US Supreme Court backs man who sent female musician flood of unwanted messages | Hacker News Reader

US Supreme Court backs man who sent female musician flood of unwanted messages

reuters.com

22 pointsEA-316731 comments

Here's a better writeup (you can tell right away it's going to be much better: the anodyne title betrays the thoughtful, curious, nuanced writing contained within. No made-you-angry-click–bait here).

https://popehat.substack.com/p/supreme-court-clarifies-true-... ("Supreme Court Clarifies "True Threats" First Amendment Exception")

Here's the ruling. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-138_43j7.pdf

I find it very hard to understand how a judge can conclude that the offender did not intend the threatening nature of messages like "You're not being good for human relations. Die."

I guess, because he is claiming to be insane?

How is "die" a threat?

How is it not a threat?

Because a true threat requires a bunch of things, including a time and an ability, and at least some insinuation of a method. It has to be a real method, so if the person is on the other side of the country and there's no reason to think the person is hiring a hitman (or has a Death Note, hah), it's not a true threat.

"Die" doesn't specify "murder." Death by natural causes or the implication of lack of future need for that person in a hostile manner. "Get lost." "Die." "Fuck off." "Lose my number." hopefully serve similar purposes. This dude was guilty of being an unprofessional asshole towards someone, but being an asshole isn't the same as aggravated assault or making specific threats. The 1 a. protects all people, assholes included.

I think I'm like most people in not wanting to tolerate, on a social level, people who wish each other dead. Lets take that as a given. The issue here is if that should rise to the level that the government should intervene.

I think wishing people dead is classless and cruel, but not a threat, which needs to be specific and actionable. The old internet "gem" was "DIAF", which is a terrible thing to say to another person. Is it a threat though? I don't think so. "I will set your house on fire and watch you burn" by contrast is a clear threat to undertake a specific criminal act, that's a threat.

But stalkers can escalate. Sometimes those idiots don't even have the awareness that their behaviour is inappropriate, and timely intervention (like a visit from the police) in the early stages can act as a wake-up call to think about their behaviour.

I think the whole "true threats" concept is backwards. It is false threats that should be prohibited.

Lets say there is some guy at the park who really loves a particular dandelion. If you step on this dandelion this guy will stab you. I would much rather the guy announce this ahead of time, rather then just silently knife me in the kidney. If I know about the threat I can take steps to avoid it.

True threats are valuable information to have.

Weird. I guess if someone in your family is being stalked and threatened the offender can just fob it off as bullshit after they’re caught.

And when someone goes vigilante they can say they didn’t really mean it after they gun down the stalker.

I’m not seeing anything in his messages that screams clear and present danger. Telling people you don’t like to die in a hole is rude, but it shouldn’t be criminal.

I think there is a contextual difference between telling someone to "die" as a way of expressing contempt in a public forum and directly messaging them, with details about where they live etc...

Is that what happened in this case? If not, why say it?

> I’m not seeing anything in his messages that screams clear and present danger.

I’m not sure that’s the standard applied. The standard seems to be that the speaker understands the speech can be taken as threatening. The examples in the article easily satisfy the reception portion of that, and the decision seems to rely heavily on presuming lack of understanding of that.

But why should that be outright criminal?

I haven’t read the case. But wouldn’t first steps involve getting a restraining order and then finding breach of that? That gives someone who may not understand how their words are understood a fair warning. What if I perceive your comment to be threatening? Do we really want judges adjudicating on something so subjective?

I didn’t comment on what should be, just my understanding of what reasoning was applied.

I’m also not very familiar with the case and it’s not immediately obvious what steps were taken prior to this becoming a criminal matter. It’s not clear whether any legal steps were taken before the stalking charge. But it is clear that the stalking persisted for years before this legal action.

There are many circumstances where a threat is blatant enough that a single instance at a single time is clear enough. There are also many circumstances where people under threat are motivated by fear not to pursue justice when they’d be objectively right to pursue it.

I’m inclined to believe that someone feeling threatened for multiple years shouldn’t need to fulfill an additional waiting period to be relieved from persistent threats, while the person threatening them is basically in a “don’t do it more than the last multiple years” probational period. And maybe that shouldn’t automatically escalate to criminal charges (if that’s what happened), but “you’ve endured years of threats, now you have to wait for potential escalation with no restraint on the person threatening you” isn’t the answer either.

The problem is that when you convict someone, it's important that you convict him for the correct crime with the correct evidence. Letting him be convicted for threats without having to demonstrate that he meant it, and without other stalking-related evidence, may have caught a stalker. But it would have been bad precedent if you ever told someone on the Internet to FOAD and you got thrown in jail for it.

It's like letting someone out of jail because the police searched him without a warrant. The correct thing to do here is to let the criminal go free; maybe the police will get a warrant next time.

The fact that the ACLU supported the guy should be a sign that something is up other than just catching a stalker.

> But it would have been bad precedent if you ever told someone on the Internet to FOAD and you got thrown in jail for it.

That isn’t even close to what the case was about. It’s not even within a charitable interpretation of what’s laid out in the article. I understand the inclination to make a principled case for defending speech, but if you’re doing it in the context of a specific case it’s a disservice to both to ignore the broad strokes of what the case is about.

Edit:

> The fact that the ACLU supported the guy should be a sign that something is up other than just catching a stalker.

No, it really shouldn’t. I deeply respect the ACLU, but they take the wrong side of many cases as a matter of course. I respect their principles in doing so, but I don’t have to agree with their position every time they do it. This seems very much like they’re on the wrong side, and it’s not about “catching” a stalker but preventing persistent harm to the person being stalked.

I don't understand why people keep quoting the "Die" message, when there are others that were much, much worse: "Was that you in the white Jeep? ... I am unsupervised. I know, it freaks me out too, but the possibilities are endless.”

These messages clearly would have been considered threats by most reasonable people. Disagree? Send some similar ones to your least-favorite SCOTUS justice and see how that goes for you.

Enough to get a restraining order or even civil damages, yes. Enough to slap a criminal charge on someone, I don’t think so.

This blog post from Popehat has more context.

https://feed.youainti.com/feed/10/entry/213

[deleted]

> If I'm reading this right:

> - You have to prove intent [...]

That's what the defendant wanted to be the case, but "the ruling did not go that far, saying prosecutors need only show that a speaker acted recklessly".

"sent thousands of disturbing and threatening messages over two years"

Yea, that is bullshit. You can't harass people like that. Once you let the worst people in society get away with it, all bets are off.

I bet that if the guy had done the exact same thing to the judges he would had had a visit from the authorities in a second.

I’m curious to know exactly when do the words turn into a threat? USC says you gotta prove intent. If one writes it and sends it, isn’t that intentional?

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