The Nuremberg Files
Further motivation
I strongly believe that Planned Parenthood [PP] made an error
in judgement when they decided to bring the Nuremberg Files into their lawsuit. This court case, or more in general: taking the NF debate to a legal level,
is wrong. Not only did the NF people cover their asses
meticulously and scrupulously (they are quite aware of
what they can say and what they cannot), it endangers
the very principles that PP itself needs: free speech.
It is detrimental to believe that taking down the
original homepage or having the maintainers pay damages
serves any of PP's aims. First of all, many people have
local copies and can still act on that, if it is the page
that they are acting upon. Secondly, the NF people can and
will share the same information via e-mail. Thirdly, it was
obvious that the page would pop up somewhere else; that is
the way of the net. (In which case it had better be
somebody who advocates pro-abortion views and encompasses
the NF files in that context who mirrors the page, than
another extremist christian.) Fourthly, reverting to legal
means instead of using what your opponents use -- free
speech -- is a dangerous downfall. You end up curtailing
your own rights and means of opposition.
I would ask you to consider the following points.
The NF people took great care to not cross the line
and to not actually advocate violence on their page. Yet they
are treated -- by the public, by the jury, by the judge
-- as if they had.
The NF people walked a very fine line and explicitly refrained from saying that they would like the people
listed to be killed. That very fine line, which they obeyed,
was blurred when the court fined the NF affiliates and when
Mindspring took down the site.
The protection of free speech in print has always
covered the terrain that the NF people move on. That
this terrain is narrowed down on the net, is a matter of
great concern. "Incitement to violence" is described and interpreted
very strictly. It only applies to actual and concrete
situations. Jonathan Wallace, who allowed me to reproduce
his legal analysis of the case, makes
this point rather concise: only if you're at somebody's doorstep
and are speaking to an armed mob, you can be accused of
inciting violence.
Take, for instance, the fatwah that was pronounced
against Salman Rushdie: it was a direct call to murder
him. The fatwah has been debated hotly, but nobody
who publicly supported the call, nor anybody who actually
repeated the call, was sued because of that. Not in The
Netherlands, not in the UK, not in Germany, not in the
US. Only people who actually used violence (against his
publishers, his translators or against booksellers) have
actually been indicted. Doctors who perform abortions have been physically
attacked and even murdered for a long time; bombing
abortion clinics is a bit more of a novelty. Bot both
have occurred before, and independent of, the existence
of the Nuremberg Files. It is circumstances (the actual threats and killings) and
the inferred intentions of the page that were judged
against more than the page itself. What was at stake was
very much the context of actual killings, not the site in
itself.
It is not words that kill people; it is not even guns that
kill people. It is people that kill people. Those who murder
should be judged harshly but justly. Those who argue murder,
should be exposed and argued against. Those who debate,
should be debated with.
Taking all this into consideration, my reasoning was as follows:
These lists have been circulating underground for a very
long time, and they will be doing so again if the NF site is
outlawed or too expensive (because of damages needing
to be paid) to maintain. They would go underground. If there is a danger involved for me (assuming I am
an abortion doctor), I would rather have my name appear
on a public page than have it circulating underground. The
publication would inform me, it would allow me to
take all the appropriate precautions, and it would give me a
very good reason to demand police protection. Pages like this are the ultimate argument against
vehement anti-abortionists. They allow the pro-choice
people to attack their bias, their propaganda, their
clichéss, their means, their methods. It shows their dirt.
In short: the page is an excellent tool to attack the
more vehement lot of the anti-abortionists. Especially
when you present the page in your own context. I understand the fear many of these doctors live
in; but I very much doubt that they would actually be
safer if the page was permanently gone. They should be
aware that it would simply mean that the information has
gone underground.
I have considered leaving out their addresses. But
that would take the edge off the page -- the edge that
was one of the reasons the page became part of a lawsuit.
Instead, I encapsulated a warning on the top of the
page: "For the Nuremberg supporters who intend to use this
page for their own means, I have this to say. First of
all, I have captioned the Nuremberg Files with links to
my motivation and a legal analysis; you cannot link to
this page without the context that I provide it in, and
although that is in favour of free speech, it goes
against your opinions. Secondly, you can never be sure
that I haven't amended the page. Do not trust the names
and addresses you find here, and do not use violence
against the people listed here. You may end up shooting
your own affiliates."
That's information warfare. Freespeechh is invaluable. The pro-choicers need
it as much as the anti-abortionists, in fact, even more:
precisely because they do not want to revert to
violence.
Planned Parenthood can attack the NF pages in any
number of ways, using free speech and debate. But by
taking this legal approach, they will end up limiting
free speech for everybody -- including their own, in the
long run.
Planned Parenthood could even have reversed the
tables on the NF people. They, or their affiliates, could
easily make a similar page that lists the names of
vehement anti-abortionists, adorned with pictures of dead
doctors and mug shots of their murderers.
They could have framed the page -- McLibel style
-- adding their own comments and linking NF statements to
their own, opposing views. They could have embedded the
page. They could have used it. the NF page needs to be
exposed, not censured. Rights, including the right to free speech, can always be abused. People sometimes abuse their rights, or use their for the wrong aims (as some think that I do right now). The right to remain silent can be abused (by criminals who wish to cover their accomplices); the American right to bear arms can and has been abused; the Dutch right to social security can and has been abused.
Should one therefore decide how, and with which aims in mind, people may exercise their rights? Should the right to exercise them depend on the goal and the cause? Who decides what is a good cause and what is not, and which words and opinions serve that cause? Free speech is indeed indivisible. You cannot modify it. "Freedom of speech is a right, except when..." or "Freedom of speech is a right, on condition that..." " or "Freedom of speech is a right, if...". Salmon Rushdie, a writer I admire, put it very terse:: " "Free speech is not just an important thing. It is the only thing."
Restrictions on free speech on other grounds than the personal moral and responsibility of the speaker, will bring free speech down and undercut the principle itself.
To quote Rob Clark in alt.religion.scientology: "freedom of speech is the only true guarantee for any other freedoms, so to an extent it is the one freedom by which the level of freedom of a society can be gauged. in a society without freedom of speech, they can tell you how free you are -- you can't tell them back."
Karin Spaink
February 25, 1999
Copyright Karin Spaink.
This text is offered for private use only. Any
other use requires the author's written permission.
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