notwithstanding, the phrase is generally construed to cover intangibles as well as tangibles.”Federal courts have consistently applied an expansive reading to the term “thing of value” in a variety of statutory contexts to include goods and services that have tangible, intangible, or even merely perceived benefits, for example: promises, information, testimony, conjugal visits, and commercially worthless stock.
I would say that gaining the benefit of influencing the outcome of an election should be considered a thing of value for this purpose. If the authorities do not come down hard on this behavior then there is no reason for the billionaire class not to bury every election in false and misleading robocalls that seem to come from reliable and trusted sources.
I agree with your reasoning, but wouldn't this still allow for faking candidates who are not currently in office? We should, if we don't already, have laws to protect the interest of the public in having reliable information.
I agree with you 100%. We really do need laws require some sort of political truth in advertising.
Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such, or in such pretended character demands or obtains any money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
This is about pretending to be an officer of the US and getting something because of the office, not pretending to be someone who happens to be an officer of the US and acting in their private capacity. Impersonating a police officer and telling people it's illegal to vote is a special crime, impersonating Joe, who happens to work as a police officer, and telling his Facebook friends it's a waste of time to vote is not.
This is not sedition...
Frankly, sedition has become the new communist or fascist. A word with real meaning, turned into a slur, and then hurled at people with complete disregard for what the word actually means.
I'll go a step further and say that even the legal charges of sedition is something that the pubic should view with great skepticism.
Otherwise, it may becomes the new terrorism boogeyman and the FBI will start entrapping people for that instead, or alongside, the terrorists they create, and then arrest.
Republican election interference? Whaaaaatttt?
Did this idiot really think the feds wouldn't be able to trace thousands of robocalls?
Anyways, they better throw the book at this turd to make other would be offenders hesitate. But it will happen again without a doubt.
Honestly, the investigation shouldn't have been to able to do it this easily.
The only reason I can think of is that the organizers figured their only penalty would be fines and lawyers expenses, as long as they didn't go to the necessary lengths to hide themselves.
They could have purchased pre-existing shell companies, or created one overseas, and used those dummy corps to pay some American VOIP provider to run their automated call campaign.
Maybe they thought that if they did go that route, and somehow eventually got found out, their might actually be consequences.
Who knows. We'll just have to wait and see what comes of this.
I love how Texas is always trying to convince everyone they want to succeed and then they pull shit like this. Listen, Texas, you're poking the fucking bear and you're gonna get eaten up by the feds if you can't behave yourself.
Not a threat, just an honest promise of outcomes to your games.
I think you meant "secede" but this works too and it's really goddamn funny
Damn, you're right. I want to fix it but it is pretty funny how that changes the tone of my message.
Too bad it'll be lost on texans'.
😬 I'm Texan, born and raised, and unfortunately still living in Texas. No personal offense taken btw. Love the place, hate (some of) the people.
It's enough to drive a man to drink.
Indeed.
The DOJ prosecuted some dumbshits who made and shared memes on Twitter about voting by text.
That, in my view, was terrible prosecutorial discretion and a very slippery slope, that we're now sliding down.
This, is not that. This is a good old fashioned well funded, organized, and coordinated criminal conspiracy to improperly influence an election.
Who wants to take bets on whether any of the people responsible will be prosecuted, much less get any jail time?
I'll bet that they will be prosecuted, but they'll get a $50 fine and 2 months of unsupervised probation.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
An anti-voting robocall that used an artificially generated clone of President Biden's voice has been traced to a Texas company called Life Corporation "and an individual named Walter Monk," according to an announcement by New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella yesterday.
The robocalls "illegally spoofed their caller ID information to appear to come from a number belonging to a former New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair," the AG's office said.
Formella, a Republican, said that "AI-generated recordings used to deceive voters have the potential to have devastating effects on the democratic election process."
The New York Times reports that "a subsidiary of Life Corporation called Voice Broadcasting Corp., which identifies Mr. Monk as its founder on its website, has received numerous payments from the Republican Party’s state committee in Delaware, most recently in 2022, as well as payments from congressional candidates in both parties."
"The FCC may proceed to require other network providers affiliated with Lingo to block its traffic should the company continue this behavior," the agency said.
The FCC is separately planning a vote to declare that the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls is illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
The original article contains 638 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 70%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Walter Monk
You know what to do fediverse.