I don’t recall whether the Planned Parenthood v. ACLA case was within this portion of our discussion, or if it fell in true threats. In that case, the ACLA posted Wanted posters of abortion doctors, and some of those doctors were then killed and assaulted. I just want to clear up my understanding of the line between threats, incitement, and facilitation. Two questions:
1) Is posting this information likely to cause imminent harm facilitation?
2) What is the distinction between that case and the Turning Point Professor Watchlist? Both publicly post individuals in a “wanted” like manner, and professors and doctors have faced harassment and violence as a result. I would think this watchlist would fall under the same reasoning of ACLA, however, I haven’t seen any litigation surrounding this. What do you see as the difference?
Posting information that is likely to cause harm is not automatically facilitation. In ACLA, it constituted a true threat because the contextual cues communicated a serious expression that violence was foreseeable and targeted.
Re the Watchlist: The key difference is context - the Watchlist frames itself as political critique: it lists only publicly available professional information, has no established pattern linking its postings to acts of violence, and does not celebrate or track attacks. Professors were/are still harassed but there is no ACLA-like history of violence, targeting signals, and contextual cues that transformed ACLA’s speech into an unprotected threat rather than protected commentary.
I don’t recall whether the Planned Parenthood v. ACLA case was within this portion of our discussion, or if it fell in true threats. In that case, the ACLA posted Wanted posters of abortion doctors, and some of those doctors were then killed and assaulted. I just want to clear up my understanding of the line between threats, incitement, and facilitation. Two questions:
1) Is posting this information likely to cause imminent harm facilitation?
2) What is the distinction between that case and the Turning Point Professor Watchlist? Both publicly post individuals in a “wanted” like manner, and professors and doctors have faced harassment and violence as a result. I would think this watchlist would fall under the same reasoning of ACLA, however, I haven’t seen any litigation surrounding this. What do you see as the difference?
Posting information that is likely to cause harm is not automatically facilitation. In ACLA, it constituted a true threat because the contextual cues communicated a serious expression that violence was foreseeable and targeted.
Re the Watchlist: The key difference is context - the Watchlist frames itself as political critique: it lists only publicly available professional information, has no established pattern linking its postings to acts of violence, and does not celebrate or track attacks. Professors were/are still harassed but there is no ACLA-like history of violence, targeting signals, and contextual cues that transformed ACLA’s speech into an unprotected threat rather than protected commentary.