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Appeals Court Finds "Nuremberg Files" Site Unlawful
Greplaw writes "The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this evening that an anti-abortion website that featured "wanted" posters of various abortion doctors constituted a "true threat." The website, called The Nuremberg Files, is therefore not protected by the First Amendment and is illegal under a 1994 law prohibiting threats against abortion doctors. The full opinion of the court is available on Findlaw. This case marks one of the first times that a website has been ruled to constitute such a threat." Our previous story has the background on the case. The District Court found the website was an unlawful threat; a three-judge panel of the Appeals court found that it wasn't; and now the entire Appeals court has found, by a 6-5 vote, that it was indeed unlawful. The case could be appealed to the Supreme Court next. The accepted definition of a threat unprotected by the First Amendment is one which "on its face and in the circumstances in which it is made is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate and specific as to the person threatened, as to convey a gravity of purpose and imminent prospect of execution", and there is considerable dissent among the judges over whether a website can or cannot meet that standard.
Publishing public information: Okay
Publishing same information with encouragement to kill the people on the list: Not Okay
Understanding the Pro-Life movement's basic argument and agreeing with it are totally understandable. Understanding the steps to get from "life begins at conception" and "life should be protected" to "kill abortionists" requires understanding huge leaps in logic.
I have been pwned because my
..is NOT free speech. And by advocating I don't mean simply saying "Oh, so and so is evil and should die." Advocating is going on to provide details like where the victim to be lives, what their schedule is like, etc.
But hey, the people posting it are innocent of any crime if they dont actualy do the killing!!
MY ASS.
This seems to me to be another issue where people have decided that the fact that something is on the web makes it different from other mass media. It may (or may not, given the state of most search engines today) be a more effective means of dessiminating information, but it's goal is the same as that of print magazines or tv or annoying "lose 30 lbs in 30 days" messages: getting information to a large number of people.
What the judges should be asking themselves is not 'does something on the web constitute a threat' but rather 'if they put this on a billboard in times square, would it constitute a threat'.
Narrative
I think another site that guy had abortioncams.com is just as bad because it was cams out side planned parenthoods and said people were going to kill thier babies when infact some went in for check up, STD test birth control pills or to work, and it was detring people because they were being harrased by the psychos holding the video camera.
People like that need to relized that just because they are Jesus reaks (no offesne to Christians there is a big differnce between a Christian and a Jesus Freak)doesn't mean they are gonna get thier way in America there is a seperation between Church and State so once they say the word "God", like they always have to and do, they instantly kill their arguement.
And if they wanna play the "God" Game then the constitution proves them wrong because women have the "God" given right to make children when they are willing and able to. if they are not willing well medcine has changed the answer from Tough to a medical bill.
Religion isn't a joke, these people are. I hate it when people equate good religion with bad religion. You don't make obviously stupid generalizations based on sex or race (I guess I might be assuming too much here), why do so based on religion?
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
Hopefully it could be shown in court that the vast majority of /. readers are not likely to perform such an act, regardless of how inflammatory the statement maybe. In the case of bloody-minded anti-abortionists, however, this is obviously not the case.
My point is this: In previous rulings concerning this exception to the first amendment, it has been the case that the audience could be observed to be a volatile mass and thus likely to be swayed by hateful and threatening speech. Regarding websites, this issue becomes murky and threatens to turn any ruling either way into the dreaded first step down a slippery slope. I should expect my example above illustrates how this could be used to control expression in any number of forums.
sig-free as of 28 July 02!
Read the opinion carefully. While any ruling on 1st amendment rights deserves careful review, this one, on the whole, strikes a balance in favor of liberties.
Let's consider what's going on here. The web site in question created "wild west" style posts of abortion doctors, and updated lists of those doctors that had been assassinated. (There are a number of criminal cases where physicians were attacked--even killed--because their name appears on hit lists.)
Now, we enjoy a right a free speech. But we do not have a right to threaten the safety of other individuals. When threats are made against individuals, the balance of interests between individual expression and individual safety shifts to the threatened.
