Re:Chinese Mass Surveillance – Snowden
by rasengan on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:38AM
(#21857667)
Free speech ends when you lose anonymity.
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| on HN ]
No, free speech ends when you need to be anonymous to speak freely.
Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. [..] It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society.
-- United States Supreme Court, McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission