No, the FBI doesn't handle child abuse cases, but I'm pretty sure they handle sexual predator cases, or at least the databases containing their info. My dad just recently retired from the FBI, but he was white collar/government corruption for most of his career, with some terrorism thrown in since 9/11. He never really handled cases with children, though I think he once worked a case where a teenage girl was lured and kidnapped by an online predator.

I think the FBI steps in the case of serial crimes (murders and predators) and when crimes take place across state lines where no one state agency has jurisdiction or in federal zones.

Wow, the Saudi royal family and government is so full of corruption and vice I'm surprised they stay together. One of my dad's first cases was investigating oil deals with the Saudis.
Yes, the crime usually has to occur over multiple state lines, but most child predators don't stay local. They usually move around, especially if they actually kidnap a child, which doesn't happen very often anymore, thank God. I don't know the statistics, but it would make sense for them to want to put as much distance as possible between them and their victims. I doubt they're going to stay in one area after they commit such a terrible crime.

Because religious freedom includes freedom from religion in areas of life regarding one's participation in government.
If they generally offered permits for those sort of events then the grant for the permit should be judged upon the same, exact criteria as every other grant for a permit. Granting access to public space isn't the same thing as endorsing a particular religion unless the grant access isn't equally available.

By your measure just about anyone who's ever stood up against anything bigger than them was a moron. Yes, you are vilifying a whole host of historical heroes as morons.
Pretty much, breaking the law is illegal, being an insensitive, bigoted asshole isn't illegal. Lynching, assault and battery, threats, etc. are illegal. So long as they're not engaging in those things we've explicitly banned we generally think it's safer and better to stand up for folks' general right to be an asshole if they want to.
Yes, but that principal works here almost entirely unlike elsewhere. I suspect if not for the 1930s and 1940s chez toi it might work differently over there as well.
Jefe is right, we consider our freedom of speech to be extremely sacrosanct here, something which will seem largely foreign to people in other countries who generally feel like they have freedom in the realm of speech, but we, in the US, would generally find them constrained. It's not that we believe people should be bigoted assholes, it's that we believe in their right to be bigoted assholes so long as they stop at being generally unpleasant (i.e. don't commit any actual crimes).

Careful what you wish for, you're actually saying this as people are getting their asses kicked while trying to petition their government for a redress of their grievances.
You realize Christianity is in the VAST majority in the US, right?

First amendment needs to be replaced with "Freedom to express any opinion which Kalirion approves of."

Quite simple, no?

True, but... I don't think there is any one organized subset of Christianity that can claim a majority of the population in the US.

That's where these nutbags like the aforementioned Westboro Baptist come into the discussion. It could even go so far as to take out major brands, like LDS. I'm not a fan of organized religion but still shudder at the thought of something like this, done in the name of making people comfortable.

Someone have to stand up against those that want to create a theocracy. She did the right thing. She clearly had the law on her side. It is the local politicians that wasted the money that they were entrusted, either through ignorance or fundamentalism. I think you are aiming your anger in the wrong direction.

You may think of her as a spoiled brat but know that she has made a sacrifice by getting her name on the internet in a controversial issue like this. Rather than self entitled and stupid I think that she is a courageous young girl that stood up for a noble cause she believes in.

No. If people like her just suck it up, things will just get worse. In my language we have a saying: "If you give the devil your finger, he will take the whole hand" In your country there is such a strong current of defiant Christianity and some of these people do want to break down the barriers between government and religion. Government and religion should stay separated. Period.

This sounds to me like they were taking it too far. Unless there were some specific issue that I'm not aware of. Since the park was free to rent for other private organizations the church should have the same rights to rent it and do their thing. It is the same thing as if someone was going to arrange a music festival in a park owned by the city and someone religious in the administration cancelled it because some of the bands were blasphemous. I'm sure most people here would look upon that as a misuse of power.

Keeping religious practice and preaching out of school however, is something very different.

And the US is a shining beacon of light in this. As many of you know in many, if not in most European states the freedom of speech is more limited. The examples are many, from Sweden to the Netherlands, the UK, France and of course Germany. Your country stand as a good example for us to follow and I think you still have great influence.

In my country, freedom of speech is strong in practice, while a little more limited in theory. There is an actual law against blasphemy that hasn't been used since I think, early in the last century? When some of those Mohammed cartoons were published in Norwegian newspapers someone tried to use those laws unsuccessfully. What I don't understand is why those laws weren't removed. I hope they will be soon.

