Judge: Freedom of the Press for Commercial Use Only

Kilroy writes "According to a Seattle judge freedom of the press only applies to paid journalists. As a result, he has indefinantly imprisoned a 70 year old former journalism professor for posting mean things on the web. I wonder how much something has to earn in order to make it legal to publish?"

Comments

Another story

[anthony_dipierro]

Here's the public domain version of the story, for those of you who want true freedom. I still haven't figured out why freedom of speech doesn't apply in this case. Maybe because he wasn't "talking"?

Its happened before....

[bofkentucky]

For the last 70 years the 2nd ammendment has been interpreted to apply to "professional" armies or militias, as opposed to every citizen of these United States. The only difference is the "highly regarded ACLU" will stand up to fight this as opposed to "a bunch of right wing gun nuts" in the case of the second ammendment.

Justice Department and the Second Ammendment

[Copperhead]

It's interesting that recently, the Federal Department of Justice has been filing briefs saying that the Second Ammendment protection of the right to bear arms is not merely a collective right, but an individual right.

The Bill of Rights was drafted to list the rights of individuals that the majority can't take away from them. If even Federal Judges can't see this, we're in big trouble.

Just plain Wrong!

[www.sorehands.com]

How do you think that the paid press get their leads?

See Lovell v. City of Griffin. Which ruled:

The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. These indeed have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets of Thomas Paine and others in our own history abundantly attest. The press in its connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.

It's in the Seattle Weekly

[smiff]

The Seattle Weekly has the story here.

This is unbelievable

[DavidTC]

I find it very strange how the articles keep talking about he published, or how he's 'harrassing' the home. Like that has anything to do with his right to publish.

If he's harrassing the apartments, they should get a restraining order, and they did. All well and good.

If he's libeling residents and/or the managment, he can be sued.

But this entire concept of not being allowed to publish is just completely insane. It doesn't matter if he's paid or not, if he's a complete loon, if he's dangerous or whatever. He's still allowed to put up web pages that say whatever he wants. He can put up web pages saying they have sex with monkey in the back room, and that's not against the law.

Now, if he knowingly publishes untruths, he may get sued later for libel, but that's later, and that's a civil action, anyway. You can't be jailed for libel, and I don't even think they can technically make you remove it. (Though obviously they could keep suing you for more and more money if you refused to remove it.)

Maybe this is really about privacy

[markwelch]

As I re-read the Seattle Weekly articles, it appears that the issue was not Mr. Trummel's statements of opinions, nor facts, but instead there are references suggesting that the order simply ordered Mr. Trummel to remove certain "personal information" about specific individuals from the site.

Sorry to be skeptical here, but I suspect that the omission of the list of "personal information" might make us less sympathetic to Mr. Trummel's cause.

What is the "personal information" that the judge ordered removed? Is this really just a privacy issue (social security or credit-card numbers, or unlisted telephone numbers)?

I don't think the First Amendment protects my right to publish a web page that truthfully states:

Slashdot.org poster "Kilroy" is actually John Q. Smith, who lives at 123 Main Street, Apartment 3B, in Anytown, Utah. His social security number is 123-45-6789, his Visa credit card number is 4321-1234-5678-9012, and he most commonly uses the password "thelma" for his online accounts, and the PIN number 45678 for his ATM card and credit cards. His unlisted home telephone number is 801-555-1234, and his cell phone number is 801-555-4321. He has a special pager just to be notified when his wife gives birth, that number is 801-555-9876.

There might be some argument about some of the information, but if someone were posting ALL of this information about me (presumably with the goal of f*cking up my life for a few weeks or months), I'd certainly want a judge to order them to remove the information and cease disseminating this information further (though let's face it, the milk is spilt).

I don't know if this is what Mr. Trummel is alleged to have posted -- probably he did not post this kind of information. Again, the facts are still missing here.

Re:not so crazy?

[Darby]

The Founding Fathers thought that it would be acceptible to have a free press exactly because "not just anyone" could publish!

They also thought only men should vote, blacks should only count as 3/5 of a person and several other things which we the people have decided are crap. This falls into the exact same category. Things the founding fathers believed in, but really only for elite groups. We no longer believe that only elite groups should have these things.

There may need to be changes, but this is certainly *not* one of them Bucko.