Philadelphia Court Censors 'Hate Site'

kerouac points out a Boston Globe story about a man charged with civil rights violations for his Web site, after a slow two-year investigation. He writes: "Okay... I don't want to start a race flame-war, but it looks like the courts are starting to regulate 'hate speech'. I take pride in the fact that my bleeding-heart liberalism makes me hate what this guy's site is all about, but the U.S. courts are regulating/censoring this person's right to be a jerk." As described, the Web page sounds like a death threat, which would not be protected speech. A Wired story has more detail. For some reason the DoJ has not filed criminal charges for the alleged threat, so the man is being charged under the Fair Housing Act for preventing someone from making use of the FHA.

Comments

Death threats are not protected speech

[Stevis]

I don't think Voltaire would defend to the death this jerk's right to animate someone's office blowing up. It's one thing to claim superiority for your group, and how everyone else will be under your thumb. But that is a specific threat to a specific person, and that is where the speaker's rights have ended and the victim's have begun.

Re:Death threats are not protected speech

[DaveHowe]

I don't think Voltaire would defend to the death this jerk's right to animate someone's office blowing up. It's one thing to claim superiority for your group, and how everyone else will be under your thumb. But that is a specific threat to a specific person, and that is where the speaker's rights have ended and the victim's have begun.
Spot on! I can't see the most rabid free-speech protestor trying to support this guy - If he had done this sort of thing in the street, or put up a big banner outside his home, he would have been treated no better and no worse than this - and that is how it should be. There *may* be a fine line between protected, political speech and actual threats, but he can't even SEE that line from where he is standing - not even with good binoculars.....
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The other side

[Brooks Davis]

Here's an article with a little more information on the effect this scumbag is having on his intended victem:

Woman given help at last in battle with hate group - The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Lets not stereotype here...

[killbill]

..."I take pride in the fact that my bleeding-heart liberalism makes me hate what this guy's site is all about"...

Agreed. But please note for the record that I take pride in my knee-jerk religous right conservatisim that makes me hate it just as much as you do...

I won't judge all liberals by nutty earth first terrorists and the unabomber, please don't judge all conservatives by nutty klan members and clinic bombers.

That being said, this does present an interesting delimma for both sides. My only beef with the ACLU is that they tend to leap to the defense of groups that tweak the noses of conservative Christians, but do little or nothing to defend groups that tweak the noses of liberal Democrats. I think they are an important organization, and perform an important role protecting the constitution.

P.J. O'Rouke had a great response to eliminate this type of delimma (constitutionally protected free speech versus offensive things being said).

He described a delimma faced by the newspaper at his old college where those loonies that pretend the WWII holocoust never happened wanted to place an ad. At first, the editors said they could not publish it because it was a lie. Then, they decided they had to publish it because they otherwise would violate the groups first ammendment rights.

His solution was elegant (if not mathmatically rigorous). He said they should throw the thing away because it was a piece of SHI*.

Cant argue with that logic...