Bill Would Declare Your Blog a Weapon

Mike writes "Law prof Eugene Volokh blogs about a US House of Representatives bill proposed by Rep. Linda T. Sanchez and 14 others that could make it a federal felony to use your blog, social media like MySpace and Facebook, or any other Web media 'to cause substantial emotional distress through "severe, repeated, and hostile" speech.' Rep. Sanchez and colleagues want to make it easier to prosecute any objectionable speech through a breathtakingly broad bill that would criminalize a wide range of speech protected by the First Amendment. The bill is called The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, and if passed into law (and if it survives constitutional challenge) it looks almost certain to be misused."

Comments

Re:This might be worse than expected...

[Logical Zebra]

If by "nothing more serious than an unpaid tax or unfilled-out form regarding certain firearms laws" you mean "stockpiling illegal weapons," then, yes, the Branch Davidians did nothing wrong.

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[b4upoo]

There is a real moral issue here. Has anyone taken into account that there really are a few people who are so evil that they deserve to be hammered into the dirt by relentless, attacking speech? Causing the suicide of some people should be rewarded, not punished.

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[stewbacca]

Hmmm, since you guys don't seem to listen and want to immediately Godwin my ass, maybe I should try a different approach.

I would like to make it illegal to murder people. If you shoot a person and kill them, I will come after you for murder, not for using a gun. The same thing here applies (I assume, not my law). It is impossible to ban words (guns) so you go after the action of bullying (murdering).

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[Foobar of Borg]

This bill is about the harm done to the emotional state of the speech's subject (direct harm; the effect of the speech on the subject).

Then it would be covered under intentional, or negligent, infliction of emotional distress. Of course, this can also be gotten around by free speech arguments. You can even joke that Jerry Falwell's "first time" was with his mother in an outhouse. Of course, that goat fucker now uses trademark law to try to crush anyone who dares state anything negative about him. Did I not mention that he regulary fellates goats and loves to swallow?

Anyway, the law is a way around that, so you can sue the hell out of anyone who expresses anything negative about you. I can only hope that this will be deemed unconstitutional, since even Scalia and other conservatives don't stand against the first amendment. But, damage will already be done before it gets to the Supremes.