Does amicus brief from former intel chiefs risk justifying stifling of dissent?

[Igel]

4. This is the problem.

We had it once with the Sedition Act, really. At what point does free speech become something to be banned?

Now, the Sedition Act was specifically speaking out against the US government and its involvement in WWI. But the crux of the matter is when to ban speaking out. Would it matter if it were Grannie Smith speaking out because she didn't want her grandson William to go off to war? How about if it were Grannie Schmidt speaking out because she didn't want her grandson Wilhelm to be heading off to fight against her Vaterland that she hoped would win? Would it matter if Schmidt were naturalized? How about if Grannie Smith was actually English and wanted her son to fight with her grandnephews from Dover?

So with Russia. A lot of people said what they said because it's what they'd been saying. It's McCarthyism extended to say they're Russian agents. In some cases, people may be paid. Or just sympathetic. Or just want attention. Some of them were in favor of Sanders (remember, goal 2 was "make HRC lose", and that started in the primaries!). Some might have been in favor of Stein. Wouldn't surprise me if Stein didn't get help--she wasn't HRC any more than Sanders was. Then when HRC got the nomination, it was all Trump; before Trump was the (R) front runner, he wasn't the focus of Russian help.

But the primaries were bitterly fought anyway. Without Russian help.

For Facebook, do we require each member posting 'news' or 'advertising' prove citizenship? Do we worry just about electoral politics? How about Black Lives Matter? The NFL? At what point does 'politics' become just conventional non-political news? Or do we just work at limiting political speech?

What's telling is that the (R) don't like talking about it, because towards the end the Russians supported their nominee. What's just as telling is that the (D) don't like talking about anything that doesn't involve Trump, because the Russians supported early on Sanders (mostly indirectly), and because what they pushed wasn't mostly fake news but minor, trivial, irrelevant news. Email scandal stuff. Digging up Whitewater. And it distracts from fighting Trump.