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

Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[eldavojohn]

Bill Would Declare Your Blog a Weapon

Sweet, the right to a blog would be protected by both the first and second amendments!

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[MyLongNickName]

All I want to know is who the hell is this Bill, and why does he hate my blog so much?

No, I couldn't be bothered to read more than the headline. Thanks for asking.

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[plague3106]

No, they're not trying to remove the First Amendment. It's still there, and if this bill conflicts with the First Amendment (and I can't see how any reasonable person could say otherwise), its clear legally that the bill would be tossed out as unconstitutional.

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

That is, unless you call someone names until you make them cry.

'to cause substantial emotional distress through "severe, repeated, and hostile" speech.

This law will further criminalize every teenager in America.

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[Shakrai]

As much as I hated the KKK, I reluctantly agreed that they should get their free speech rights. Unfortunately, it looks like this Democratic government is going to overturn this under the guise of legislating political correctness.

Are you surprised? Most European countries (which are regarded as further to the left than the United States in most instances) already criminalize "hate" speech. I'm no fan of "hate speech" myself but my right to free speech overrides your right not to be offended by what I say. Besides, the danger of the Government getting to say what is and what is not "hate speech" should be apparent to anyone.

Whatever happened to "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it"? Why does it seem like Democrats are at least as effective at infringing on civil liberties as Republicans are, but never seem to get called on their BS to the same degree?

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[stewbacca]

You should have read more than the headline because frankly, the headline sucks. This bill strives to make "severe, repeated, and hostile" speech used in cyberbullying a criminal offense. Since MY blog doesn't have any of that stuff, this bill would not be able to declare my blog a weapon. By no means am I supporting this bill, but also by no means do I consider this alarmist headline to have any validity.

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[hoggoth]

> This law will further criminalize every teenager in America.

A: "What were you two convicted of?"
G1: "Well... I took a nude picture of myself and sent it to my boyfriend."
A: "And how about you?"
G2: "I kept telling her she was an idiot for taking a nude picture of herself. I made her cry."

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[Jaysyn]

I wish we had a "three strikes" law for politicans. If you propose or sponsor Constitutionally illegal laws more than twice in your career, you get immediately shit-canned.

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[jmorris42]

> ..and the "Fairness Doctrine" (currently more of a boogyman being trotted out by that blow hard Rush,
> than an actual rallying point for the Dems, but it does have it's supporters).

[SARCASM]

Ain't it the truth. Right now it only has a few back benchers like Congresswoman Pelosi behind it. But if Rush lets up on bashing it some of the more influential politicians might feel safe enough to start pushing it.

[/SARCASM]

It's all of a kind with this crap in today's article, previous attempt by the 'progressives' like McCain/Feingold, etc. But people refuse to connect the dots and see that one party just can't seem to stop attacking the Bill of Rights. If they aren't attacking the 1st Amendment they are attacking the 2nd. They won their fight against the 9th and 10th long ago, as those are are simply dead these days. Do you really believe they won't go after the others? They really have problems with the whole concept of a Constituition and the Rule of Law thing, they prefer the Rule of Men... so long as it is them doing the Ruling.

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[Geoffrey.landis]

Um you might be wrong, unfortunately. Obama has four justices that will rubber stamp anything he signs...

Uh, this is a bizarrely weird thing to say. You're talking about a supreme court of which all but two justices were appointed by Ford, Reagan, or Bush; and many of whom have been on the court since Obama was a high school student. There's no reason to particularly think why they would "rubber stamp anything he signs." Anything? Huh what?

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

I will say now and I have always said it, this is an adult's world. I am tired of our elected officials, and these parent groups trying to turn the real world into some giant fucking playpen. I love how politicians upon election catch a tick that forces them to compulsively think of the children and try to legislate away our rights so that we can protect snot nosed little assholes. I'm sorry, your kid may be cute to you, your kid may be your pride and joy but they are also becoming an obstacle to the ideals of this country. Look at what is being done all over the United States to shelter kids from the air everyone else breathes. Phys Ed is started to take on a "no loser" policy where everyone must engage in an activity where there are no losers and everyone is a winner because of some need not to make a child feel bad. Do people honestly think that is in the child's best interest. Look at parent groups like the PTC trying to take anything and everything that aren't mindless programming off the air because a kid might see it. Now we have this cyberbulling bullshit because some kid(s) with emotional problems offed themselves.

