Yeah, this basically begs for a mirror action. Calling these zealots out and staking out their homes and churches with creepy intimidation tactics.
I’m all for protest and freedom of speech, but these people are loathsome scumbags. Instead of accomplishing something good - easing suffering or caring for the multitudes of children who are neglected or homeless - you’re intimidating people who have made a heartrending decision, presuming to judge them from a moral authority.
In a perfectly ironic world, one of of these jerks is forced to remain vegetatively hooked to machines, clinging to life in violation of their DNR wishes because it’s the will of God.
No…they’re probably not able to correlate the license plate with a specific DMV record, but they can correlate it with their own unofficial records.
Groups across the political spectrum from animal rights groups to anti-racist groups have used this tactic of recording license plate/vehicle information and then attempting to track the vehicles presence at similar events over time and/or determine who the owner is.
SHAC USA, for example, used to have a website where it listed the names of pharamaceutical workers along with personal information including make/model and license plate of their vehicle.
On April 19, 1968, the field secretary of the NAACP for Mississippi, Charles Evers, led a march to the Claiborne County courthouse and demanded that the entire Port Jefferson police force be discharged.[2] When the demand was not met, the boycott on the merchants was reimposed. On April 21, Evers made a speech in which he said, “If we catch any of you going into these racist stores, we’re going to break your damn neck.”[2]
During the boycott, individuals known as “Black Hats” or “Deacons” stood outside stores to identify blacks who broke the boycott.[2] The names of those who were identified were published in a black newspaper and the names were read aloud at NAACP meetings.[2]
In at least 10 instances, blacks who violated the boycott experienced instances of violence, including shots fired into their homes, bricks thrown through their windshields, and tires on their cars slashed.[2][3]
Supreme Court ruled that NAACP engaged in non-violent acts (collecting the names of boycott violators,etc.) were not liable for the violent acts that befell said violators.
Texas stalking law does seem to cover this. The Texas Atty Gen’s site stalking page doesn’t say so - it only says that “fear of death or bodily injury” are covered - but that’s not really true. The site does at least include a link to the law, which says otherwise.
Sec. 42.072. (a) A person commits an offense if the person, on more than one occasion and pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct that is directed specifically at another person, knowingly engages in conduct that:
(3) would cause a reasonable person to:
(D) feel harassed, annoyed, alarmed, abused, tormented, embarrassed, or offended.
(A-C are all “or” conditions) Stalking is a third degree felony, unless previously charged - then it’s second degree.
Along with other nasty tactics, Texas requires an ultrasound and a wait period before abortion. Many women from rural areas must drive long distances and then stay in unfamiliar places while they wait it out to be able to go through the process. With someone writing down their license plate, they have now have an additional fear - of confrontation in a hotel room! Try to tell me that’s not a rational fear for a person traveling out of their area and staying in unfamiliar surroundings who now has someone eyeballing them that they know is opposed to their actions.
I really hope that someone is letting women in Texas know just how their stalking law is actually written.
I’m not a lawyer, but reading through 18 U.S. Code 2261A (Stalking) it seems to me that taking down people’s license plates so you can intimidate them by reciting their address later on would be an action that “causes, attempts to cause, or would be reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress to a person described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of subparagraph (A)” and so fits the legal definition of stalking.
IronEdith, Certainly the priests and nuns in the prayer circles are childless! And many antis are old. But I’d be careful about making assumptions.
The most rabid anti I have ever encountered as a clinic escort is a woman with six children. Sometimes she would say she had six children, sometimes she’d say seven - she’d had a miscarriage.
Whenever a patient makes it past her and into the clinic, she screeches at us escorts. She has a particular contempt for me - she assumes I am a lesbian who doesn’t have children, hates children and loves dogs instead. She’s 1/4 correct - I don’t have children; but it’s not because I hate them. I just never met a man I felt I could have children with and I certainly didn’t want to be a single mom; that’s such a tough life!
I feel sorry for the babies, toddlers and youngsters who are conscripted into the anti picket lines before they are old enough to know why they are there. They are subjected to extremes of weather and boredom in a cause they won’t be able to understand for years. How is that “pro life?”
Since this happens so close to me, and since it’s a Catholic organization, I’m tempted to make fliers of all the priests convicted of child molestation from the local diocese and stand there with the protesters, handing my flier to all the people they hand their fliers to.
I agree. I already knew that the federal law covered “harassment”, but Texas hates federal law. So, I looked up their state law. It turns out that BOTH cover this situation.
I just wonder where these people are after that baby is born? You know to help out the mother in case she needs help (food for the child, diapers, clothes)?
Oh wait, they don’t care about the child after it’s born, they only care as long as it’s in the womb.
It’s not new, and it’s not limited to abortion clinics.
About 20 years ago, I was working against a proposed ordinance in Anchorage that would have censored all adult materials and closed all sex shops, movie houses and adult bookstores.
We learned that the local power-church had regular contingents that photographed their customers in an effort to shame them with employers or anyone else who might be interested. They also cruised gay bars or bars rumored to be pick-up spots. We later learned that the same group would take photos of their own church parking lot plates, then cruise the bars at night to look for matches so they could shame their own members.
Indeed, but that seems too mild for folks of this ilk. The doxing they do against people looking for health services is immoral and absolutely unwarranted–I just figured they deserved a little bit of their own medicine. And just for taking the time to find their addresses, I think they should also be signed up for any and every USPS mailing list, especially for sexually-themed items.
Of all the things I consider doing in my free time, shaming people is just above “stick unsharpened pencil through eyeball”. Is that something they think their god would approve of? Yet again, I’m amazed to think that these folks aren’t able to grasp how shitty they’re being.
It occurs to me to wonder whether it would be useful for pro-choice activists to perform the same kind of creepy stalking behavior at some generic medical center for a while (writing down license plates, then mailing people letters) - perhaps the general public would become outraged enough to get a medical privacy law passed or something. :-/
