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

Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[tjstork]

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

SO um, what's the issue?

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?

[TubeSteak]

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

SO um, what's the issue?

The problem is that the city issued a cease and desist order in the first place.
Just because they withdrew it doesn't change the fact that they engaged in an abuse of process.

Good on Reisinger for counter-suing and hopefully establishing some case law on the matter.

Example: In November, the **AA withdrew its cease and desist order that Slashdot not link to bittorrent sites.
Still don't see the issue?

Re:Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[Anonymous Coward]

she seems to be quite racist (probably exactly the sort of McCain voting lunatic who is going to condemn us to four more years):

Calling people who disagree with your political views "lunatics" isn't racist. But it sure is bigoted, arrogant, and insulting to people who have mental problems.

Re:Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[theNetImp]

oh be quiet you lunatic ;-)

Re:Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[lysergic.acid]

a woman posts a link to a municipal government website, so the mayor sends her a cease-and-desist letter and then launches a police investigation on her to intimidate the woman and coerce her into removing the link. and you see nothing wrong here?

it doesn't matter that the city withdrew its demand after the lawsuit was filed (or possibly after the media broke the story). the point is that government officials should not be bullying political dissidents like this--especially not in concert with the police department.

the woman in this story was smart enough to contact a lawyer and fight back, but most people would probably be intimidated and just back down. this story should be reported if only so others know that such demands have no legal basis.

Re:Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[Khyber]

Excessive? In a case like this the maximum is $500,000 per charge. Asking for half of that is not excessive, especially when it comes to the government stepping on a citizen's 1st Amendment rights.

Re:Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[TeacherOfHeroes]

If /. wants to pontificate about censorship they should do it in the cause of a more upright citizen.

Isn't the whole point of free speech that people should be free to say what they'd like especially when others find it distastful or inappropriate?

Its not really freedom if you're only allowed to say tasteful things, is it?

Re:Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[oldhack]

...Did the editor even read the summary?

"editor", eh?! You'll learn soon, grasshopper.

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?

Re:Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[Tenebrousedge]

That makes you a maverick, not a lunatic.

You and a hundred fifty million other people.

Okay, so that was a joke: there aren't a hundred fifty million people that vote in this country.

Re:Did the editor read the last paragraph?

[RingDev]

Keep in mind though, this is white-bread Wisconsin. A few anecdotes for ya.

Over a decade ago I was in boot camp in San Diego. We had one guy in our platoon who didn't pull his own weight. He was lazy, lacked motivation, and was about as bright as a door stop. Field days in particular, he would sit on his foot locker while everyone else was working. One morning, another recruit, fed up with the guy's lack of effort called him a porch monkey and told him to get off his ass. Being from white-bread Wisconsin, I just assumed he was calling the guy lazy, I mean, we have people who sit around on their porches sucking up unemployment insurance and welfare in Wisconsin, and in the town I grew up in, where we had 4 black families out of a pop of 7k, the vast majority of the 'porch monkeys' were most definitely white. I was a little surprised to see the recruit who said it get raked over the coals for it by the DI's.

Just two weeks ago, some republican senator referred to the Obamas as "Uppity". That's another term, being from white-bread Wisconsin, I was familiar with. It's used to describe someone who is behaving not of their social/economic class. It's crass and rude, but I had never heard of it being referred to as a racially charged word. But apparently, it is. Who knew?

I've traveled around the world, and at every stop there are differences in language, social interactions, and social expectations. What is clearly a racial term to one person can be just another insult to a different person. So while I haven't read the TFA or websites, bear in mind that not everyone has the same experiences as you.

-Rick

don't do what?

[JLennox]

oh, this.

This is even a question?

[bigstrat2003]

the question will be can a city (or any business or Web property) stop people from posting a link to its site?

The answer is (or damn well better be) no. This is completely obvious. When you put something up on the Web without a form of access control (meaning logging in, not meaning "I only give out the address to certain people"), it's public every bit as much as if you put an ad in the newspaper. Linking to your site is no different than me saying, "Hey, check out this newspaper ad CmdrTaco put in, it's really cool!".

Even if that weren't the case (and it very much is), this is a government web site. They have no right to keep anyone out at all. I don't know what the city was thinking, but they have no ground to stand on here. Maybe they're hoping they'll get a really clueless or corrupt judge, I dunno.

Oye

[ohtani]

You know a organization knows what they're doing on the web when their landing page is titled NEW PAGE 1 and was made with FrontPage 5.0

sheboyganpolice.com

[Entropy98]

