But seriously giving material aid to the sworn enemy of your nation is usually considered bad form.

Well, yeah bad form, but the question is whether it's illegal or not.

What about a public feed that just happens to be popular with terrorists? Admittedly, I'm divorcing it from the issue a little bit because it seemed like the kid knew who he was talking to, but I figure as long as we're discussing hypotheticals like fixing a bidet, it's not a bad time to ask. Say I put out a manual about fixing toilets (or building better bombs, it really doesn't matter. it could be a botany textbook for all anybody cares. we could say, for example, that it's a tutorial on how bitcoin works) and it's really popular among communists. Not terrorists, not current enemies of the state (communists). But it's illegal in their country to fix toilets (or bitcoin or whatever). They are breaking the law in their country for reading it but how am I breaking a US law by publishing it? On some issues, I would be considered a hero (for example, the state department teaching arabs to use TOR during the Arab Spring) and in others, I would be a villain (Snowden, et al).

This isn't cut and dry. I readily accept that the state secrets debate is far more controversial than toilet fixing instructions, but the point is that if information isn't free then we have to start watching our audiences too. Then it becomes guilt by association. Well, since terrorists read this toilet fixing guide, it must contain information that's valuable to terrorists, so the publisher should be charged with aiding and abetting terrorism. That creates a tautology where if a certain audience reads a publication, it turns the publication of that information into a crime.

This is why it's bad. I mean, yes, bad form maybe but the thing everybody is up at arms about (myself included) is the instructional text. Yeah, the kid is an idiot. This is not the only thing he did wrong, and he will probably cop a charge for it, and it will be serious, but the point isn't about that. It's about the chilling effect on free speech headlines like this, which are phrased very, very disingenuously. It also shows just how much the US government hates bitcoin. And freaking NOBODY is talking about it.

I'm a long time freedom of information advocate. I work in big data. I'm hardly uninformed on this issue, but yet all I see is this blind stream of patriotism in this thread. It's not "the headline is misleading" it's "so what if it's not illegal, he still shouldn't do it."

It's disconcerting is all. Anyway, sorry for the rant. I just felt like you had the sanest voice in the room so I replied to you.