The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is joining Princeton University to lead a “data collection initiative” over supposed threats and criticisms of elected leaders. The movement, known as the Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI), is focused on politicians at the local level but hopes to “expand beyond local officials to state and federal.” BDI emphasizes non-illegal activity such as threats and harassment, or “incidents beyond legal definitions of criminal conduct.” Threats are defined as “instances in which one person communicates to another their intention to inflict pain, injury, damage or other hostile action at least in part due to that person’s role as a public official,” harassment being anything considered “knowing and willful conduct directed at a specific person … that a reasonable person would consider aggressively pressuring, intimidating, alarming, tormenting, or terrorizing … without serving a legitimate purpose.”
From The Blaze:
The methods by which the so-called threats and harassment were communicated, according to the BDI report, were electronic, demonstration, verbal, multiple, unknown, written, display of symbols, defacing, and other. Non-criminal memes, protest signs, and social media posts can be added to the initiative's tally of incidents that are "undermining the work of public servants, and creating unprecedented stress on the cornerstones of democratic society." ... According to its report, the BDI will address "information on both perpetrators and targets of threats and harassment" by collecting data from "journalists, social media, crowd-sourcing, and other sources," and to collaborate with "civil society monitors, government, and civil society organizations" on its surveillance and logging of undesirable speech.
