Taylor Swift Slammed By ACLU For Threatening To Sue Blogger

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California wrote a letter to Taylor Swift’s lawyer Monday, admonishing the pop singer and her legal team for apparently trying to silence a blogger who wrote about her.

The blogger wrote a piece entitled “Swiftly to the alt-right: Taylor subtly gets the lower case kkk in formation” for the website PopFront in September. Swift's lawyer wrote to the blogger, Meghan Herning, on Oct. 25, demanding the site issue a retraction for the article and threatened a “potential lawsuit against PopFront.”

The article drew comparisons between Swift’s apparent popularity with the alt-right and neo-Nazis and her lyrics, which the article alleges speak to those movements.

“The idea that Taylor Swift is an icon of white supremacist, nationalists, and other fringe groups, seems to finally be getting mainstream attention,” the article said. “But the dog whistles to white supremacy in the lyrics of her latest single, (“Look What You Made Me Do”), are not the first time that some have connected the (subtle) dots.”

Herning pointed out alt-right website Breitbart's enthusiasm for Swift and a quote from a writer for neo-nazi website The Daily Stormer.

“It is also an established fact that Taylor Swift is secretly a Nazi and is simply waiting for the time when Donald Trump makes it safe for her to come out,” white supremacy blogger Andre Anglin told Broadly last year.

“The story is replete with demonstrable and offensive falsehoods which bear no relation to reality or the truth about Ms. Swift,” Swift's lawyer, William J. Briggs II, wrote in the letter. “It appears to be a malicious attack against Ms. Swift that goes to great lengths to portray Ms. Swift as some sort of white supremacist figurehead, which is a baseless fiction masquerading as fact and completely misrepresents Ms. Swift.”

The ACLU, however, said the blogger was well within her First Amendment rights.

“This is a completely unsupported attempt to suppress constitutionally protected speech,” Michael Risher, an attorney for the ACLU of Northern California, wrote in the letter.

The ACLU also said the writer’s piece was not defamation, as Swift’s lawyer claimed.

“The post is a mix of political speech and critical commentary, and discusses the resurgence of white supremacy and the fact that some white supremacists have embraced Swift,” the ACLU wrote.

Swift has kept out of politics, but her lawyer said in the letter that she denounces white supremacy and the alt-right. One of the Swift’s music video directors also jumped to her defense on Twitter and continued an ongoing feud between Swift and Kanye West.

"Let's remember there's one major recording artist who has publicly endorsed a white supremacist," Joseph Kahn wrote alongside a photo of West and President Donald Trump.