Students Turn Against Free Press

johnny karate said:
Please explain what legal intimidation would look like.
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Belz... said:
Is it possible, perhaps, that they meant intimidation in a way that doesn't quite match the legal definition, Johnny?
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johnny karate said:
Intimidation is expressly against the law. If you are claiming that there is such a thing as legal intimidation, it's up to you to prove it. I won't do your work for you.
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I can't quite figure out what your saying here. Are you claiming that if something can be described as intimidation it must therefore be illegal?

As you seem to know the applicable law, what is the legal definition of intimidation?
 
johnny karate said:
Intimidation is expressly against the law. If you are claiming that there is such a thing as legal intimidation, it's up to you to prove it. I won't do your work for you.
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This would be an interesting thread if you weren't ruining it with this pointless tangent.

We can all see your main points were refuted much earlier in this thread and that you're simply hanging on to this inconsequential nonsense to avoid acknowledging the obvious. Move on. Please.
 
ahhell said:
I can't quite figure out what your saying here. Are you claiming that if something can be described as intimidation it must therefore be illegal?

As you seem to know the applicable law, what is the legal definition of intimidation?
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It's already been posted multiple times.
 
johnny karate said:
Intimidation is expressly against the law. If you are claiming that there is such a thing as legal intimidation, it's up to you to prove it. I won't do your work for you.
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No, it's not. Police, lawyers, companies, individuals all use intimidation as a tool to get things done. No laws prohibits it in those situations. Intimidation is only an issue if it is used on the victim during the commission of another crime.
 
Pterodactyl said:
We can all see your main points were refuted much earlier in this thread and that you're simply hanging on to this inconsequential nonsense to avoid acknowledging the obvious.
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This is my argument:
johnny karate said:
My interest is in the acts of criminality that are being alleged, specifically intimidation.

Intimidation is a felony in Illinois. I cited the law upthread.

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Whitaker and a lot of you in thread have implied or outright claimed that the behavior directed towards the student journalists was criminal as defined by this law.

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I'm challenging these claims.

I contend that absent any evidence, no criminal behavior took place. If no criminal behavior took place, I would like a reasonable explanation as to the nature of the duress or coercion to which the student journalists were subjected. Absent that explanation, I contend that the student journalists made the decision to remove the name of one of the protesters from the article of their own volition and for the reasons laid out in their editorial.
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I'm not aware that any of those points have been refuted.
 
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qayak said:
No, it's not. Police, lawyers, companies, individuals all use intimidation as a tool to get things done. No laws prohibits it in those situations. Intimidation is only an issue if it is used on the victim during the commission of another crime.
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Another person who hasn't bothered to read the text of the law.

Intimidation is a standalone crime.
 
Belz... said:
Johnny, please slow down and read this: what the law describes as intimidation is a set of actions that might not include everything that you or I might call intimidation.

Do you understand and agree with this?
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We're talking about a specific situation in which it is being claimed that the student journalists were coerced into removing photos from an article by means of duress, intimidation, and physical threats.

That is against the law.

And so far, these claims have not been substantiated.

Having a wide-ranging discussion of all the hypothetical ways intimidation might not be against the law doesn't interest me unless you are able to make them relevant to this situation in a way that corroborates the above claims.
 
johnny karate said:
I'm not talking about in-the-moment injuries or an aversion to being photographed.



I'm talking about an administration that openly condones and encourages violence against protesters, and followers willing to carry out that violence with cult-like loyalty.



If you're a 19 year-old kid protesting a former member of the Trump adminstration, and you see things like this happening, the idea if having your identity made public so that one of these psychos could track you down might scare you too.
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I'm not saying that people have no rational basis for concern, so you can stop trying to convince me.

There is no middle ground of physically, bodily protesting yet also slinking back to a quiet obscure life free of any connection to those acts. I wish it weren't so, but it is.

The ones who don't mentally accept the full potential consequences of protest often panic and do things that make the movement look bad or get "turned" in the face of intimidation.