Every generation of adults look at the world around them and realize that it is the same shitty world their parents inherited (just with newer technology) and thinks that if they shelter their children, they will grow up to create a perfect world. Doesn't seem to work like that. You keep a kid away from the feelings of losing, sadness, stress, and fear and when those feelings finally hit you have just created a generation of mal-adjusted assholes. Being a child is not some magic state that becomes undone on somebody's 18th birthday. A kid is just an adult in training and we (society AND parents) should keep that in mind. Having said that, fuck your children, they are your problem. I won't go out of my way to harm a child but I am also not going to curtail my rights and liberties because some kid might cry.

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[jmorris42]

> These two things are mutually exclusive.

Really? So you launched the 2nd American Revolution when the 1st Amendment went away? It did you know, McCain Feingold's purpose was to carefully regulate political speech in the times when it matters most, near an election. It was passed mostly by Democrat politicians but was signed by President Bush even though he knew it to be unconstituitional. He was afraid of the MSM attacking him as a defender of big lobbists (which was no excuse to forsake his Oath) and then the Supremes suprised him and upheld it in one of their infamous 5-4 decisions.

So "Congress shall make no law.." is null and void because the Supremes said Congress CAN make a law so long as they approve of the law. So how many congresscritters did you bag? Uh huh.

When the 'assault weapons ban' was in effect that was most certainly an infringement. Hell, the machine gun ban is most certainly an infringement for the purposes of "..shall not be infringed." since at the time the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms included every weapon the military bore into war. Private militia companies even owned cannon. How many congresscritter and/pr faithless judges did you bag?

Nope, we be frogs slowly boiling to death.

Re:Covered By Twenty Percent of the Bill of Rights

[Kreigaffe]

No, but you're completely misunderstanding what's going on here.
If Microsoft found your blog to be full of severe, repeated hostile language, then you would be in violation of the law. Not CIVIL law, but FEDERAL law. This wouldn't be a case where you sue for damages. This would be a case where they show evidence to a jury of your peers that the language on your blog was, indeed, severely hostile and repeated, and thus in violation of the law, and then you'd go to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
If they found that the contents of your blog were also harmful lies, well, that's a civil matter. THAT would be libel.

But that's a whole different case. As far as I can see, this bill makes no distinction between truth and falsehood -- therefor, you could be locked up for saying things that are COMPLETELY TRUE, yet cause somebody to feel severe emotional distress (PEOPLE GET SEVERELY EMOTIONALLY DISTRESSED WHEN POPEYE'S RUNS OUT OF CHICKEN FFS).
Now isn't that a fun idea?

Let's actually look at the wording of the law.

"(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

Wait, coerce? COERCE? TITS OR GTFO would be in violation of federal law. I wish I was joking -- I am not.
Intimidation, coercion, what the fuck? These are not things that are illegal to do in person. There are circumstances that MAKE them illegal, but let's say you're talking to your significant other and trying to talk them into sex even though they're kinda tired.
Nothing wrong about that at all.
Now, this law passes. Now repeat the above, but via some sort of electronic means. You are now attempting to coerce -- perhaps even intimidate would be able to be used, it depends on how Wymyn's-Lib the judge is (ZOMGS SEX IS INNATELY ABOUT VIOLENCE AND DOMINANCE AND ABUSE bitch please) -- and you're in violation of the Illustrious Idiot Sanchez of the glorious state of Cali-less-free-than-the-rest-of-the-country-fornia.

AKA the ED law

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure this law would shut down Encyclopedia Dramatica, and most of 4chan in a heartbeat.

That said, nothing of value was lost.

Re:AKA the ED law

[nitehawk214]

That said, nothing of value was lost.

Aside from our freedom of speech, that is.

Classic ploy

[shellster_dude]

I love how the bill starts with the classic, "for the children" clauses to rationalize the trampling of the bill of rights.

Re:Classic ploy

[commodore64_love]

I sumbit that our children don't want their free speech rights to be taken away. We need to protect the first amendment "for the children" who will someday be bloggers themselves. In fact many of them already are.

Dear Linda Sanchez

[Locke2005]

If you don't like the things I say in my blog, wouldn't the most rational reaction be to simply don't fucking read it???

Re:Not too worried

[malchus842]

Complaining is one thing. Fining you and sending you to jail is a completely different thing. Free Speech pretty much guarantees that you are going to be offended by someone, somewhere, sometime. Deal with it.

This might be worse than expected...

[helbent]

What usually happens with these kinds of unconstitutional laws is they are rammed through with the authors knowing full well they won't stand up to a constitutional challenge. Think about certain aspects of the Patriot Act, the laws regarding civil asset forfiture, and the Lautenberg amendment to the Brady Bill (AKA the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban where you are denied 2nd amendment rights forever after having a restraining order lodged against you or being merely accused of a crime, even in absence of a conviction thereof).

