[pokey00]

Are you kidding me? Government law enforcement sent her a cease and desist and threatened to charge her for protected speech. It's not a gray area. The purpose of the letter was to harass and intimidate a citizen for criticizing their government and to create a chilling effect on free speech. I don't know what potential legal remedies she has since the government would have to waive sovereign immunity, but at the very least, this special agent and everyone on his team needs to undergo some civil rights training. At best, public employees like this agent and the chain of command pushing policies like this need to be completely removed from public service.

[googlryas]

In what sense is calling on government buildings to be burned down and the occupants slaughtered "protected speech"?

The only way I could see it being protected is if it was clear hyperbole. Which...not in this day and age.

[drewcoo]

The question is not "how is something someone said considered free speech?"

The default is that what's said is protected.

The question should be "why is this speech not protected?" Does it incite violence if no violence occurred? Was it some kind of targeted threat or just impotent rage?

[kube-system]

SCOTUS has outlined tests to determine whether speech is protected or not. These don't necessarily require violence to actually taken place as a result.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action

[pokeymcsnatch]

> Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely

This very obviously doesn't apply in this case.

[kube-system]

It passes the imminence test which was further defined in Hess. It might fail the likelihood test, but of course, there was no legal action taken against this person so we're just making hypotheticals about what would happen if they did take legal action.

1A protects you from laws or actions that prohibit your speech, they don't protect you from people asking you not to engage in that speech.

[pokeymcsnatch]

It does protect you from the government asking you not to engage in speech. The fact that no legal action was taken is what makes this behavior blatantly unconstitutional. If it was against the law, DHS would have arrested her- instead they made vague threats about charging her under a law dealing with conspiring to murder federal law enforcement. Any government policy that creates a chilling effect on a protected right is unconstitutional, regardless of any charge or court case.

[kube-system]

Using the words "right now" may have been the icing on the cake for this one.

The court ruled in Hess v. Indiana that similar speech was legal because:

> [it] "amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time."

It's still probably vague enough in specificity and context that I doubt SCOTUS would rule against it, but it's also plenty close enough that law enforcement wouldn't be out of line by following up on. It's also worth noting that this person simply got a letter, they weren't thrown in prison.

[hirundo]

Standard first amendment exceptions:

  * Incitement to imminent lawless action
  * True threats
  * Solicitations to commit crimes

While this tweet doesn't quite meet those exceptions IMHO, it isn't an unreasonable position to take.

[drewcoo]

It has a chilling effect on everyone who reads about it. Threats against someone else for their political speech could mean something happens to any of us.

At what point do we consider this an act of terrorism on the part of HS?

[kube-system]

It is plainly not terrorism for a law enforcement official to send someone a letter asking them not break the law. Even if it is questionable in its legal merit. LE are not lawyers or judges. It is entirely normal for law enforcement to arrest and charge people when they believe a law has been broken, even if they are wrong about it. That's the entire purpose of our court system.

[pokeymcsnatch]

It's not terrorism, and LE are not lawyers or judges, but they have a fundamental duty to have an understanding civil rights. Sure, maybe not understand the nuances of more complicated stuff in the moment- but that wasn't the case here. DHS obviously took some time to "investigate" and had ample opportunity to run all this by a government attorney or judge and didn't because the entire point is to curtail speech. Every beat cop knows "speech" is very broadly protected with very few exceptions, and this wasn't some random beat cop, it was a federal agent and so our expectations should be even higher.

Again, no one was arrested or charged. The courts were never involved on purpose; it was an extra-legal abuse of power.

[kube-system]

I think you’re jumping to some conclusions that aren’t necessarily merited. We don’t know what DHS did or didn’t do beyond this letter, so I’m not going to speculate on that.

It is completely legal and common for LE to ask someone to stop doing something that approaches the limits of the law or could potentially lead to trouble. We have had recent attacks on federal buildings, in that context, asking someone not to incite further violence is hardly an abuse of power. I’m all for law enforcement reform, but this is a stretch.

[pokeymcsnatch]

I think the only conclusion that I'm jumping to is that it was malicious. At best, it's a bad and very likely unconstitutional policy.

Framing it as "asking" is dishonest- a cease and desist is a demand that you stop with an implied legal action if you don't. It didn't say "hey if this progresses, you might be criminally liable"- it calls out this specific tweet as potentially criminal and threatens federal charges.

As a side note, I tried to read the tweet again and it's been deleted, so who knows. Maybe all this was made up and maybe there was more to it or maybe DHS disappeared her. Either way, without more context I'm 100% unwilling to budge on this being an abuse of power.

[kube-system]

If it was a malicious attempt to chill speech, why is it one letter sent to some rando on Twitter? Unless we see more people coming forward with the same experience, I’m more inclined to presume that this is more simply just a isolated instance of a whacky person posting whacky shit.

[dekhn]

No this very clearly falls in the limitations of free speech since it calls for directly for violence against others. I want my government telling people to be careful about this