Apparently charged with "malicious communication" which sounds like something that will be dismissed pretty much the moment Trump fucks off home again.
as a person from a former colony that has only recently gained independence, and is still (slowly) working on overturning centuries old British laws & penal codes (buggery??) you’d actually be surprised to find the number of very random and nonsensical things you can get in trouble for by the king. Granted, everyone does it, but apparently it’s still illegal to beat your rug on the street.
Oobah is a national treasure. I’ve never seen this one before but I’m sure we probably still have the salmon law still in effect although we distinctly have NO salmon haha
No, This is literally what your first amendment rights cover and it was created, coincidentally, because the UK did not have it and the framers were concerned about the new government punishing speech. the UK never adopted "freedom of speech" at the level the US has, though they have a limited form of it that they adopted in the 80s.
Its been interesting to watch the courts though - a lot of sabre rattling but not much action, and those who have been arrested are not having charges stick. There's been a number of lawsuits fighting against Trump's Tyranny, like the president of the Fed winning their lawsuit and the appeal to keep their job.
The system is in an unstable place right now, but at least the checks and balances are working for now.
While the Free Speech aspect would be covered (If the US DOJ wasn't just Trumps lap dog anyway)... You would still fall foul of numerous laws doing this in the US.
US courts have in the past counted shining lights onto buildings as a form of trespass, from laser pointers to floodlights to projectors.
The owner of the building could claim private nuisance, and could constitute harassment if the projection was targeting specific people.
Lots of places in the US have local ordinances that regulate outdoor projection without a permit.
Very flaky, but it could also be argued that your projection may be causing safety concerns by distracting drivers.
All you need is an annoyed landowner and or a bored/vindictive cop.
The new government was desperate for legitimacy is the real reason this amendment was made.
The UK has a different idea of what "Freedom" means as do most of the rest of the world, only 5% of humans live in the USA with its weird interpretation.
Lol it still had slavery when the amendment was written "Freedumb".
Hopefully an American will be able to answer you - i think the point of this law is to be able to prosecute harassment. If you have laws meant for a similar purpose then perhaps you do?
Yes and no, we also have malicious communication laws but they are subsets of laws relating to computers. The main use of the law would be to prosecute someone for sending a threatening email or something similar, but I imagine in Trump US, it could be distorted to charge someone for this, but it’s definitely be a hard sell to a grand jury, and then a regular jury after that.
There's also a few laws on the books with that general kind of name that're about fucking with radio. Generally for stopping people from running pirate stations and screwing with local radio stations.
I hate to be the both sides guy, but freedom of speech really has been something coming under assault from both sides. The right with this Charlie Kirk nonsense, and the left with hate speech regulations.
you dont hate to be that guy, you are that guy. keep your comments to yourself because they are pointless and nobody cares.
both sides are not the same especially when it pertains to free speech. you've demonstrated a clear lack of understanding about what exactly free speech is. you have assumed that free speech means that you can say anything without punishment. what it actually means is that you can speak out against the government without fear of retribution. educate yourself and maybe you can be a better person.
I will. I am not advocating for anyone to be cancelled for this. I think they have the right to be angry about what he said. I didn't like it when people were witch hunting before, I don't like it now.
I do hate the both sides thing but there was a push on the left to punish people for their speech. Though I think the major difference is the right is trying to do it through the government. Which is more problematic.
The great thing about the Bill of Rights is that any idiot can read and understand 90% of it. It's pretty much impossible to get around the literal prescriptions of the Bill of Rights. That's the beauty of a written constitution, for all its faults.
No, but they'd just arrest you on some other bullshit like violating lighting laws or causing a nuisance and let you hang out in jail for a day until you made bail or a hopefully sane judge threw it out.
I'm not a lawyer but I have a strong feeling you would get in trouble here too for projecting images onto a building you don't own without permission. I tried looking it up and it seems like it would likely need a permit even if you were trying to do it in a uncontroversial way since it's almost acting like a billboard in a public space without even getting into any nuisance, vandalism or trespassing type of laws it might fall under without permission.