What happens is the courts pile on the charges so high that defendants are forced to settle for a plea bargain, which is how 95% of all trials are resolved. Thus laws which blatantly violate the constitution are allowed to sit on the books forever with no effective challenge against them, generating eternal revenues for the state and ensuring that a long line of semi-innocents head off to the hotel-with-barred-windows for violating some petty legal technicality. The Branch Davidians were gassed and incinerated alive for nothing more serious than an unpaid tax or unfilled-out form regarding certain firearms laws.

The same nasty precedent set by the previous examples will be precisely how it plays out here. Not only will this law pass but it will be misused and abused left and right, and nobody will cut it off because that would stop the gravy train.

Re:Not too worried

[prisoner-of-enigma]

If someone is obviously and intentionally harassing someone else, I have no problem with them having legal recourse.

Oh really? Define "obviously and intentionally harassing" in a legalistic manner that is so clear cut that it cannot be abused, misused, or given an extremely broad interpretation? If I post a scathing blog indicting the Ku Klux Klan and a Klan member finds it harassing, can my blog be shut down? Last year, the Canadian government prosecuted someone for "hate speech" because they were critical of Islam, and some Muslims found it offensive. Do you really want to start down this road?

Folks like you scare me. You think just because *you* can easily define things like "harassment" that everybody else conforms to your definition of the word. You don't think beyond your own idea of the concept, and you're willing to trade First Amendment protections because of it. Frightening. Truly frightening.

Seriously?

[AnalogyShark]

Someone is really trying to make trolling illegal?

Don't they realize that acknowledging trolls just makes them worse?

everyone is talking past each other

[circletimessquare]

this is what happened to meier: she was mentally and emotionally unstable. she was a minor. an adult, over an extended period of time, purposefully targetted her and assassinated her confidence with false friends and false romantic interests and outright suggesting she kill herself. then she committed suicide

obviously, no one here supports that. at the same time, those rightfully outraged about what happened to meier are proposing limitations on free speech which are too broad. what you need to do is take what motivates them and REDIRECT their free speech limiting efforts to not be so broad. just laughing and riciculing their efforts doesn't satisfy their motivations. and their motivations are real and vlaid, so you have to address them:

you can say anything you want online. unless you: 1. target one individual, 2. over an extended period of time, 3. who is a minor (nad you are an adult), 4. who is mentally unstable

those who want to fight bullying would agree with this. you, defenders of free speech, would agree to this. so stop just shouting down and ridiculing those who are fighting cyberbullying. just redirect their passions. what motivates them is real and valid: a teenage girl was hounded to commit suicide. there is a valid reason to protect her. there is a valid legal space in which new speech laws can exist that, again:

1. stand against targetting one individual
2. over an extended period of time
3. who is a minor (and the bully is an adult)
4. who is mentally unstable

the most hardcore free speech zealot understands why you cant shout fire in a crowded theatre. therefore, everyone recognizes that yes, there actually ARE limits to free speech. so take what motivates those who are angry at the meier case, and HELP them channel their anger into a SPECIFIC limit on online speech of the form of the 4 limitations above

you have to respect the legitimacy of what motivates those who are upset about what happened to meier. just laughing at or ridiculing their overarching efforts doesn't stop them from trying to right the injustive that happened to meier. you can HELP them, and HELP to retain your free speech principles by tailoring and redirecting their passions to a specifically worded area of what is obviously heinous cyberbullying and does not infringe on your free speech rights

imagine that, compromise, rather than a bunch of kneejerk zealotry like you find in other comments here, without any recognition that waht motivates those who are righfully outraged about wehat happened to meier

for those of you who care about your free speech rights: how do you protect the meiers of the world? you need to address that. if you don't, there will be continued attacks on free speech forever, because what motivates those who want to protect the meiers of the world is just as valid an impulse as those who want to protect free speech

sure, some of you could say the meiers of the world need to just toughen up. fuck them, people are cruel, get used to it

by the same token, i could say to you that some assholes want to limit your free speech so tough luck, just shut up about some of what you want to say... this statement is bullshit, i'm just demonstrating that if you don't show any sensitivity to valid concerns about cruelty to others, why do expect anyone to have sympathy for your concerns about free speech?

because, in the end, the principles and passions that support free speech are the same principles and passions that seek to protect the meiers of this world. you protect the rights and liberties of the weak in this world, or you merely help create a world of cruelty, in which limits of free speech are inevitable. limits on free speech are really just a form of cruelty that this cyberbully demonstrated when manipulating meier