Subject: Re: [EL] Anonymity and harassment
From: Jon Roland
Date: 4/5/2011, 2:08 PM
To: "election-law@mailman.lls.edu" <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>
Reply-to:
"jon.roland@constitution.org"

Not if they are collaborating with the harassers.

There are degrees and kinds of harassment. It can extend to assassination, which may be unlikely but only has to happen once for a given speaker/publisher.

Our rights were forged in an environment of occupation by a brutal enemy, and defense of them should always assume real enemies that are capable of anything. Abuses by government officials are not just in the movies. I have had my life threatened by a government agent after I criticized his agency. Some of you seem to be oblivious to how brutal it can get in the real world.

Or it can be simply a matter that the speaker/publisher wants his words to be evaluated on their own merit without intrusion by his reputation, be it good or bad, with various recipients. If the author is a known partisan, his words may be largely ignored by both his opponents and supporters, rather than made the subject of deep deliberation.

On 04/05/2011 03:37 PM, Rick Hasen wrote:
In the campaign finance context, it makes sense to have a court or regulatory body made determinations about harassment.
-- Jon

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