[d0ne]

I up voted your comment, however:

Drug dealers, Pedophiles and terrorist all use email, cell phones, public roads and snail-mail to organize, and conduct, their illegal activities. Is it a realistic reaction to consider shutting each of these down every time there is a new conviction?

[tedunangst]

They're (hopefully) only talking about shutting things down for a short time. And yes, public roads are shut down quite frequently, sometimes as part of crime fighting efforts. Snail-mail is completely shut off every Sunday even!

[d0ne]

It's not the fact that infrastructure gets shut down it's the reason and scope.

No Snail-mail on Sunday is unrelated to people using it for illegal purposes.

Public roads being shut down, even for crime fighting efforts, is not the same as 'shutting down' Facebook or Twitter for your citizens. The proper analogy would be 'Someone was hit by a drunk driver and we believe more drunk drivers will illegally use the road so no one is allowed to drive on any roads for any reason.'

[tedunangst]

The point I was poorly making was that the powers that be will likely weigh the costs and benefits of shutting various things off, and the perceived cost (negative impact to innocent parties) for disabling twitter is probably so low it barely registers.

[d0ne]

I agree with you completely. However, in a Democratic government the decision to limit the freedom of your citizens shouldn't be made based on how easy it is for you to do but whether or not it is the right thing to do.

[cheez]

"saves my bacon? right thing to do"