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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   28835 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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Your scenario is a bit vague so I'll dress it up for you: If Alice feels strongly about the wrongness of the murderer's conviction and subsequent incarceration and she decides to engage in a boisterous on-woman protest on a street corner during which she yells words of encouragement for the fugitive and expresses hope that he will escape justice, then yes, she would be engaging in constitutionally-protected speech. As repugnant as one may find her views, opinions about the appropriateness of criminal convictions are a fairly common subject of public protest, and the fact that the police may find them distracting doesn't exempt them from constitutional protection. And even then, this case would still be somewhat stronger than what's going on with ICE, where the protestors don't even know the identities of the people ICE are looking for, or indeed if they're even looking for anyone (Renee Good was shot while ICE was returning to headquarters). They're just generalized warnings about law enforcement presence, and are as illegal as flashing your brights to warn a fellow motorist about a speed trap.

You seem to be missing the point that thy aren’t just protesting generally but doing so in ways to try to prevent ICE from doing their job. Your hypo is of Alice standing on a random corner.

Here Alice is following ICE and making noise for the express purpose of making it harder for ICE to conduct their legal duty of apprehending illegals / warning illegals so illegals can flee.

The activities are of a different nature from your hypo and caselaw.

Blowing a whistle is not necessarily constitutionally protected though, there can be reasonable restrictions on noise levels.

Regarding City of Houston v. Hill, striking down a law that is too broad does not mean that none of the activities included in the law could be constrained by law.

The behavior of these people does not seem constitutionally protected to me. They are, in a coordinated way, mobbing officers of the law in the process of enforcing the law for the purpose of helping people escape, in such a way that they are actually successful a lot of the time. https://tiktok.com/@raebaebae28/video/7596446605474057527?_r=1&_t=ZP-93BispJ7Wlb

I hope a case like this goes up to the Supreme Court so we can get a clear ruling on this.

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