Fucking excellent.

Ex-Obama adviser charged with hate crime over food cart rant

Former US diplomat Stuart Seldowitz has been arrested and is facing multiple charges after a video of him harassing a halal cart vendor in New York went viral.

The NYPD has charged Seldowitz with second-degree aggravated harassment, hate crime/stalking, stalking to cause fear, and stalking at place of employment, Documented reported. In the video, Seldowitz, who previously served as deputy director of the US Department of State’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs, is seen telling a man selling food: “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn’t enough.”

- Al Jazeera

    • blobjim [he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      saw on twitter somewherer that they initially said there was nothing they could do because it was "free speech"

        • BoxedFenders [any, comrade/them]
          ·
          10 months ago

          They wouldn't have done jack shit if the vendor filed a complaint without the video. And even then, it would be a low priority unless it went viral like this story has. Nothing lights a fire under a PD's ass like a social media frenzy.

      • Fishroot [none/use name]
        ·
        10 months ago

        pretty sure threatening to dox some person's relatives and subject them to torture is not ''free speech''

        But then again, American version of Free Speech makes me more and more a fan of Hobbes and Rousseau

        • barrbaric [he/him]
          ·
          10 months ago

          It's not clear, we must refer to the chart to find out whether this is hate speech: us-foreign-policy

      • mar_k [he/him]
        ·
        10 months ago

        If it were the comments alone, he couldn't have been arrested, but he literally harassed and stalked the guy.

        General calls for ethnic violence and genocide cannot be criminalized in the US though, because of Brandenburg v Ohio in 1969; landmark decision where KKK leader Clarence Brandenburg called for genocide of black and Jewish people. Ohio criminally charged him, then came SCOTUS ruling "Brandenburg's rights had been violated by Ohio's statue" and "abstract advocacy of violence cannot be punished". Before 1969 free speech actually wasn't as absolute, but this has been the precedent ever since

      • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
        ·
        10 months ago

        That's allegedly how they responded when the Russian mission to the UN reported this same dude harassing their female staffers.