Period 1: Neo Nazis and Free Speech

The awful things that the neo nazis are saying in regards to Jews and many other groups of people is far beyond freedom of speech. As Americans, we are all entitled to the right of freedom of speech. However, there needs to be some checks and balances that deal with these protections. For instance, In Whitefish, the rabbi of the towns Jewish community was being harassed by hateful comments online that were being sent to her. Some of these comments included things like “You should go jump in an oven”, referring to the Holocaust. They also made threatening comments specifically about her 14 year old son and threatened her family by saying that they need to watch out. Understandable, Roston feared for her and her family’s life and even bought a handgun for protection. “Free speech” should not mean that others should fear for their safety. There needs to be some sort of repercussions for words of extreme hate or threats. The right to free speech is extremely important and should never be taken away from the American people. However, once you start making people fear for their lives or make them scared to be in their own home, a line has been crossed and something needs to be done. In 1988, an anti-intimidation law was put in place to prevent these hate groups from causing harm to their targets. However, this law has been getting ignored lately or the extreme groups are making people start to fear for their safety despite this law. For example, the new nazis are to rally against the Jews in a small town. Yes, as Americans we need freedom of speech and should never be punished for expressing our feelings, beliefs or ideas. Although, if these feelings beliefs or ideas being to affect others by sending them threatening messages or rallying near them, something has to be done. Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing but people that threaten people by saying they will kill them based off their religion, race, or something else, there needs to be repercussions. Stricter laws may need to be enforced to prevent people living in fear. It’s not right. A change must be made. These people do have the freedom to express their opinions but when they make serious threats about hurting others, that is when they need to be punished. It is harassment and it is not acceptable. Freedom of speech protects people from being punished by saying whatever someone wants but it should not protect against harassment because that is a completely different thing

The so called “Neo-Nazi’s” are violating free speech, by making their speech hateful, and deliberate. They claim to be protected by free speech and the first amendment, but according to the CNN article, “This is not free speech, this is nothing protected by the First Amendment, this is not the expression of political opinion … The purpose of this is to damage these people, the purpose of this is to cause them fear and emotional harm, and that's illegal." If these people are doing this on purpose, it is violating law, and therefore he should be stripped of his first amendment rights. These Neo Nazi’s were harming people and abusing them, it’s not okay for people to be put down. If this is the price, then we must pay. If there are certain people abusing their freedom of speech, freedom, then we must raise limitations, or order. To the fifth discussion point, I believe Gersh would win here. These Neo-Nazi’s were terrorizing this town, and they did it almost just to “troll” all the town, and the inhabitants. Gersh’s protection from unprovoked verbal harassment, would most certainly win over Anglin’s claim to free speech. A quote from the NPR article, stating, “Whitefish's police chief, Bill Dial, advised that the victims file police reports, but otherwise go dark and not engage.” This is basically saying for the people terrorized to live in fear, and almost do nothing. This is not what should be happening, just because some Neo-Nazi’s declared free-speech. If we, as Americans allow this kind of action to continue, having citizens terrorize other citizens, how can we be called equals? What kind of actions should we take, as fellow citizens, to prevent this kind of terrible actions against other citizens, and what kind of steps can we take to prevent this kind of terrorism to happen within our nation?

The situation in Whitefish is truly a shame, Because nobody should have to live with the harassment and threats that are appearing in these people's lives. I definitely think that the Neo Nazis crossed the line of free speech. It was hate speech because it was directed at Jewish people and was coincidentally hateful. I believe that the first amendment's protections stop when there is a chance of a situation to arise in which there would be major harm to a party if not all included. "At the core of Anglin's campaign was an old story of Jewish hatred," says Francine Roston, the rabbi of Glacier Jewish Community in Whitefish. If this doesn't scream hatred then I don’t know what does.The people descending upon this jewish community still stand by their beliefs that that this is just freedom of speech. It seems as if the jewish people in the conflict have the support of the people simply because “The suit paints him as the leader of what Gersh’s lawyers say has been a torturous, monthslong campaign that devastated her and her family.” "Mr. Anglin, all that he intended to incite, and all that he did incite, was people expressing themselves," Given this quote he did not expect the “threat” to be imminent. But i feel as if most courts will define imminent as a sure thing and most of these threats seemed fairly sure.In the account of the difference between internet trolling and a rally I think if you take it out of the context of Neo Nazis and put it into something less extreme like the recent feminist movements then it doesn't seem as extreme if the said feminist movements were making threats and trolling on the internet. But it doesn’t quite line up simply because I wouldn’t expect extreme feminists to go through with whatever hypothetical threats they made. Unfortunately I think that the Neo Nazi group will win in court because they never went through with the threats that were made and to be honest I think the whole thing was blown out of proportion by the media.

