Robyn Blumner

The abortion protesters who were behind the Nuremberg Files—a website that publicized personal information about abortion providers—were engaging in protected speech and should not have been found guilty of making threats, argues Robyn Blumner in the following viewpoint. The protesters did not make any explicit threats of violence against the abortion providers, she contends, and therefore their speech is protected. A verdict that finds that the protesters should have known that the doctors would feel threatened by the website places an unmanageable burden upon the speaker to know what an audience is thinking. Blumner is a syndicated columnist and editorial writer for the St. Petersburg Times.

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1. How is the case NAACP v. Clairborne Hardware similar to that...