City Sues To Prevent Linking To Its Website

Mike writes "In what appears to be a first-of-its-kind case, the Sheboygan city attorney ordered Jennifer Reisinger to remove a link to the city's police department from her Web site. The city went further, she claims, launching a criminal investigation of her for linking to the department on one of her sites, and in response she's suing the mayor and the city. 'The mayor decided to use his office to get back at Jennifer for her efforts in the recall and picked this to do it,' said her attorney, Paul Bucher. It appears this will go to court, and the question will be can a city (or any business or Web property) stop people from posting a link to its site?"

Comments

Re:Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[Rary]

In November, the city withdrew its demand that Reisinger not link to city government sites.

SO um, what's the issue?

Not only that, but the headline says that the city is suing the woman, but both the article and the summary state that the woman is suing the city. Did the editor even read the summary?

Re:Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[RMB2]

I'm sorry, citizens have the "responsibility" of acting "responsibly"? And whom exactly is in charge of the subjective definition of "responsibly"?

Additionally, you earn +0 Karma for misinterpreting the First Amendment. A very simple search would tell you that
1) The Supreme Court decision (Schenck v. United States in 1919) only described falsely shouting fire in a theater, and
2)

Schenck was later limited by Brandenburg v. Ohio, which ruled that speech could only be banned when it was directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot), the test which remains until this day.

You might notice that no mention is made of "responsible" action. I, for one, find the lack of such subjectivity to be a good thing.

Re:Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[Repossessed]

you can't shout out "FIRE" and cause a panic

Why do people constantly use an argument meant to typify speech which leads to violence, injury and destruction, when attacking speech which does no such thing?

You do realize who actually pays such suits?

[unassimilatible]

City governments do not have printing presses to churn out $20 bills to pay off lawsuits. This is taxpayer money, and as one of those taxpayers sick of property tax assessments and hearing how broke my city is - and as someone who has helped defend such lawsuits for my local city attorney's office - I can tell you first hand that city governments are far too free wheeling with other people's money when it comes to paying off lawsuits. It really is disgusting how they will settle suits rather than stand up and fight and risk taking any political positions.

We've got enough fiscal problems without you throwing around other people's money like it is free.

These city politicos look like dipwads, but how does giving this woman a cash windfall at taxpayer expense hurt them? Take my word for it, the *taxpayer* money the average city pays out on junk lawsuits is the real rights being trampled daily.