Recently there has been a lot of issues and conflicts with the topic “Neo Nazi.” Neo Nazi are groups of people that are against Jews, like Germany. In Whitefish Montana a woman named Gersh has been harassed with over 700 instances. Andrew Align created this website to launch harassment to this women. She is not the only person who have placed a lawsuit on online harassment, but is the first to go after a “troll storm.” This is not about free speech, it is about violent things said to different people. Another person was getting emails threatening her to jump in an oven, racial slurs, and just inappropriate behavior. In “National Public Radio” it stated that the police can not doing anything about it at the time because the violent words spoken were “vague” and also “general.” Another word for vague is imminent. Align and the other people that was using the website clearly knew where to draw the time when it comes to free speech and threats of harming people. There is not really a difference between trolling and organizing rallies against certain types of people, you’re still targeting people and harassing them. Hearing the word “rallies” do not have that many positive outcomes. All of the people getting these emails and notifications online should win the “argument” that it is hurting and harassment. There is a difference between expressing your opinion and saying “we are going to cremate you” as I read in one of the articles. Align and his people on the website are fighting for free speech, but there is a line to draw when it comes to free speech, and they need to realize that. Harassment is a very important issue and it can put people at risk if it is taken to far. No one should have to go on their phone computer or anything to find people threatening them and wanting to hurt them or their family because of who they are.

The situation in Montana is very complicated. So I have tried to simplify it to be able to dissect it in terms of the First Amendment. In short, Andrew Anglin published a report saying that Jews of Whitefish Montana were harassing Sherry Spencer, and asking her to leave, because of her son Richard Spencer and his white nationalist views (This was partly false, as he blew the matter out of proportion, but they did recommend that she should leave and Ms. Gersh did try to help her sell the building). Now the issue in question is if Andrew Anglin had violated his free speech rights and was threatening the Jewish community, or if his speech was protected by the First Amendment. I argue that Anglin was protected by the first amendment, and here's why. First, I think it is important to note that most of the charges against Anglin are for him being the “mastermind” behind the troll. He did not specifically say everything that we read in the article, other people were saying those things after he released his article about how bad these people are. First Amendment attorney Marc Randazza, who is representing Anglin, stated, "The only thing he (Anglin) did was call for people to speak, but people want to draw the line for speech they don't like." (CNN) As for all violations of law, there are certain lines that need to be drawn for conviction of violating the First Amendment. In this case, Intent. Although section 875(c) does not explicitly state the word “intent”, based on other court cases before this one, intent is required. Section 875(c) (added to the U.S. Law code in 1939) prohibits the transmission of “any communication containing … any threat to injure the person of another”, which is clearly the situation in this case. The text seems to say that any speech containing a violation, whether intentionally, recklessly, or negligently. However, there is a strong presumption that Congress intends some sort of scienter (a legal term that refers to intent or knowledge of wrongdoing. This means that an offending party has knowledge of the "wrongness" of an act or event prior to committing it. -18 U.S.C. § 1960) as a requirement for conviction, despite one not even being expressed. And here is Anglins protection, in this very phrase, “And as always: NO VIOLENCE OR THREATS OF VIOLENCE OR ANYTHING EVEN CLOSE TO THAT.” This disclaimer clearly disproves that there was any intent to threaten or imply immediate violence. Section 875(c) was discussed, defined, and refined in the following cases:

Morissette v. United States,

Bozeman v. United States,

Twine v. United States.



Each case involved threats, except for Morissette v. United States. It instead focused on the stealing of property, but with the question of intent. Morissette “stole” bomb casings that he believed to be “abandoned”. To issue in question that was posed to the jury was “had the defendant intended to steal the property?” This can be related to the intent of other crimes, including threats as it was used in the other two cases.

As the Supreme Court explained:



“The contention that an injury (or damage) can amount to a crime only when inflicted by intention is no provincial or transient notion. It is as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil.”



So, from this we can conclude that Anglin specifically did not break his boundaries of the First Amendment. He did incite this particular “troll”, but did not have any intent to, at the same time, incite threats of imminent violence. His disclaimer, that was specifically written out, protects him from any violation of the First Amendment.

There is a group of people called “Neo Nazis” that pride themselves on putting down other people mainly of the jewish faith and recently there has been a lot of controversy between one certain Neo Nazi named Mr. Anglin and a jewish woman named Ms. Gersh. Mr. Anglin used the power of his website to spread the hatred of jews. This is a violation of his first amendment rights because it’s one thing to call for action and spread your opinion, however it is a completely different story when you leak personal information and put peoples lives in danger. Mr. Anglin called for an armed march in the town of Whitefish Montana where this all began. How is and organized armed protest march legal? A recent Vice article stated “At last count, Ms. Gersh has received more than 700 instances of harassment against her family as a result of Mr. Anglin’s troll storm.” Over 700 threatening acts of harassment and discrimination goes too far and the first amendment rights of Mr. Anglin should not be protected. The conflict over what’s more pressing of an issue, a citizen’s rights to free speech or a citizen’s protection from discrimination and harassment should obviously side with Ms. Gersh. If someone’s rights to free speech are taken away then it more than likely won’t put their life in danger, however Ms. Gersh is scared for her and her family’s life over a nobody behind a computer screen. The threats made by the Neo Nazis are a very imminent threat that should be taken seriously. Whenever people’s lives are threatened, then it becomes imminent and something needs to be done about it. Mr. Anglin’s first amendment rights should not be protected, but what do you think? And if Mr. Anglin’s rights aren’t protected, then how should they punish him?

@antal
I do agree with you on your opinion that trouble- making individuals will use this case to defend themselves. I mean of course you are right because a lot of people are trying to protect themselves and get away with what they did or did not do. People always want to come out victorious with what they are doing. When one person can get away with it then they think that they should have that same possibility as well. People want to be treated equal, so this might open up Pandora's box for cases later on down the road if they take the side of Anglin. They need to look very closely and not take it lightly, this will decide the future for future cases like this one.