Comment by rayiner
8 hours ago
The protests involved what activists call “direct action,” which involves trespassing on private property, blockading workers, or damaging equipment in an effort to prevent otherwise lawful activity. For example, activists admitted to setting fire to equipment and pipeline valves in an effort to stop construction: https://www.kcci.com/article/2-women-admit-to-causing-damage.... That’s legally straightforward conduct outside 1A protections.
The more tenuous thing here is proving Greenpeace incited people to do that. Without having seen the evidence, I’m guessing there were internal documents that were bad for Greenpeace. Activist organizations sometimes adopt pretty militant rhetoric in an effort to get protesters fired up. I bet these internal documents could seem sinister to a jury of ordinary people.
The legal issue here is that there should be a very high bar for saying that first amendment protected speech amounts to incitement. But that’s not a principle of law as far as I’m aware. So any organization that adopts this militant posture for marketing reasons (which is a lot of them these days) could run the risk of that being used against them if any of the protesters end up damaging or destroying property.
> The legal issue here is that there should be a very high bar for saying that first amendment protected speech amounts to incitement. But that’s not a principle of law as far as I’m aware.
I don't understand the distinction you're making here. Isn't there being a high bar for saying that first amendment protected speech amounts to incitement literally a principle of modern first amendment law (Brandenburg etc)?
> So any organization that adopts this militant posture for marketing reasons (which is a lot of them these days) could run the risk of that being used against them if any of the protesters end up damaging or destroying property.
Even the way you write this makes it sound like you know it's problematic too.
The exact issue in Brandenburg was about how specific the speech has to be. Broadly saying people should do stuff is different from advocating specific illegal conduct against a specific target. That’s harder to apply here because there’s a specific target. The issue here is more: how influential does the speech need to be on the people who actually took the illegal action. I think the standard should be so high you would need some sort of vicarious liability. Like you hired people to set fires.
> Even the way you write this makes it sound like you know it's problematic too.
That was intentional.
It's not protected speech to direct illegal action from afar, so it doesn't matter one whit if Greenpeace was there six times or six thousand or zero.
> The protests involved what activists call “direct action,” which involves trespassing on private property, blockading workers, or damaging equipment in an effort to prevent otherwise lawful activity. For example, activists admitted to setting fire to equipment and pipeline valves in an effort to stop construction
Decades and centuries from now our descendants will be dealing with the consequences of the destroyed climate and wonder why we punished the only people who tried to do something about it while justifying it by "the laws".
> "the laws"
We live under law or we die under anarchy.
There are many other reasons that can kill you under the law besides anarchy, one of those is climate change and GP definitely has a very valid point.
Clearly the 'drill-baby-drill' crowd doesn't like Greenpeace at all and is doing what they can to muzzle activists because they know that if they manage to squelch Greenpeace then many lesser funded organizations will not be able to do anything all all. But history doesn't give a damn about any of that.
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You can die under law, too.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBiLT3LASk
Direct action is literally their policy
And in this case the jury found them on the hook to pay for the results.
I'm not sure what they were expecting. Direct action agains an oil pipeline in ND is gonna go over about as well as direct action tourism in Florida. If by some miracle you get a judge sympathetic to your cause you won't get a jury that is. The local people want this industry, generally speaking.
That’s very true.
The frozen plains of North Dakota aren’t worth much without oil. With oil, they provide good paying jobs to people who otherwise won’t have them.
I lived in the next state south for many years. Oil is definitely popular with the people of North Dakota.
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It's more that they paid $20K for "direct action training"