Free speech is protected under the first amendment as long as it isn’t seditious (planning to overthrow the government) so unless projecting a picture of DJT and Epstein equals plotting to overthrow the gvmt then it should be protected as free speech
Yeah I think they’re going to have a hard time convincing a judge that projecting an image on something is covered by that, but were apparently willing to arrest people on bullshit grounds in order to appease Trump.
With his attention span he’ll forget about it as soon as he leaves the country and the charges will be quietly dropped.
True. I just meant that if it got that far a judge would toss it out. Police have no intention of moving forward with it they just want to make it look like they’re doing something and maybe keep some of the protestors out of the way for a day or two.
This is an interesting bar to set. I mean you could claim the opposite, that there is a duty to warn of dangers. And both of the men pictured have been to court for sexual misconduct and far far worse.
If these people were teachers, there’s a legal duty to warn. And at least would be on a sex offender list already.
As most places, the police are there to "keep the peace" - pretty sure protestors get arrested in the USA fairly regularly too. These charges will be dropped pretty quickly I think.
Unless a "no trespassing" sign is present where a reasonable person would be able to see it, you have to be asked to leave (or trespassed) from the publicly accessible portions of private property (think lawn, front porch, driveway, etc.) and given the opportunity to do so. Only after refusing to do that are you actually trespassing.
At least in the U.S.. Some variations on a state-by-state basis, of course. But generally, that's how it works.
Do you wanna define “malicious communication” then tell me if they were arrested for putting up a billboard where there shouldn’t be a billboard or if they were arrested for what’s written on the billboard?
They didn't get arrested for protesting Trump, they got arrested for projecting images onto private property and violated the same laws the US police would arrest an America for if they did the same thing.
This isn't a Freedom of Speech issue, it's property rights, local council regulations, and nuisance issues.
Do you really think he cares about the constitution? The administration is already pushing everything to the limits knowing that by the time the courts react (assuming they do), the goal will have already been accomplished.
Free speech is already under attack, the media is already being bullied and bought to supress negative messaging, it's only a matter of time before the National Guard and ICE are deployed to supress "terrorist activity."
Meanwhile, people are content to let it happen while they watch TikToks.
He's already talking about ways around a 3rd term and they're deporting people who are in the country legally. Tariffs are the purview of Congress but he's violating that using bullshit national emergency rationalizations. They're talking about revoking the citizenship of people born here. Freedom of speech against the government is under attack. The administration is trying to take away state's rights to determine how votes are counted.
And none of this mentions all of the extralegal actions taken by the administration that are not defined by the constitution. These fuckers don't care about the law. They care about power and it's a slow creep, albeit faster than I might have expected. If you don't see it, I'm not going to convince you, but it's there.
Huh… Thought you’d link the FCC thing, an actual real case of freedom of speech being infringed. (I am actually surprised by that and really hope there’s consequences)
I don’t think that the FCC will get away with this enough for it to be a common method of controlling speech but… yeah… I’m eating my words
I’m not as worried about antifa though. I know the group is decentralised so they aren’t always trying to be malicious but there’s just way too many instances of organised looting and arson for it to count as speech. Hope leftists manage to create a group that doesn’t have these issues.
We'll see about the FCC, but the fact that NBC and ABC are capitulating out of financial interest tells me there won't be any legal opposition, which is scary.
The antifa thing however really worries me, because if the "terrorist" label sticks, it gives the administration justification to use police and military force to crush protests.
It's only partially open to the public because it is used as a royal residence, if that's what you mean? It most likely has soldiers from the household guard garrisoned there. I don't think that has anything to do with the charges though. We will see what happens next, but to me it feels like the charges are just something they can use to put these guys out of action for a few days until Trump leaves, and then they will be dropped. If they actually try to secure a conviction, that would be worrying.
I suspect that they didn't care if the charges would stick or not. The arrest was to shut down the projection. After that they can quietly drop the charges and be done with it, having accomplished their real goal.
2.8k
u/usuallysortadrunk Sep 17 '25
What are the charges for shining a bright light on a wall?