Terrorism as defined by the threat to free speech

[richardbaxter]

Any entity (be it not for national security) that threatens freedom of speech is a terrorist organisation.

 

Can anyone find any errors in this definition? (Speech is taken here in its most general literal sense to mean the transmission of words by any medium).

[Xcalyba]

Hmm, specific!

America = the constitution.

Any group that is against the constitution is a terrorist organization.

[richardbaxter]

Note the most obvious issue I can identify with the definition is the possibility of a recursive interpretation (e.g. vilification being used to suppress free speech) and therefore self-contradiction.

Although I prefer this stronger definition (I think it better captures the concept of terrorism), it could be changed to accommodate such cases (ie tolerate threats to speech via speech). The precise rewording of the definition to achieve this is however a matter in itself.

The definition could be constrained to its weaker form by adding the qualifier; apart from the speech itself (allowing for vilification and the suppression of speech by speech). Ie; "Any entity (be it not for national security) that threatens freedom of speech (apart from by the use of speech alone) is a terrorist organisation". But you should be able to see the problems created by adding this qualifier. What does one mean by speech alone? Is this speech in exclusion to performing actions necessary to initiate that speech? Or if the alone (exclusive) condition is not added, what if the action used to prevent the speech just happened to involve speech but was more prominently using another method such as physical force?

Alternatively, the definition could be constrained to its weaker form by adding the qualifier; by physical force or threat of physical force. Ie; "Any entity (be it not for national security) that threatens freedom of speech by physical force or threat of physical force is a terrorist organisation". The problem I see with specifying the type of action necessary to prevent speech (eg violence) is that it doesn't capture alternative means of achieving the aim of suppressing speech (eg financial punishments, threats of court, etc). Likewise the condition "threat of force" could also be read to contradict the statement also if the threat involved speech.

This is why I did not attempt to specify a weaker version incapable of self-contradiction. Perhaps someone can think of a way of rewording it to avoid these issues?

[richardbaxter]

For the weaker form of the definition, it has been suggested that the word 'threatens' be replaced with 'prevents'. Ie; Any entity (be it not for national security) that prevents freedom of speech is a terrorist organisation.