[edanm]

"If you gave someone -- say a reporter -- the contact information of a murderer to interview for a story, should that be a crime?"

No.

Which is why I said about sharing the URL: "Again, not all cases [should be illegal], but some cases."

But as I said in another comment, if I gave someone the URL to a site from which he could order a hit on his wife, knowing he was planning on doing so, and then he went ahead and did it, could I be arrested as an accomplice?

Let's remove computers entirely to see where we stand. If I gave someone the phone number of a hitman, would I be an accomplice?

I don't know the answer for sure, but I suspect that I could be seen as an accomplice. So why is this different?

[jerf]

"Which is why I said about sharing the URL: 'Again, not all cases [should be illegal], but some cases.'"

But if you took the time to properly expand that, you would probably discover that those "some cases" are already illegal. Conspiracy is already illegal. Racketeering is already illegal. A number of other such things are already illegal. If you can't come up with an example of something not already illegal that should be illegal that this law would make illegal, then you're not actually arguing in favor of it.

I'm really unconvinced there's some massive hole in the current system as is. The current legal code is already so massive that the government can pretty much imprison anybody they want for as long as they want. What legit social purpose does this law actually serve?

[edanm]

I'm not arguing in favor of the law.

I'm arguing against rhetoric slippery slope arguments that hide the actual issues. It's easy to talk about how ridiculous it is to ban linking, because "for God's sake it's just a link". I'm trying to give the perspective that sometimes, even "just giving out a link" is illegal.

[user24]

> could I be arrested as an accomplice?

yes, possibly. So there's already a law that covers that situation and no need to introduce another law.