Now, let's be clear about this. The hit lists were not mere trash talking in a chat room. They were not even generalized expressions of rage about doctors who perform abortions. Instead, they were lists created with the express, explicit purpose of organizing others to harm physicians. This is not my interpretation of the site mirrors I visited. This is also the opinion of most of the 9th circuit. Now, only a bare majority of the court felt the threat was sufficiently immediate to tip the balance for individual safety. But most of the court sided with the opinion that the site was designed to promote violence against doctors.
We should be cautious about restrictions on freedom of expression. And it seems that this is exactly what has taken place here: A serious, careful, factually detailed analysis for the circumstances of this case. There are no categorical rulings about web pages. This is not even a "technology" story, except for the fact that the hit list was online. (The same ruling might have obtained if the lists were merely on paper and sufficiently circulated.)
So, while I'm don't enjoy opinions that side against the big 1st A, I have to realize that our liberty in expression must, like all liberties, reach a limit when it bumps up against other rights and interests. I have to side with personal freedom and liberty.
As a closing note, I don't like abortion either. And I also don't like capital punsihment. But we should not let passion excuse us from the political process. Murder is wrong. If we disagree with a person's practice and work, we have a system of laws to change, or live by if we fail in this endeavor.
Most aborted fetuses can hardly be called "children". Most abortions occur when all the cells are simply a small bundle of identical cells - removing them is no different than when a woman has her menstrual cycle and flushes it down the toilet.
Comparing a doctor who performs abortions to Hitler is hardly fair.
I may agree with abortion. I may not. No matter what I think, abortion is legal. One can lobby against abortion, but shooting people who are doing something that is legal, if controversial, is not just murder, it is a stab at democracy, the rule of law, and anything else that makes a free country. You may applaud people who kill abortion doctors because you agree with their view. What happens when the same religious nuts start picking on somebody else, somebody you like? What if they go after you? Dictatorships are cool as as long as everything goes like you want it. However, when you disagree with the Fuehrer, head mullah, or whatever, you're dead. Think about it. Better still, take a vacation in places where religious, anti-democratic goons hold sway.
A website cannot immediately threaten someone? That would be a dangerous precedent to set.
I imagine that could be (ab)used by organized crime to put out hits on people. "Your honor, it's been shown that a website cannot immediately threaten someone. I didn't order that person killed, I just posted it on my website".
Besides, that's not the precedent anyways. "Immediately threaten" hah, someone made that crap up.
All that's necessary is for the victim to feel that their life is now in danger. I don't know about the rest of you, but if someone put up my picture on a kill-list, I'd feel like I was in real and immediate danger.
Who gives a shit if it's alive or not? , that's not the issue in my opinion;
rather; will it have parents to love it and care for it.
You should probably go vegan to - just use the same type of "deliberate thinking" to sort the issue of eating dead animals out.
moderations:
troll: 3
insightful: 1
That's what we get for trying to keep religious belief out of our schools. (nope, i'm not an american)
Earn some first year biology -- a blastocyst is not a human being. Currently accepted research suggests that a developing fetus (wrong definition -- can't think of the right word) doesn't have a nervous system developed to the point that it would be capable of even rudimentary sensory perception until at least 15 weeks. No nervous system == vegetable. A vegetable is not morally worthy of consideration when you apply rights to it that supercede the rights of a grown human being to self-determination.
Plus there is always the extremely kooky idea among the educated and/or enlightened that your body is actually your own and that you have the right to exert control over the natural processes that of your body. However, that runs against the concepts of "surrendering yourself to G*d" that is so common in many of the religions and it is those ideals that are used to deny women the right of controlling their reproductive processes through law.
So either change the chant to "diploid human life is sacred" or change the chant entirely.
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
One time, a good friend (an atheist) got into a religious debate. I using facts about faiths, claimed that Atheism is a religion.
To follow the logic of your argument to its conclusion would result in the absurd notion that it is impossible for one not to have a religion. It's the equivalent of saying anarchy is a form of government. It's silly.
