[jamespcole2]

Although it's slightly different as I am Australian so it is a different legal system I have strongly believed for a long time that lying for personal gain should be a crime. If it could be proven that a politician, organisation or individual deliberately misrepresented facts for personal gain then this should definitely be considered a crime.

The ability to deliberately lie in order to influence the outcome of important events free of any consequence will always favour those with the loudest voices and the most media influence. In other words if you are the loudest why not lie about everything if there is no possible consequence?

While it could be difficult to prove that someone is lying or that something is untrue in "moral" issues there are many cases where there is empirical data or documentation proving truth, falsehood or knowledge and these are times where deliberate deception could be proven.

Probably widening the debate somewhat and a separate issue but I also feel that selective ignorance should also be punished. For example if you commission 10 reports into something and 9 of them tell you what you don't want to hear and one of them does tell you what you want to hear then you are deliberately ignoring 90% of the expert advice to prop up your point of view. IMHO this is almost as bad.

[arg01]

I agree with the sentiment but I see it as being unworkable. Do you arrest the talking heads for reading the prompter about how earlier someone asked if Obama had a US birth certificate(Technically true)? Do you arrest the evangelical christian for telling his congregation that evolution isn't real and you can show he sat through a class on biology? Do you arrest Jenny McCarthy for publicizing that vaccines cause autism (Spreading terribly harmful misinformation for "the right" reasons)?

Having said that I wouldn't mind a popularizing of using appropriate contracting or oath taking for specific statements to ensure truth and factual knowledge. Much as we do with oaths in court and perjury. I could see that system being workable (though in theory I guess that is what oaths of office entail so it might only be workable due to novelty).

[jamespcole2]

News organisations are already obligated to print retractions when they make mistakes and asking a questions(although it is often used by the media as weasel words) is different to deliberately misleading someone.

In regards to the other two evangelical preachers should probably need to specify in advance that there is significant empirical evidence in direct contradiction to their statements before making them publicly.

In the case of the vaccination debate this should definitely be a crime, there is significant empirical evidence to prove that what anti-vaccination campaigners say is false. There is some precedent for this regarding the claims of chiropractors in the US which went to trial and found that they were lying about the efficacy of their treatments. (Also on a side note why would anyone listen to a completely unqualified "celebrity" over the opinions of someone with a PHD in virology or epidemiology. Most of the anti-vaccination campaigners are not adequately qualified to have an opinion on the matter anyway).

Also I feel that it's whether it is for personal gain is a big factor, if you are just ignorant that is unfortunate but not necessarily malicious.

There are also examples here(in Australia) of companies being fined for misleading the public, a notable example is "balance bracelets" being recalled from sale here due to false claims.

That being said despite the similarities between the two there are some pretty large cultural differences between the US and Australia which may make some of my points moot. In general Australia favours stronger consumer protections and government regulations, a free and independent publicly funded media service(ABC) and very negative political campaign adds often backfire and lower the public perception of the person making the attack rather than the other way around. Additionally Australia does not have any explicit legal guarantees of freedom of speech akin to the US constitution so some forms of speech, such as overt racism, are already illegal and people can be denied entry for public statements which indicate "bad character" such as holocaust denial etc.