http://www.sheboyganpolice.com/

Sheboygan Police General Information:
Phone: 459-3333 / Email: spd@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Chief of Police / David E. Kirk
Phone: 459-3343 / Email: dkirk@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Deputy Chief of Police, Operations Division / Allen J. Sherven
Phone: 459-3343 / Email: asherven@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Captain of Criminal Investigation Unit / James A. Veeser
Phone: 459-3355 / Email: jveeser@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Shift Commanders / Phone: 459-3333
First Shift ( 7:00 AM - 3:00 PM ) Captain David A. Derus
Email: dderus@ci.sheboygan.wi.us
Second Shift ( 3:00 PM - 11:00 PM ) Captain Stephen B. Cobb
Email: scobb@ci.sheboygan.wi.us
Third Shift ( 11:00 PM - 7:00 AM ) Captain Bob V. Wallace
Email: bwallace@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Training / Resource Division / Lieutenant Michael Williams
Phone: 459-3190 / Email: mwilliams@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Administrative Services / Lieutenant Janet Reinfeldt
Phone: 459-0239 / Email: jreinfeldt@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Drug Unit / Lieutenant Kurt Brasser
Phone: 459-3999 / Email: kbrasser@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Traffic Section / Sergeant Thomas Tuszynski
Phone: 459-3352 / Email: ttuszynski@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Court Services Section / Lieutenant Janet Reinfeldt
Phone: 459-3353 / jreinfeldt@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Community Policing Unit
Lieutenant Jeffrey Johnston / Phone: 459-3338 / Email: johnston@ci.sheboygan.wi.us
Officer John Winter / Phone: 459-3341 / Email: jwinter@ci.sheboygan.wi.us
Officer Todd Priebe / Phone: 459-3341 / Email: tpriebe@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Street Crime Unit
Officer Kurt Zempel / Phone: 459-0234 / Email: kzempel@ci.sheboygan.wi.us
Officer Brian Retzer / Phone: 459-0267 / Email: bretzer@ci.sheboygan.wi.us
Officer Paul Olsen / Phone: 459-3348 / Email: polsen@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Criminal Investigation Division / Phone: 459-3355
Detective Mark Kolosovsky / Email: mkolo@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

K-9 Unit / Officer Trisha Miller
Phone: 459-3333 / Email: tmiller@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

School Resource Officers
South High School / Officer Terry Meyer / Phone: 459-3706
Email: tmeyer@sheboygan.k12.wi.us
North High School / Officer Doug Hall / Phone: 803-7604
Email: dhall@sheboygan.k12.wi.us
Urban Middle School / Officer Patrick Leichtnam / Phone: 459-3959
Email: pleightnam@sheboygan.k12.wi.us
Farnsworth Middle School / Officer Eric Edson / Phone: 459-4083
Horace Mann Middle School / Officer Eric Edson / Phone: 459-3386
Email: eedson@sheboygan.k12.wi.us

Police Property Office / Julie Lamb
Phone: 459-3347 / Email: jlamb@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Administrative Assistant & Office Supervisor / Paula Haelfrisch
Phone: 459-3343 / Email: phaelfrisch@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Communications & Electronics Technician / Russell Schreiner
Phone: 459-3351 / Email: rschreiner@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Fleet Operations Mechanic / David Daniels
Phone: 459-3350 / Email: ddaniels@ci.sheboygan.wi.us

Web Site Administrator / Officer John Winter
Phone: 459-3341 / Email: jwinter@sheboygan.wi.us

Re:The bigger question... changing the legal syste

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this: if you sue somebody and lose (or back out, etc.) then you pay the defendants lawyer's fees as well as your own.

How about this: No one ever sues large corporations again because if they lose they're going to be broke for the rest of their lives.

Re: whole point of free speech

[a_nonamiss]

That's the beauty of the ./ system, though. People are free to troll as much as they want, and the community at large is free to mod those people down so that they have less of a voice to spew their idiocy. Turn off -1 comments, and you'll miss 99% of the GNAA, Goatse or "FIRST!!" posts. Make too many of those posts, and your Karma will dictate that nobody will ever see any of your posts.

If we just started ignoring the idiots in real life, they would go away, too. Instead, we put them on the news. All you have to do is wave a Nazi flag or hang a rope from a tree, and you automatically get +5 mod points just for being a moron.

Regarding Racial Slurs

[Lucid 3ntr0py]

In regards to

But use any of the assorted names for black people, and watch the brains of everyone in the room reboot as they look around in a panic to see if any of "them" heard you.

I think this classically illustrates how racism still exists in America. Mexicans don't like being called spics, don't call a lesbian a dyke, a gay a fag, and so on...unless you are tolerant. I can say whatever I choose in mixed company and rarely will a person of particular race,gender or ,who ever fits into whatever slur I said , will get mad.(I'm not talking about running into the tube and screaming "Stupid-ass, watermelon munching. Nigger") Why you ask?

Because they know I've got nothing against anyone. Shying away from certain words shows that you are afraid of them. If you would say something amongst close friends, such as saying "don't be so niggardly", but wouldn't say it in front of a black person- you are racist.

Minorities aren't stupid, yet we treat them like they are. Its like when you have that friend who acts like he enjoys your company but know he talks shit about you. Everyone gets it.

Here's an example, I am a white male in the IT sector. I play in a jazz fusion band called "Spook and the Ghosts". One of my best friends is the black drummer. You know who worries about the name or protests against it? White people. If I were to mention it at work- amongst my ivy-league-PhD-toting-engineers coworkers, they would get freaked out- but then make racist jokes. My black and Hispanic friends in Jamaica Plain [one of the ghettos(in the original sense) in Boston] think its hilarious, but they aren't going to make racist jokes because they think its safe. The PhD's (and most of white America) is racist at home and pretends like they aren't in the street. No one fools anyone.

If someone has a mental disability, call them retarded. That's what they are. When your jewish friend complains about the 25 cents he was shorted at Dunkin Doughnuts, even though he makes 100k a year, tell him to not be such a jew. He knows what your referring to.

The worst thing you can do is act one way in public and another at home.