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Friday, August 20, 2010

Senator Kent Conrad decries ruling in Stolen Valor case

Senator decries ruling in Stolen Valor case

By Dale Wetzel - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Aug 19, 2010 16:54:13 EDT

BISMARCK, N.D. — Sen. Kent Conrad on Thursday decried a federal appeals court's ruling that people can't be prosecuted solely for lying about their military medals, saying it dishonors veterans who fought for their country.

The North Dakota Democrat was the primary Senate sponsor of the "Stolen Valor Act," which Congress approved in 2006. It carries criminal penalties and fines if someone falsely claims to have earned military decorations.

Under the law, someone who lies about receiving several military decorations, including the Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart, can be punished with up to a year in prison.
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Senator decries ruling in Stolen Valor case

4 comments:

  1. The Federal Appeals Court has slapped every Veteran of our armed forces in the face.

    Obviously, those two judges do not value honor.

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  2. Amy, I agree with you but I doubt it was meant as a slam against veterans. It's a free speech thing they are trying to protect and that is a good thing but you'd think these judges would be smart enough to find a way to protect real heroes as well as the free speech of liars and frauds. The only thing we can do now is humiliate them when they are discovered and show them for the cowards they really are. They were not brave enough to actually earn the medals they claim to have so they are cowards when they just say they did it. We have free speech rights too. If the court will not do anything to stop them, then we can do a lot of other things.

    We can do what we are doing now and post about these frauds so the rest of the country knows their names. What good would it do them to claim they are a hero when the rest of the country knows they are nothing more than liars? Until judges figure out a way to correct this injustice, it's up to the rest of us to try to stop them.

    It's like the Westboro Baptist people showing up to protest at the military funerals with signs saying how much God hated them and "thanking God for IED's". Judges say they have a right to do it but are not smart enough to come up with a way to protect the families from being a forced audience to their hatred. The families have to be there to bury their dead. They should not be forced to listen to someone else's free speech.

    We all need our right to speak freely in this country protected and that is a good thing but there has to be accountability when we do use it. The judges need to start to think about what protection really means. If you slander someone, you get sued so maybe that is what needs to happen? Something has to be done and lawmakers in Congress need to come up with a way to stop these people from lying about being a hero as much as they need to stop the people lying about the fallen and attacking their families.

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  3. Very good point Kathie. Free speech is one of our foundational freedoms. But just like free speech doesn't extend to yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater, there should be a penalty of impersonating someone with military honors for personal gain.

    Perhaps our legislators will introduce a stronger more focused Stolen Valor bill that would withstand the court's interpretation.

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  4. If they put their minds to it and do it right they can protect the rights of everyone.

    It is illegal to impersonate an officer of the law. It's illegal to impersonate a lawyer or doctor. Even if the impersonators do not arrest someone or try to operate on them, it is still illegal to claim they are something they are not. So why is it a matter of free speech to claim to be a hero? Evidently they believe they have something to gain under false pretences or they would not be lying to this extent. Law makers need to protect civilians from being taken advantage of by frauds the same way they need to protect them from frauds in other professions.

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