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Comment by tome | Hacker News Reader

Woah, there's a difference between an "internet lynch mob" doing it and the state doing it!

Yeah, the USA would never have anything like an extrajudicial no-fly list for people the government doesn’t like...

The state does do it. It's called a criminal record which is strikingly easy to obtain in the U.S. which has a law for everything imaginable. If you've ever had any kind of criminal activity, ever, even from something dumb in your youth, the United States has a log of it, which employers use to discriminate against that person. Forever. It doesn't go away. The "miscreant" is then forced either into a life of crime, which puts them into prison or worse.

A criminal record, while cumbersome and overly-easy to attain, doesn't impose nearly the same scope of restrictions as this article suggests...

Do you even need a criminal record to end up on the No Fly List (or the less consequential terrorist watch list)?

I think it is only really different in scale.

That is absolutely true - even if you are lucky enough to have a charge removed from your criminal record, everything on your arrest record will outlive you. Thats a problem since today every little thing gets you arrested - your average school yard brawl will get kids arrested for assault. However, on the bright side so many people have been arrested or jailed in this country that employers have had to start taking people with minor offenses just because there are so few people who make it to adulthood without at least one encounter with the law.

Agreed. I was bringing up that in my mind they both fall under the same overarching trend I've been seeing in the west for a while.

If you don't want things you post screen-shot-ed and re-pasted, don't post them on the internet under your real name?

If you don't want your career destroyed and your life threatened, don't come to work on "no whites" day at your college.

That's been my approach, for sure. But then, Mirimir also has a reputation that's worth protecting.

there is a difference, but it's not black and white.

sure, state is much more powerful. however, state plays by the rules, and if the rules (aka laws) are changed, state will leave you alone. And laws could be changed.

good luck trying to stop the mob, though.

If random idiots can internet lynch mob you, so does the state. And so will the state, if the need arises.

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