There is also a law against some type of racism. As far as I know it has only been used in a murder case and back in the nineties when they made an racist political party illegal. But racism should be legal (as long as it doesn't include any threats or instigation of violence of course). Racism should instead be fought with arguments instead of force.

Besides that the major difference compared to the US is that the right to privacy stands stronger here and thus makes some limits to the freedom of speech. For example in the US there seem to be common practice to give all convicted criminals the full name in the news. And is it common practice for those that are just under suspicion too or is that just leaks?
In Norway convicted criminals aren't named in the newspapers and I think that is very good. While the limit it constitutes on the freedom of speech is problematic, I think the practical consequences of having peoples name "destroyed" weighs against it. Especially in the internet age, having your name brought down in the mud constitutes an extra punishment. Unfortunately, in later years there have been a trend where people who are under suspicion in a much published case are named on blogs and small newspapers until it is so well known that even the big newspapers can write about it.

Apart from that i think the same limitations apply as in the US:
That you cannot tell lies about people to defame them.
That you cannon make threats or instigate violence.
Fraud.
Any more?

Ah I just remembered. This is embarrassing. Norway still has a very silly law against hardcore pornography. Hardcore pornography is the kind of pornography where you see sexual organs in motion or where there is a focus on the sexual organs or something like that. For some reason this was thought to be worse than softcore pornography. Well it is in my opinion quite silly to outlaw the photographic description of something so healthy and important but that is how it is :-)
As far as I remember it was last brought up in the parliament circa 10 years ago. But due to the influence of some feminist organizations with some strange ideology, the law remained in force. Some soft porn magazine went to court to try to change it after that but were not successful. This law has always just been used against TV, magazines and video.
When the internet got popular the anti-pornography people must have understood that they had no chance, for as far as I know there has never been any attempts to censor internet porn.

With the internet, hardcore porn has become extremely available so there isn't much push for to remove the law but in my opinion it is a disgrace. If it weren't for the internet you would think that the law would have been removed by now or at least that there would be a strong movement against it.

And in the past our freedom of speech was much more limited. Strong computer game violence is such a young phenomenon that no games were ever censored or forbidden here. But in the 80's and early 90's it was common for some kind of government board to censor the very violent movies before release. The most objectionable scenes were cut and the worst movies were outright banned.

When Life of Brian came out it was banned in Norway for a year. (Which led to it being advertised in Sweden as "So funny it was banned in Norway!")

Well, as the race for the Republican nomination has shown yet again Christians are very found of attacking other sects, especially groups like the LDS (Mormons for those that don't know) who are somewhat of an easier target due to them being less popular with others.

However, the moment Christians think their ability to be Christian is at stake I'm relatively confident that they'd be a solid unit. There's no way to pass something like that with the American people watching even as little as they do today. Also, you're assuming wide support from atheists would pass this. Even if every atheist was for it, and they absolutely would not be in any great numbers, atheists are only around 13% of the US population and aren't any bigger on voting than theists.

If something like that ever passed, it would be because Christians themselves passed it. While it's possible it might primarily target a Christian sect (e.g. many Christians will claim that the LDS are not Christian) it's much more likely to target non-Christians, probably non-Christian theists but maybe atheists as well.
If you're not a minor then the news is free to smear your name on mere suspicion (as long as they don't resort to libel) and never print jack shit if you're found not guilty, even in a blindly obvious sort of way. That is one price we pay, it's worth it, but it is one of the more vicious consequences.

The part about your argument that just isn't rational is that you're drawing an arbitrary line in the sand that has no legal basis behind its position and declaring it the "one size fits all" solution to this. We already have a one size fits all solution and she acted on it. It became a BFD when she pointed it out and people who should have known better reacted by attacking and marginalizing her. I guarantee she's been taking punches, probably along with her whole family, over this since the moment she brought it up. Any video you've seen of her, quotes you've heard from her, whatever, which you think illustrates poor character on her part were given by a person who had suffered months and months of abuse at the hands of awful people. Exactly what did you expect? That she remains civil and rational at all so soon after such an ordeal is to her credit.

She listened in class and applied what she had learned in a legal and appropriate manner. We should be so lucky if more students would do likewise.