I again maintain: I'd prefer they stay home.
 
Belz... said:
Slow down: you said, flat out, that intimidation is against the law. I'm asking you if you think the law covers everything that regular people would consider intimidation. Could you please answer that?
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Intimidation is against the law.

What "regular people would consider intimidation" isn't relevant if it isn't actually intimidation, and in general, is pretty vague.

If you've got an example, please provide it.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
I'm not saying that people have no rational basis for concern, so you can stop trying to convince me.

There is no middle ground of physically, bodily protesting yet also slinking back to a quiet obscure life free of any connection to those acts. I wish it weren't so, but it is.

The ones who don't mentally accept the full potential consequences of protest often panic and do things that make the movement look bad or get "turned" in the face of intimidation.

I again maintain: I'd prefer they stay home.
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Fair enough.

I just think to expect a college kid to consider the possibly that they might be killed or seriously harmed for the act of protesting or they should otherwise just stay home is a bit harsh.
 
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johnny karate said:
It's already been posted multiple times.
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Fair criticism.

Having gone back through the thread to review the definition of legal intimidation, it is not clear to me an laws were broken by protesters regarding the Northwester Daily. Whitaker certainly things they was criminal intimidation.

It strikes me that most folks here are saying it was something that may or may not have reached criminal levels. I don't know, it is not clear what exactly the feed back students gave the paper. A bunch of emails to the effect of, "Hey, that sucks guys" isn't intimidation. A bunch of emails to the effect of "That sucks guys and i'm going to make sure nobody invites you parties anymore." That wouldn't be criminal intimidation but I'd call it intimidation still. Threats of any much more than that would probably be criminal. I wouldn't be surprised if their was some criminal intimidation but in my opinion it is not clear.
 
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ahhell said:
Fair criticism.

Having gone back through the thread to review the definition of legal intimidation, it is not clear to me an laws were broken by protesters regarding the Northwester Daily. Whitaker certainly things they was criminal intimidation.

It strikes me that most folks here are saying it was something that may or may not have reached criminal levels. I don't know, it is not clear what exactly the feed back students gave the paper. A bunch of emails to the effect of, "Hey, that sucks guys" isn't intimidation. A bunch of emails to the effect of "That sucks guys and i'm going to make sure nobody invites you parties anymore." That wouldn't be criminal intimidation but I'd call it intimidation still. Threats of any much more than that would probably be criminal. I wouldn't be surprised if their was some criminal intimidation but in my opinion it is not clear.
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Or maybe in response to the criticism and backlash, the student journalists decided of their own volition to remove the photo, and no coercion, duress, intimidation, or otherwise potentially criminal behavior that somehow would have forced them to remove the photo actually took place .

Considering that is what a person involved in actually making the decision to remove the photo stated, I'm going with that option.
 
johnny karate said:
Intimidation is against the law.
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You're simply not listening. We know that intimidation, as defined by the law, is illegal. That isn't what we're discussing, so you can stop repeating that.

What "regular people would consider intimidation" isn't relevant if it isn't actually intimidation, and in general, is pretty vague.
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What people mean when they talk about something is not relevant? That's ******* great.
 
Belz... said:
You're simply not listening. We know that intimidation, as defined by the law, is illegal. That isn't what we're discussing, so you can stop repeating that.
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It’s what I’m discussing.

What people mean when they talk about something is not relevant? That's ******* great.
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It’s isn’t relevant if they’re wrong.
 
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Just a bit of added information for what it is worth: I was a photographer for the college newspaper in the 1970's. I photographed several student protests. Policy was that photos in which individual student protesters could be identified were generally not published and were kept in hidden storage or destroyed. This was because of concerns of retaliation by the administration or the police. These concerns were not just paranoia: retaliatory actions were put into place more than once, and were not limited to students who committed actual crimes. Innocent co-participants were often targeted as well; for example if anyone throw a rock through a window all other protesters were at risk for administrative sanctions.
 
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