Judge refuses to take legal action against Daily Stormer's neo-Nazi website

A federal judge refused this week to sue the Daily Stormer neo-Nazi website, which reportedly carried out a "terror campaign" against a Jewish real estate agent, Tanya Gersh, and the Southern Poverty Law Center announced in the New York Times civil case now proceed to trial.

The lawsuit charges the Daily Stormer and its founder, the racist troll Andrew Anglin, with organizing a coordinated harassment campaign against Gersh, which ultimately allowed his family to receive over 700 messages, including death threats and referrals. to the Holocaust. Anglin asked for dismissal of the lawsuit for the first amendment, but in a ruling on the motion, Judge Dana L. Christensen, of the US District Court, wrote that Gersh is a private citizen and not a public figure and that "the Court has examined in detail [Anglin’s] arguments in favor of freedom of speech and considers that a decision for Anglin at this stage would be, at least, premature. "

The Times wrote that the lawsuit stemmed from an incident that occurred in 2016 during which Gersh – a real estate agent from Whitefish, Montana, Richard Spencer's hometown, had told Spencer's mother that she had to repudiate her son's point of view and sell a building that she owned. The. According to legal documents, Sherry Spencer initially accepted Gersh's advice before changing his mind. Anglin then prompted readers of the Daily Stormer to embark on a harassment campaign.

By the times:

… Mrs. Spencer turned the tide and published an article on Medium, accusing Ms. Gersh of attempting to threaten her and extort her from selling the building and breaking up with her son. Mr. Anglin then began writing and publishing his own articles calling for a "troll storm" against Ms. Gersh.

"Tell them that you are sickened by their Jewish program of attacking and harming the mother of someone with whom they do not agree," he wrote, according to the trial.

In the following months, the site has published more than 30 articles, as well as phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and social networking profiles for Ms. Gersh, her husband and her 12-year-old son, and their friends and colleagues. , says the trial. … By the spring of 2017, the family had received more than 700 vulgar and hateful messages, including death threats, often referring to the Holocaust. Some phone messages consisted only of gunshots.

Here is a sample of these articles published by The Washington Post:

"Are you ready for an old-fashioned Troll storm?" Wrote Anglin in a December 16, 2016 article on the Daily Stormer website. The article, titled "Jews Targeting Richard Spencer's Mother for Harassment and Extortion – TAKE ACTION!", Was the first of about thirty years on Gersh on the neo-Nazi site.

Anglin also provided a series of instructions: "Just make your opinions known. Tell them that you are sick of their Jewish program. "

"Anglin did not use the speech on Gersh to raise public awareness of issues in keeping with the program quite right," writes Christensen in his judgment. "… Anglin has exploited the widespread prejudices among his readers to specifically target an individual."

SPLC lawyer David Dinielli, who filed the case on behalf of Gersh in 2017, told the Times that the refusal to dismiss the lawsuit "underscores what our client and we have said since the beginning of this case – that online hate campaigns, threats and intimidation have no place in a civil society and do not enjoy any protection under our Constitution. "

In a statement to the post, he added: "The First Amendment is not entitled to ask hundreds of thousands of readers to launch a public attack against a private person in order to spoil his life. "

Anglin's physical whereabouts have been unknown for nearly two years, the Times added, and he has already faced at least two lawsuits alleging similar tactics. The Muslim comedian Dean Obeidallah, one of the plaintiffs in one of these lawsuits, told the newspaper that Anglin had never responded and that his lawyers were preparing to file documents in order to obtain a default judgment, even if he does not expect to receive money.