The days are days of disinfection and purification.
At every moment, the monstrous media of a terrible moral breach is revealed in the ranks of the police.
It is not known where this affair will develop and how it will end, but while sunlight rises on one damaged focus of individual liberties, interesting things are happening in a much more sacred and principled arena, the arena of legislation.
The new members' bill from New Hope, which was published this week in Israel Today, seeks to determine that the court could oblige the Internet provider to disclose the identity of a person who posted on the Internet things defined as tort, or the identity of the person who violated the defamation law.
What it means?
This means that if until today a person could have been exposed to a lawsuit if he published about Man Dahua that he stole water from the common building faucet, while the water faucet in question was actually the home faucet - then from today the same person will be exposed to the lawsuit even if he published that his neighbor is stingy. Laughs too loudly. Maybe even if he advertised that he is an idiot. "Injustice" is a very broad definition.
On the face of it, this is a very positive offer.
Sheaming is synonymous with everything that is satanic and monstrous, and we have already learned "cursed be he that smiteth his neighbor secretly" - a warning that also applies to one who secretly spreads things in condemnation of his friend.
The network is the modern public domain.
Anonymous injury is by all accounts a sick evil.
so whats the problem?
The first problem is the violation of the sanctity of freedom of expression.
When a society decides to put freedom of expression as one of the basic principles of its life, it takes into account that this freedom will also include some not-so-positive expressions.
In order to approve the publication of Natan Zach's songs, there is no need for freedom of expression.
This freedom was chosen to be a fundamental principle in democratic life because its essence as an existential condition for democratic life outweighs the dangers it carries.
And therefore the use of governmental regulation or God forbid in legislation to infringe, or even to touch on this freedom - should be sparse and out of vibration and sweat, if at all.
The second problem is the context and identity of the bidders.
This proposal is being made in the midst of an ongoing political brawl, which is hurting many politicians and is mostly abandoned online.
In this context, it is very easy to interpret such a legislative initiative as a mouthpiece (in fact there is no way to interpret it otherwise).
And more, and it is the main thing: this beit midrash, by some of the members of Tikva Hadash, has signed a series of legislative proposals that belong to the same family.
The current law is the upgraded brother of the bizarre “Facebook Law,” which seeks to establish governmental oversight of content posted online.
Unlike the previous law, which speaks of harm or danger to the public, here the governmental authority is also extended to "defamation" - a much more extensive and comprehensive definition, and hence much more dangerous.
New Hope is a party that is at the center of a bitter political conflict with political rivals.
If these legislative attempts are also combined with the previous legislative attempts of parts of it, in the areas of priesthood restriction and disgrace - the resulting picture is of a political group engaged in political legislation, which is increasingly interpreted - to the dismay of many - as a serious and dangerous violation of democracy.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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