Would a political poster implying that a politician will be killed by angry citizens constitute a legally-actionable threat under U.S. law? In the U.S., freedom of speech does not extend to serious threats to cause harm to another. Don and Ron are two reactionary politicians. One election season, John, who hates reactionaries with a passion, creates two political posters: The first has the text &quot;Reactionaries and Bigots Take Note: WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND&quot; and shows Don and Ron with their heads being forced into two guillotines by angry working-class citizens. The second has the same text, but shows Don's and Ron's severed heads (along with those of several other reactionary politicians) impaled on pikes. Would either of John's posters (one showing two reactionary politicians presumably about to be killed by angry citizens, the other showing the reactionaries' heads postmortem without directly implying that angry citizens did the deed) be on-the-nose enough to constitute legally-actionable death threats against the politicians depicted?
Neither of the posters in question would constitute a &quot;true threat&quot; which can be subjected to legal sanctions consistent with the First Amendment. The nature of the communication, in the context provided in the question, is clearly metaphorical. The U.S. Supreme Court, incidentally, will be hearing arguments in the case of Counterman v. Colorado on April 19, 2023, pertinent to this question, in which the issue presented is: Whether, to establish that a statement is a &quot;true threat&quot; unprotected by the First Amendment, the government must show that the speaker subjectively knew or intended the threatening nature of the statement, or whether it is enough to show that an objective &quot;reasonable person&quot; would regard the statement as a threat of violence. This would, however, be a far closer case under British law, as illustrated by a recent case in which a British teenager was sentenced to 11 year years in prison for inflammatory Internet postings that it was established were a major factor that pushed the people who carried out mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York grocery store and a Colorado Spring gay nightclub to carry out their attacks. As reported by CNN: Daniel Harris, 19, from Derbyshire in northern England, posted videos shared by Payton Gendron, who pleaded guilty to the shooting in Buffalo, as well as videos linked to Anderson Lee Aldrich, the suspect accused of killing five people in a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last November, the court heard, according to PA. Sentencing Harris in court in Manchester, northern England, Judge Patrick Field was quoted by PA as saying, “What they did was truly appalling but what they did was no more than you intended to encourage others to do when publishing this material online.” The postings made by Daniel Harris which led to his conviction would almost certainly not have been actionable under U.S. law which has much stronger First Amendment protections than the U.K.
You have misread the DMLP page. In Pennsylvania, it is illegal to record a conversation if you are a party and if the other party does not consent. The fact that federal law doesn't ban something doesn't mean that states can't ban it. There is generally a presumption that when both the feds and the states can legitimately regulate something, the feds weren't trying to preempt all state laws on the topic. While people often say "federal law takes precedence over state law," the normal rule is that both laws apply; the federal law only blocks the state law if the feds wanted to block said state laws. So far as I can tell, the federal law has never been held to preempt two-party consent laws; the point of the federal law was to restrict recording, not extend it. It's like how federal law doesn't prohibit taking hostages inside the US to coerce a private company into doing what you want (anti-terrorism laws might, I guess, but the federal hostage-taking law doesn't); while the federal law excludes most hostage-taking in the US, that doesn't mean that it's legal to take hostages. Congress sometimes wants to establish nationwide standards for something, but the presumption is that they didn't.
