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Rolly

Sep 4, 2011, 9:17 PM

Post #1 of 8 (1261 views)

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2 Mexicans deny terrorism, face 30 years for tweet

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MEXICO CITY — Think before you tweet.

A former teacher turned radio commentator and a math tutor who lives with his mother sit in a prison in southern Mexico, facing possible 30-year sentences for terrorism and sabotage in what may be the most serious charges ever brought against anyone using a Twitter social network account.

Prosecutors say the defendants helped cause a chaos of car crashes and panic as parents in the Gulf Coast city of Veracruz rushed to save their children because of false reports that gunmen were attacking schools.

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Rolly Pirate

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jrpierce

Sep 5, 2011, 8:42 AM

Post #2 of 8 (1208 views)

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Re: [Rolly] 2 Mexicans deny terrorism, face 30 years for tweet

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Amazing! While this is not the answer, I do understand the problem. These kinds of false messages can be even worse than shouting "fire" in a theater. This is a new area of the law that nations world-wide will need to address.

Jim

robt65

Sep 5, 2011, 10:33 AM

Post #3 of 8 (1193 views)

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Re: [Rolly] 2 Mexicans deny terrorism, face 30 years for tweet

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Hello Rolly,

Sorry, . . . . I didn't see your post on this subject, when I posted my take on this subject on the "General Forum"

robt65

Yacatecuhtli

Sep 5, 2011, 11:14 AM

Post #4 of 8 (1187 views)

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Re: [jrpierce] 2 Mexicans deny terrorism, face 30 years for tweet

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In Reply To

I have to wonder what is worse............ Yelling Fire in a Theatre or setting the Theatre on Fire ? Mexico has much to address concerning reform in various areas ( judicial, seguridad, transparencia & confianza, derechos humanos, etc) and I do not feel the the proposed Ley de Seguridad Nacional will be able to do it all. I will be a very difficult balancing act.

richmx2

Sep 5, 2011, 11:47 AM

Post #5 of 8 (1180 views)

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Re: [Rolly] 2 Mexicans deny terrorism, face 30 years for tweet

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Other than the means of transmission, there's really nothing new about prosecutions for spreading false rumors... "yelling fire in a crowded theater". It's no different than the prosecutions that followed the lynching of several police officers in San Juan Ixtayopan Pueblo (DF) back in November 2004. In that instance, the prosecutor claimed that persons who had started rumors that the officers were child molesters were the "intellectual authors" of the crime that followed. Here, it's the twits with twitter who are being charged.

I don't see where "terrorism" comes into all this. Politics might. The Calderón Administration seeing the "Tuiteros" as a fairly effective opposition group, that for better or worse (and in this instance, definitely for the worse) goes around the official channels of communications, has been a thorn in their side. Whether — like Wikileaks (and it's not the best analogy, the Wikileaks documents being supposedly "truthful") — prosecutions are so much about the damage resulting from information, as about information itself being spread without official blessing is always a question.

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http://voiceofmexico.com
http://editorialmazatlan.com

jrpierce

Sep 6, 2011, 9:39 AM

Post #6 of 8 (1117 views)

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Re: [Yacatecuhtli] 2 Mexicans deny terrorism, face 30 years for tweet

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While clever, your question is to me obvious. It is much worse to set the theater on fire.

Do you know if the spreading of false rumors is something addressed in the Ley de Seguridad Nacional?

This is one of those hard situations in the law because it goes to intent. If someone is merely incautious about forwarding rumors without verification, that is a very different matter than if someone sets out purposely to create a dangerous situation. I really hadn't considered before now the enormous potential for disruption that could be caused by a small group spreading messages virally. One could really cause havoc.

Jim

richmx2

Sep 6, 2011, 12:18 PM

Post #7 of 8 (1091 views)

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Re: [jrpierce] 2 Mexicans deny terrorism, face 30 years for tweet

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JIm... you seem to be putting the cart before the horse. That Mexican version of the U.S. PATRIOT Act is by no means a done deal, and if this incident is taken seriously, then there are already apparently laws to cover it.

I haven't seen anything on this other than the AP article -- and AP having a sometimes unfortunate tendency to "fill in the blanks" when it comes to Mexican legal code -- the classic was when they started the meme that violations of Mexican immigration law was a "felony"... a legal concept that doesn't even exist in Mexican or most other legal systems It could just be that 30 years is the theoretical maximum aggregate sentence for crimes based on the denunciacion.

The more I think about it, the more this sounds like one of those innumerable incidents (in innumerable countries) where a prosecutor files charges that aren't likely to stand up in court, and stretches the law when pressured to DO SOMETHING for political reasons.

http://mexfiles.net
http://voiceofmexico.com
http://editorialmazatlan.com

jrpierce

Sep 6, 2011, 2:59 PM

Post #8 of 8 (1067 views)

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Re: [richmx2] 2 Mexicans deny terrorism, face 30 years for tweet

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Rich, I don't know about carts and horses. What I've tried to say is that the spreading of false rumors via social media seems like it can create huge problems, that society has a need to protect itself from such behavior, and that the purposeful spreading of bad information in a way that creates chaos should, in my view, be punished by more than a slap on the wrist. I don't know about the state of the laws here in Mexico, but it seems to me that imprisonment for 30 years for someone who may have just carelessly passed along unfounded rumors sounds harsh. But as you said, based on one article, we have insufficient facts about this situation to make an informed judgment.

Jim