A protest organizing group is offering as much as $250 to individuals who post the locations of Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to a post to the group’s Twitter account. The group, ShutDownDC, is responsible for the protest of Justice Brett Kavanaugh on July 8, who was dining at Morton’s Steakhouse in Washington D.C.
According to the tweet, the group is offering $50 for sightings and an additional $200 if the justice is still at the location when the protesters arrive.
ShutDownDC also organized the candlelight vigil held near Justice Samuel Alito’s home in May.
“Without making value judgments about the tactical approaches other people and organizations may choose to embrace, we plan to use the tools and tactical approaches that we have the capacity and expertise to implement,” the organization states on its website.
The tactical approaches and tools, they say, include “disruptive direct action, mass mobilization, coordinated non-compliance, mutual aid, and other forms of civil resistance.”
The form of protest the organization is using could be considered what is known informally as “doxxing” — the publishing of someone’s private information such as their home address or cell phone number, usually associated with “malicious intent.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the term as action taken “to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge.”
There are currently no laws in the U.S. against doxxing, but as a sideline, it is worth watching what will follow Hong Kong’s recent passing of a new anti-doxxing law.
ShutDownDC regularly organizes protest activities in response to events that transpire related to topics that include climate change and pro-abortion stances. The website claims the group was formed in 2019 to answer the Youth Climate Striker’s call to action, headed by Greta Thornburg.
ShutDownDC became active in protests supporting abortion shortly after a much-publicized leak of a draft opinion in the case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the decision in the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade.
The group is made up of at least 24 organizations with a decentralized leadership structure, reportedly to prevent law enforcement from arresting organizers and silencing the protest participants. Patrick Young, a senior research analyst for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, is often considered the alleged lead organizer. ShutDownDC is composed of groups that include Black Lives Matter, Code Pink, and Movement for a People’s Party.
At least some of the organizations that make up ShutDownDC receive support from All Out DC, a group that was formed following the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and has hosted rallies involving Antifa members. U.S. Representatives Rashida Talib (D-MI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Luis J. Correa (D-CA), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have been involved in the group in various ways, according to reporting by the Washington Post.
While doxxing the justices may not violate any laws, there is the potential that ShutDownDC protesters could run afoul of law enforcement for picketing outside the justices’ homes. Under Title 18, Section 1507 of the U.S. Code, picketing and parading outside a justice’s home “with the intent of influencing any judge” can be punished by a fine and up to one year in jail.
State and local ordinances also can be employed to arrest protesters, provided that the cause of arrest relates to the time, place, and manner of the protest, not the content. The Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that protesters have the right to picket on “matters of public concern” in the case of Snyder v. Phelps.
Some Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), have called for Attorney General Marrick Garland and state officials to enforce laws to prevent the protests against justices. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also condemned the protests and violent extremism against pregnancy centers and conservative women in a statement during the July 12 Senate Judiciary hearing on the Dobbs decision.
“Seeking to intimidate or attack the court, or undermine its credibility because of an outcome that you don’t agree with, is dangerous and not the answer,” Grassley wrote. “Along with threats against the justices, threats against pro-life and crisis pregnancy centers have dramatically increased since the leak of the Dobbs decision, by pro-abortion extremists such as Jane’s Revenge and Ruth Sent Us.”
Kavanaugh has been the target of many of the protests. In addition to reportedly being harassed at a restaurant, he was allegedly stalked by a California man arrested earlier this month near the justice’s home who was said to be armed with a gun, knife, and pepper spray.
The man reportedly told police he intended to kill Kavanaugh because of the justice’s opinion as published in the leaked draft.
On June 16, President Biden signed the “Supreme Court Police Parity Act of 2022” authored by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Chris Coons (D-CT). The Act provides a protection detail for the immediate family members of Supreme Court justices and officers of the court. Similar protections already exist for the Executive and Legislative branches.
Another bill, titled “The Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act,” was defeated in June 2022 in the Senate. The legislation would have banned the publication of the home addresses and phone numbers of judges and their immediate family members at every level nationwide. A similar law was enacted in New Jersey in 2021 after the son of a U.S. District Judge was shot and killed in a targeted attack in 2020 at his home.