One could make a First Amendment challenge to mask requirements through either the Free Exercise Clause or the Free Speech Clause. Neither approach is likely to succeed. Because going without a mask is not recognized as &quot;expressive conduct,&quot; it is not protected by the Free Speech Clause A free-speech challenge would likely also fail for two reasons. As you correctly suggested, the First Amendment protects more than just speech, also protecting &quot;expressive conduct,&quot; such as flag burning, dancing, and wearing armbands. Of course, literally any conduct could have some secret expressive meaning in the mind of the person carrying out -- &quot;I shot him in the face to say I didn't like him&quot; -- so we have a question of where to draw the line between what expressive conduct does and does not receive the strong protection the First Amendment affords to speech. The Supreme Court detailed that test in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), and it's now generally formulated as asking two questions: Did the speaker actually intend to convey a particularized message through his conduct? Are the people who see the conduct likely to understand that message? At the Sturgis rally, or at the statehouse protests over COVID restrictions, or some similar event that is explicitly opposed to masks, refusing to wear a mask goes a long ways in communicating an opposition to the mask requirements. But in the vast majority of cases, no one you run into in the normal course of daily life is likely to recognize that you are not wearing a mask because you are trying to communicate a message, let alone decipher what that message is. Do you believe that mask mandates are tyranny? That COVID-19 is a hoax? That life is meaningless and we should all welcome the hastening of human extinction? None of that is clear to the average viewer, which is who the courts are going to be concerned with. Because refusing to wear a mask is generally insufficient to convey a specific message, I'd argue that it is not expressive conduct. Because mask requirements are neutral as to religion and generally applicable, they do not violate the Free Exercise Clause. A religious challenge (&quot;My religion prohibits wearing masks&quot;) is likely to fail because &quot;the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a 'valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).'&quot; Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 879 (1990). This means that if the mask ban generally applies to everyone and you just happen to belong to a religion that forbids mask-wearing, you can't use that affiliation to escape the law's requirements. (The outcome may be different when you run the problem through the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or state-level analogues, which impose more stringent tests for infringements on religious liberty.)
Ducks are ducks, not people. It might surprise you, but even a hypothetical duck that could talk is a type of bird and is considered a waterfowl and wild game but not a person or human. As such, you can not commit any crime such as assault against it. In fact, provided that the lemonade stand owner has a hunting license and this is not in a zone where you can not hunt, such as inside a town, he could have shot the bird without repercussions - because a duck can be hunted. Threatening game birds is not covered by any law. Only would the lemonade stand owner have glued the bird to a tree he would have committed a crime, because gluing birds somewhere would be considered animal cruelty in most jurisdictions. As the duck is a bird and not a person, it can not commit any crimes, such as harassment. If a duck is a person... Assuming that there is such a place where duck is a slang term for a person, or where ducks are considered people, then the pattern is different: Such as duck would indeed perform a repeated action that is very much aimed at annoying the lemonade stand owner. But that is not necessarily legally harassment: In Germany, § 238 StGB is aimed at stalking and requires the aim of inciting fear, § 185 StGB is for insulting speech, including harassing speech, § 186 StGB is for defamation, and § 240 StGB for coercion through harassment. A charge under those would be tedious. In the United Kingdom, the English Protection from Harassment Act 1997, does not define harassment as any specific pattern. Scotland's variant reads a little simpler, and makes harassment for harassment's sake illegal. These laws might be applied to the duck. Many of the United States federal laws will simply not apply to the situation. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is about sexual harassment in the workplace, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is for schools, and the Fair Housing Act does deal with home purchases and renting. All seem inapplicable. If the threat of gluing someone to a tree is a real threat under the law depends very much again. In Germany, it might be interpreted as too hilarious to be considered a true threat, but humiliating enough to constitute one of the insult laws, but the lyrics do not offer enough facts to make a proper analysis for this part.
In the US, obscenities, insults, racial slurs and so on are legal, owing to the First Amendment. An actual, believable threat to maim you would not be legal, under Cal. Penal 422, but "I oughta punch you" would not be a criminal threat. Some forms of aggressive driving constitute reckless driving, if they are driving "in willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property". It is also against the law to follow too close (you must follow reasonably and prudently). Exceeding the speed limit is a violation of Veh. Code 22352, even if it's to pass a guy on a bike. Of course, we can't tell if you are obeying the law, but even if you were doing something illegal in your biking such as blowing away a stop sign, "the other guy was bad" is not a defense against a citation for illegal driving.
...the public is susceptible to misinformation by bad actors in the financial system and therefore are protected by the SEC... The SEC governs fixed laws about financial transfers, disclosures, etc., and investigates illegal acts regarding those laws where there are quantitative facts, i.e. who moved how much money to where, who engaged in information for insider trading, and other situations based on hard evidence. Bad actors are deterred by the fact that can be prosecuted for their crimes by the SEC and other authorities. Shouldn't... political campaigns be audited for truthfulness? There is no government authority that audits or regulates political ads and/or claims; such authority or laws would clearly violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia as to the government regulating or attempting to control or manipulate free speech. In a non-partisan fashion, government authorities can and do routinely supply publicly available documents that can be used by the public, fact checkers and the press. False political claims are investigated by the press and various non-profits, also under the same 1st Amendment protections so that the press can operate free of government intrusion. See https://www.google.com/search?q=political+fact+checking for different political NGOs and media outlets which do fact checking. Such resources themselves can be fact challenged and partisan themselves, of course; news outlets can be under the editorial control of a political agenda, and a "fact checking" website or NGO can be funded by partisans. ...why shouldn't the same be done in the political system? Within a political system such as the US, people are responsible for their own thoughts and actions; and they are responsible for assessments of what may or may not be factual, and for what they believe (which, of course, can be removed from a factual basis). The idea that a government should be involved in auditing or otherwise having control over political speech is a political question, not a legal question.