Christans BELIEVE (using absolutely no facts in judgment). Atheists DISBELIEVE (using absolutely no facts in judgement). It is an interesting religion, in that it denies all underlying faiths in all religions.
This is a fallacy in your reasoning. To say one "disbelieves" is to attribute a positive action to some person. The very term "atheist" denotes a lack of positive action. In other words, an atheist fails to believe. Simply failing to believe in something is logically different than actively disbelieving it. The very definition of the term is a lack of religion.
Sometimes it is convenient for theists to attempt to place an atheist in the same philosophical realm as themselves. In doing so, a theist is usually attempting to force the atheist to justify his "belief," and thereby relieving the theist of the impossible task of justifying their own. Unfortunately for the theist, this is not sound reasoning at all. It is just a refined method of saying, "prove God doesn't exist."
Woman's body, woman's choice. There is nothing I have seen, read, or be taught that shows me abortion is wrong.
In opposition to the latter part of your statement, I do think it's wrong. But that's my personal opinion, which is nicely trumped by the first part of your statement, leaving me pro choice as you are.
That's why it's pro-choice, not pro-abortion as we are often mislabeled by the pro-life crowd.
Contrary to most of the comments posted here, most pro-life advocates do NOT condone, nor agree with killing, harassing, or harming abortion clinic workers, doctors, etc. Most intelligent pro-lifers realize that the activities that go on in an abortion clinic are currenly LEGAL and performing ILLEGAL acts to try to stop these activities is totally worthless. The right way to go about it is to work to get the laws changed.
I'm just disappointed about all the comments being made here depiciting all pro-life people as hypocritical morons that are blinded by religious beliefs. Yes, some pro-life people are that way... but the majority are not. The majority just feel that it is wrong to end an innocent life. And to debunk the perceived hypocracy of being pro-life and pro-death penatly... there is a significant difference between the two... abortion is ending a life that has done nothing wrong... has done nothing to harm society... or others... putting someone to death for murder is ending a life that was not innocent... that purposely took away someone else's right to life. If you cannot see that difference then I feel sorry for you.
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
The Nuremberg files and sites like it are nothing more than the whiney rants of immature people who want to force the world to do things their way. In the USA, we call this "fascism." Intimidation through threats of violence is in NO WAY protected by the Constitution. Strictly speaking, our own government is only permitted to threaten force in the protection of everyone's rights (in which they too fall to the same human weaknesses of us all).
Lost in the noise of these temper tantrums are the real contributions made by those people who adopt babies that nobody else wants, or help to convince the parents of a young girl that she is not evil for becoming pregnant, and that she should not be thrown out on the streets. But then again, those people probably read the "Judge not, lest ye be judged" bits of the Bible a little more carefully than the foot soldiers in the "Army of God."
One thing that no one has pointed out is the legal-community's perception of the 9th Circuit. Of the 12 Primary Federal Circuits (not including Federal Circuit Court of Appeals), the 9th is often considered the "renegade" court.
I live in the 9th's jurisdiction, and they drive attorney's and legislators nuts, because noone ever seems to know which way this court is goind to jump.
--Stupidity is Self Curing!
Quoth phunhippy:
You must have missed the recent article in American Scientist on conflict. Statisticians seem to think that conflicts occur randomly, that "the data offer no reason to believe that wars are anything other than randomly distributed accidents." Here, "wars" include any deadly conflict down to the individual level (e.g. murder). With or without religion, we are a murderous race. If it isn't religion we're fighting about, it's about trade, or it's about skin color, or it's about the country from which your great-grandparents emigrated, or it's about how much of a certain resource you have, et cetera ad nauseum. Heck, some days, it's just becuase somebody is being an asshole and is getting in someone else's way.
I think, regardless what the philosophers or scientists say, that we are a bunch of primitive animals that are barely civilized enough to bathe on a semi-frequent basis (and that only recently). In that context, killing each other or our own spawn is merely "human nature," regardless of our justifications (like "oh, but he was going to kill me" or "fight to preserve our freedom" or "it's my body").
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage