Oregon State Senator James Ivory Manning Jr. voted in favor of HB 3047 yesterday shortly after using an example of constitutionally protected speech as an example of why he supports the bill. HB 3047 also known as the anti-doxxing bill is an overly broad piece of legislation designed to create a civil cause of action whenever someone posts personal information about someone on the internet such as their home address, personal email address, personal phone number, or the contact information of their employer with the intent to harass, stalk, or injure them. That sounds fine at first, but when we looked at their definition of "harass" we found out that it extends far beyond the definition of harassment to include intentional infliction of emotional distress based on anxiety. Under this bill someone could file a lawsuit against someone that posted their employer's contact information just because they did it hoping to get them fired and they suffered substantial anxiety as a result. The First Amendment protects the right to post that type of information for those reasons. We already doxxed the Oregon House or Representatives for approving the bill and with that dox we included comprehensive arguments proving that it is unconstitutional (https://copblaster.com/blast/35518/oregon-house-of-representatives-directory-of-home-addresses).
You can watch the Committee on Judiciary discuss HB 3047 in the video below. At about 3:43 Sen. Manning says, "we were looking at this issue with a specific scope. One is at do, is it permissible to allow personal information of a person to be spread out all over wherever for the purposes of gathering mob-like to go and visit their homes or personal areas where they have children, they have family members, things like that." That specific scope covers a variety of First Amendment protected activities because it fails to distinguish what the mob-like groups intend to do when they get there. If the bill focused on mob-like law breaking then it would not be unconstitutional, but its broad language includes things like posting home addresses of people for the purpose of gathering mob-like and visiting their homes to protest peacefully. Mobs like the group that showed up at Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler's house in the early morning hours chanting "wake up Wheeler!" Under this bill Ted Wheeler could sue people that post his address for the purpose of helping such groups protest outside of his home. Protesting outside the homes of government officials has long been a form of political protest recognized by the courts as being protected by the First Amendment. Surely those government officials suffer anxiety due to such things and that anxiety is the intentional result of the protesters as well as those that post information online for the purpose of helping them find their locations. Unfortunately, there are often family members and kids living with them, but they are just as capable at ignoring protesters as their loved ones are at ignoring the needs of the people. Protesting at their homes is a great way to make yourself heard in a way they cannot ignore which is why trying to chill that speech strikes the heart of the First Amendment. Upholding the constitution is far more important than sheltering children, so if government officials really don't want their kids to hear what the public thinks of them they should do their jobs better.
We submitted testimony to the committee to make sure they knew that the bill is unconstitutional and what would happen if they voted in favor of it (https://copblaster.com/uploads/files/hb3047-testimony.pdf). They did not publicly discuss any of the case law given to them, but they did falsely claim to have done so during meetings. We are uploading the staff measure summary for this meeting as a PDF with this article (see PDF icon above map). As the video below shows "free speech case law in Oregon" was not discussed. We also watched the first committee hearing on this bill and did not hear it discussed there either (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEpjh6jb3DE). Clearly this committee does not care about the First Amendment. That trait is all too common among legislative bodies when proposed legislation has a lot of bipartisan support. They think that if an idea is popular enough that it is alright to simply pass it and hope nobody challenges it later. We intend to challenge it as soon as the first person threatens to sue us for posting personal information pertaining to them. Our response will be to file a motion for declaratory relief in federal court on the grounds that the bill is unconstitutionally overbroad and while it is pending we will not remove anything.
According to public records, James Ivory Manning Jr. is a 67 year old resident of Eugene, Oregon. His home address is 1170 Throne Drive. We are posting that address with the hopes of inspiring free speech activists to stand in the street outside with signs that say "YOU CAN'T SHUT US UP MANning!" That probably will not happen, but we have the right to dream. His address is available on the Secretary of State website along with him home and cell numbers (https://secure.sos.state.or.us/orestar/cfDetail.do?page=search&cfRsn=18826&OWASP_CSRFTOKEN=RN0Q-IDDP-YLO9-CAMO-ZUFV-M2QU-DOP7-8VZR). His home phone number is listed as (541)653-8604 and his cell is listed as (541)221-7277. His email address is senjamesmanning[at]gmail.com. Our public records broker found the phone number (541) 729-0284 and convictions for killing or disposing of wildlife illegally.