Overview, reasonable judgement As with the frequently used standard, the &quot;reasonable person&quot;, whether an assembly is &quot;peaceable&quot; or not is a question of judgement. In some cases it is clear. A group throwing stones and Molotov Cocktails at a group of opponents, or at the police, is not acting &quot;peaceably&quot;. What about a group holding signs and chanting &quot;No Justice, no Peace&quot;? Calmly singing 'We Shall Overcome&quot;? In short, there is no bright-line separating &quot;peaceable&quot; from not. It is not like a trespassing case where one either did or did not cross a boundary, or a speeding case where one did or did not go faster than the limit. There are, however, an number of fact patterns in which assembled protesters have been held not to have justified arrest, and various other circumstances in which dispersal and arrests have been held justified. See the cases below. Each person must use judgement as to whether a group's actions are &quot;peaceable&quot; when deciding whether to join or remain a part of such a group. A police official must make a similar judgement when ordering a group to disperse. Later, a court may have to make a similar judgement when deciding whether someone accused of &quot;riot&quot; or &quot;disorderly conduct&quot; was within his or her constitutional rights, or if a police officer acted unconstitutionally. The circumstances and the details of the actions will matter. The right of assembly, like the right of speech is subject to &quot;time, place, and manner&quot; restrictions, so long as such restrictions are content-neutral. See this page from teh Library of Congress To be clear, a police officer's judgement does not make a group's actions constitutional or criminal, that decision is for a court. But an officer must make an on-the-spot judgment as to whether, and if so how, to react to the group's actions. If the court later finds the officer's actions reasonable in light of the specific events and circumstances, it may treat the officer differently than if it finds the LEO actions unreasonable. But my point above was that everyone involved had to make judgements, and that the law expects everyone to act in a &quot;reasonable&quot; manner, and there may be consequences later for those held not to have done so. Selected Cases Shuttlesworth In Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147 (1969) The US Supreme Court dealt with a case involvign a civil rights protest march. Justice Stewart described the events as follows in the majority opinion: On the afternoon of April 12, Good Friday, 1963, 52 people, all Negroes, were led out of a Birmingham church by three Negro ministers, one of whom was the petitioner, Fred L. Shuttlesworth. They walked in orderly fashion, two abreast for the most part, for four blocks. The purpose of their march was to protest the alleged denial of civil rights to Negroes in the city of Birmingham. The marchers stayed on the sidewalks except at street intersections, and they did not interfere with other pedestrians. No automobiles were obstructed, nor were traffic signals disobeyed. The petitioner was with the group for at least part of this time, walking alongside the others, and once moving from the front to the rear. As the marchers moved along, a crowd of spectators fell in behind them at a distance. The spectators at some points spilled out into the street, but the street was not blocked and vehicles were not obstructed. At the end of four blocks, the marchers were stopped by the Birmingham police, and were arrested for violating § 1159 of the General Code of Birmingham. The opinion went on to say: There can be no doubt that the Birmingham ordinance, as it was written, conferred upon the City Commission virtually unbridled and absolute power to prohibit any &quot;parade,&quot; &quot;procession,&quot; [Footnote 1] or &quot;demonstration&quot; on the city's streets or public ways. ... This ordinance as it was written, therefore, fell squarely within the ambit of the many decisions of this Court over the last 30 years, holding that a law subjecting the exercise of First Amendment freedoms to the prior restraint of a license, without narrow, objective, and definite standards to guide the licensing authority, is unconstitutional. ... It is argued, however, that what was involved here was not &quot;pure speech,&quot; but the use of public streets and sidewalks, over which a municipality must rightfully exercise a great deal of control in the interest of traffic regulation and public safety. That, of course, is true. We have emphasized before this that &quot;the First and Fourteenth Amendments [do not] afford the same kind of freedom to those who would communicate ideas by conduct such as patrolling, marching, and picketing on streets and highways, as these amendments afford to those who communicate ideas by pure speech.&quot; Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536 ... But our decisions have also made clear that picketing and parading may nonetheless constitute methods of expression, entitled to First Amendment protection. Cox v. Louisiana, supra; Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229; Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88. The Court overturned the conviction of Shuttlesworth. It did not deal with the peacefulness of the march, except in the above quoted description of events, no allegation of violence was made, only of lack of a permit (which had been applied for and refused, with an indication that no permit would ever be granted to that group.) Ward In Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781 (1989) The Copurt held that: even in a public forum, the government may impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, or manner of protected speech, provided the restrictions are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, that they are narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, and that they leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information. (Clark v. Community for Creative NonViolence, 468 U. S. 288) Lest any confusion on the point remain, we reaffirm today that a regulation of the time, place, or manner of protected speech must be narrowly tailored to serve the government's legitimate, content-neutral interests, but that it need not be the least restrictive or least intrusive means of doing so. Ward was a Speech (music) case, not an assembly case, but the standard from Ward has also been applied in assembly cases. Jones Jones v. Parmley, 465 F.3d 46, 56–57 (2d Cir. 2006) was a right-of-assembly case. In it, people were accused of violating the very law (NYS 240.10) mentioned in the question, as well as other NY State laws, including disorderly conduct. The events described produced a whole series of court decisions. The linked opinion is from the US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, not the Supreme Court, but it reviews and quotes many relevant SC rulings. The linked opinion is actually on a claim by various law-enforcement officers (LEOs) for qualified immunity in a suit by people arrested. When it was brought, the various charges against those arrested had already been dismissed or found to be without merit. The Court of Appeals opinion says, in relevant part: The Supreme Court has declared that the First Amendment protects political demonstrations and protests — activities at the heart of what the Bill of Rights was designed to safeguard. See Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312 ... Indeed, the Court has repeatedly held that police may not interfere with orderly, nonviolent protests merely because they disagree with the content of the speech or because they simply fear possible disorder. See Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536 ... First Amendment protections, while broad, are not absolute. Regan v. Boogertman, 984 F.2d 577, 579 (2d Cir. 1993) It is axiomatic, for instance, that government officials may stop or disperse public demonstrations or protests where &quot;clear and present danger of riot, disorder, interference with traffic upon the public streets, or other immediate threat to public safety, peace, or order, appears.&quot; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, (1940). Indeed, where a public gathering threatened to escalate into racial violence and members of a hostile crowd began voicing physical threats, the Supreme Court expressly sanctioned police action that ended the demonstration and arrested the speaker, who defied police orders to cease and desist. Feiner v. New York, 340 U.S. 315 ... the Supreme Court has long applied the &quot;clear and present danger&quot; test to protest cases to determine when police interference is constitutional. Moreover, although defendants make much of the fact that some demonstrators had allegedly violated the law, transforming the peaceful demonstration into a potentially disruptive one, the Supreme Court has expressly held that &quot; [t]he right to associate does not lose all constitutional protection merely because some members of the group may have participated in conduct or advocated doctrine that itself is not protected.&quot; NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886 ... The Supreme Court has already ... made clear that the police may not interfere with demonstrations unless there is a &quot;clear and present danger&quot; of riot, imminent violence, interference with traffic or other immediate threat to public safety. Cantwell, 310 U.S. at 308-309 (finding no imminent violence where anti-Catholic diatribe angered listener and provoked suggestion of violence). Neither energetic, even raucous, protesters who annoy or anger audiences, nor demonstrations that slow traffic or inconvenience pedestrians, justify police stopping or interrupting a public protest. Cox I, 379 U.S. at 546-47, 549 n. 12 (group of protesters who provoked a visceral, angered response and slowed traffic did not jeopardize their speech rights); Edwards, 372 U.S. at 232, 237 (&quot;clear and present danger&quot; means more than annoyance, inviting dispute or slowing traffic). ... Plaintiffs also allege that they made no threats of physical harm to police or members of the public, did not incite violence or disorder and displayed no dangerous weapons. ... We are mindful that the First Amendment does not insulate individuals from criminal sanction merely because they are simultaneously engaged in expressive activity. Section 240.10 of the [NY] Penal Law states that four or more persons assembled for purposes of engaging in violent and tumultuous conduct likely to cause public alarm constitutes an unlawful assemblage. N.Y. Penal Law § 240.10. Conviction under this law requires &quot;an incitement which is both directed towards and likely to produce imminent violent and tumultuous conduct.&quot; Jones, 2005 WL 928667 ... New York courts have interpreted [N.Y. Penal Law § 240.20(5) (disorderly conduct)] to permit punishment only where the conduct at issue does more than merely inconvenience pedestrian or vehicular traffic. People v. Pearl, 66 Misc.2d 502, 321 N.Y.S.2d 986, 987 (1st Dep't 1971) (&quot;Something more than the temporary inconvenience caused to pedestrians by the demonstrators' blocking of the west crosswalk, requiring them to enter the roadway to get to the other side, was required to sustain a conviction for obstructing pedestrian traffic.&quot;); [P]laintiffs had an undeniable right to continue their peaceable protest activities, even when some in the demonstration might have transgressed the law. Claiborne Hardware, 458 U.S. at 908. Plaintiffs still enjoyed First Amendment protection, and absent imminent harm, the troopers could not simply disperse them without giving fair warning. *City of Chicago v. Morales-, 527 U.S. 41, 58 (&quot;[T]he purpose of the fair notice requirement [in disorderly conduct statutes] is to enable the ordinary citizen to conform his or her conduct to the law.&quot;); Feiner, 340 U.S. at 321, 71 S. Ct. 303 (finding no First Amendment violation where imminence of disorder was &quot;coupled with petitioner's deliberate defiance of the police&quot; and their orders to disperse) Specific actions Actions that have been held to be permitted as part of a protest or assembly, not justifying police intervention, include: walking in orderly fashion, remaining on the sidewalks except at street intersections, not interfering with other pedestrians or traffic; picketing and parading, even without; a permit when a permit has been improperly denied; orderly, nonviolent protests; A diatribe that angered listeners and provoked suggestion of violence; Energetic, even raucous, protesters who annoy or anger audiences' Demonstrations that slow traffic or inconvenience pedestrians; Peaceable protest activities, even when some in the demonstration might have transgressed the law; Actions that have been held not to be protected thus justifying police intervention, include: Violating a regulation of the time, place, or manner of speech that is narrowly tailored to serve the government's legitimate, content-neutral interests; Demonstrations or protests where &quot;clear and present danger of riot, disorder, interference with traffic upon the public streets, or other immediate threat to public safety, peace, or order, appears.&quot; Where a public gathering threatened to escalate into racial violence and members of a hostile crowd began voicing physical threats; Defying appropriate police orders to cease and desist; Makin threats of physical harm to police or members of the public; Inciting violence or disorder with a direct appeal to imminent lawless action; Imminent disorder when coupled with petitioner's deliberate defiance of the police and their orders to disperse; Summary While there is no single bright line rule on what constitutes &quot;peaceable assembly&quot;, the test for the &quot;clear and present danger&quot; of violence or lawless action seems to come closest. In mot cases police must unless there is an immediate prospect of harm, order an assembly to disperse and give them a reasonable chance to do so before making arrests, particularly forceful arrests. Failure to do so may subject LEOs to personal civil liability.
There is a legal concept of de minimis: the idea that some offenses, civil or criminal, are too small to be worth prosecuting. For example, a photograph of a city scene that incidentally captured part of a copyrighted billboard in one corner of the image infringes the copyright on that billboard. But if the copyright holder were to sue, it's virtually certain the suit would be thrown out due to the minimal nature of the infringement. Technically speaking, yes, what you describe is a crime. But any prosecutor who tried to bring charges to that effect is likely to be chewed out by the judge for wasting everyone's time. (Incidentally, assuming the reporter and property owner are US citizens, the crime is failure to cross at a designated crossing point (19 USC 1459, a customs offense) rather than improper entry (8 USC 1325, an immigration offense).)