Skip to main content

Today's Poll: Should a person be required to turn over social media passwords in order to get a pistol permit?

By Howard B. Owens
Tim Miller

Wow - I'm one of those gosh derned lib'rals who wants to have reasonable gun control (let's NOT start another debate on NYSAFE, please), and even I think this is a REEEAAALLLY BAAAAAAAD idea.

Nov 20, 2018, 12:23pm Permalink
Howard B. Owens

I see two problems with it:

-- Due process. The police have to establish probable cause before going through your stuff. Applying for a permit is not evidence of a potential crime, so where's the probable cause? Also, a search must be reasonable. A fishing expedition is not reasonable.
-- The First Amendment: As abhorrent as racist and other hate speech is, it's not against the law. It's actually protected by the First Amendment. It only becomes a crime when coupled with some other crime -- yelling racial slurs at somebody before physically attack them, for example.

If this passes -- and I don't think it will -- I don't think it will withstand a constitutional challenge.

Nov 20, 2018, 12:46pm Permalink
Cheryl Saville

Howard is absolutely right with his two reasons. May I add a third?

Passwords can be changed as often as a baby's diaper. The ineffectiveness of such a regulation makes it worth as much as the contents of said diaper.

Nov 20, 2018, 4:48pm Permalink
Tim Miller

Daniel - please don't insult the intelligence of The Batavian readers and post any more Washington Times (Moonie Times) links.

I'm sure you could find other articles insulting a liberal politician from more reputable organizations such as Fox or Drudge.... (I didn't note "very reputable" - just more reputable than the Moonie Times)

Nov 20, 2018, 5:11pm Permalink
Ed Hartgrove

■■ Personally, I don't think the "proposed" NY bill ( https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?default_fld&leg_video&bn=S09191&term=2017&S… ) will pass "muster".

First off, the proposed bill limits the "investigatory review" to only 3 internet "search engines": Google, Yahoo and Bing. As there are well over 50 internet search engines, the proposed bill is VERY narrow in its scope.

Likewise, the bill proposes to limit the social media sites to be investigated to only 4: Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram.

In my opinion, such a bill should be written to include ALL search engines and social media sites, if it were to be effective.

■ On top of that, the language used in the bill is, in my opinion, very ambiguous.

One example is where the bill reads: " (i) commonly known profane slurs or biased language used to describe the race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person;"

Who gets to decide what a "commonly known" profane slur or biased language is? Isn't that akin to the debate over what obscenity was. In 1957, in Roth v. United States, the Supreme Court affirmed the view that obscenity lacks First Amendment protection. The Court defined obscene speech as being "utterly without redeeming social importance" in which "to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest." HOWEVER, for 16 years, the Supreme Court was unable to reach a definition of obscenity that satisfied a majority of its members. A new standard was finally established in the case of Miller v. California (1973). PLEASE NOTE the words "applying contemporary community standards".

Contemporary community standards are ever-changing. What applied in 1957, or, even in 1973, don't necessarily apply today. In 1957, Ward wasn't allowed to sleep in the same bed as June. And, Lord help the programmer that showed a toilet bowl on national TV.

■■ I also found the history of the proposed bill's sponsor, Kevin Parker, to be quite enlightening.
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Parker_(New_York_politician)

(1) "In January 2005, Parker was arrested after punching a traffic agent in the face during a dispute over a traffic citation that he had been issued. He was subsequently charged with third degree assault, a misdemeanor."

(2) "In 2008, an aide filed charges against Parker, claiming he pushed her during an argument and smashed her glasses."

(3) "In February 2010, Parker was restrained by his colleagues during a profane tirade against Senator Diane Savino in which Parker referred to Savino as a "b****"."

(4) "In April 2010, Parker launched into an outburst while colleague John DeFrancisco of Syracuse was questioning a black nominee for the New York State Power Authority. "Amid the nearly two-minute tirade, committee chairman Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) told Parker he would be removed from the hearing room if he didn't settle down." Parker accused his colleagues of racism, and followed up in a radio interview by accusing his Republican "enemies" of being white supremacists. Following the tirade, Sen. Ruben Diaz (D-Bronx) was quoted as saying that Parker "need[ed] help."

Nice guy! Or, it would appear, one who surely knows a lot about violence.

Nov 20, 2018, 5:14pm Permalink
John Roach

Tim Miller, you do know the Congressman did say that, right? Video of him saying it is available. Now, true, he was exaggerating his point and got carried away, but his point was he wants to take away all guns.

Nov 20, 2018, 5:42pm Permalink
Daniel Norstrand

Tim miller. Anyone backing a treasonous government figure like the one pointed out in the article has very little intelligence to insult. And as far as your belittling of news sources, information can come from many sources and it's up to the consumer to make a judgment as to veracity. The article I linked to was a cross reference I used to verify a google featured cnn headline. Something I always take with a grain of salt the size of a planet.

Nov 21, 2018, 8:09am Permalink
Ricky G. Hale

There goes the 1st Amendment right out the door, and it is very obvious they are using this as a back door to get to the 2nd Amendment. Imagine this: What if you had to get a permit and go thru a background check in order to exercise your 1st Amendment, or any Amendment for that matter? It is coming folks, make no mistake about it. You are loosing your rights a little at a time. This is the beginning of the end. Can you say Nazi Germany ?? Only after everything is lost, will you say "what the hell happened".

Nov 21, 2018, 8:29am Permalink
Tim Miller

John and Daniel - thank you for the references to legitimate references to what the guy said.

Given that there is a 2nd Amendment, it seems kinda foolish to actually try to ban all guns. Now if the guy says "I'd like to...", well that becomes a philosophical debate.

And Daniel - you make some rather foolish assumptions linking distrust of a cult-owned and operated "newspaper" with support for a particular politician. I'd never heard of the guy, and though I am in support of reasonable gun control I have no desire to ban all guns. Try not to make foolish assumptions in the future. ;-)

Nov 22, 2018, 12:00pm Permalink
Daniel Norstrand

"Foolish assumptions." LOL. Who's snarky timmy? Who's the hypocrite who dresses down people with different opinions with "idiot?" And has the expertise to talk down to someone complaining about being censured while being censured himself? The "cult" you cite is very arguably no more "cult" than some or maybe even all "mainstream" religions. Like for instance ones that believe that they alone are God's people, while the rest of us are something called goyim. Or ones that are aware of endemic perversions perpetrated upon children and doing their damnedest to cover for and protect the preps. The Catholic Church as well as the Synagogues are BOTH guilty in that regard. And the ritual of circumcision is pretty sick too. Check here :
http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/07/how-11-new-york-city-babies-contr…
You call me foolish? Your an armchair punk. How's that for name calling? Anytime I've been guilty of being snarky (I prefer cocky!) it has been in response to someone making a derogatory remark toward me. I let the snarky crap go because as a very sage intellectual has commented in the Batavian, "it's senseless to argue with an idiot." Take a bow hillary and... have a good life. LTFOL!

Dec 1, 2018, 8:33pm Permalink
John Roach

Tim, in post #11, you said you support "reasonable" gun control. Do you support the NYS Senator who now wants you to turn over your social media passwords so the police can go back up to 3 years and see what you posted on places like the Batavian or Facebook?

Dec 2, 2018, 9:03am Permalink
david spaulding

Tim, in regard to post # 1, The U.S. already has reasonable gun control. In my opinion, if I am allowed to have one, NYS has MORE than reasonable gun control...

Dec 2, 2018, 4:16pm Permalink

Authentically Local