Florida Congressman Wants Blogging Critic Fined, Jailed

vvaduva writes "Florida Rep. Alan Grayson wants to see one of his critics go directly to jail, all over her use of the word 'my' on her blog. In a four-page letter sent to [US Attorney General Eric] Holder, Grayson accuses blogger Angie Langley of lying to federal elections officials and requests that she be fined and imprisoned for five years. Her lie, according to Grayson, is that she claims to be one of his constituents. Langley, Grayson says, is misrepresenting herself by using the term 'my' in the Web site's name."

Comments

Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It

[eldavojohn]

I am not a lawyer. From the letter the complaint seems to be divided into two parts (note that "the Committee" refers directly to MyCongressmanIsNuts.com):

As explained below, Ms. Langley and the Committee falsely represented to the Federal Election Commission that the Committee "supports or opposes more than one candidate." In fact, however, the committee name corresponds to a website that attacks me and only me, while soliciting contributions to be used against only me. Moreover, Ms. Langley has falsely depicted herself as a constituent, in order to further this scheme.

Although you may claim it's just another stupid technicality that Florida Rep. Alan Grayson clings to in order to shut down a website that is probably too painfully close to the truth for his comfort, there is another complaint other than the use of the word 'my.' Now, if you visit the about us page on the committee in question's site you can find:

Central Floridians formed My Congressman Is Nuts PAC as a response to the outrage and embarrassment within Central Florida over Alan Grayson's liberal positions and childish approach in Washington, D.C. We could no longer sit by and accept his inappropriate behavior and leftist big government agenda. He does not represent the values of Central Florida.

Emphasis mine. Now a key part to the argument is that since it is a PAC with pac registration, it receives taxation status benefits from the government making it subject to the law of United States Code Title 18 Section 1001.

I mean, he might have a case here if that US code applies to PACs. I'm not sure. Were I in his shoes, I would have instead taken the angle of attack related to the title line of the site which is "Alan Grayson is Nuts" and proven that I am not legally insane. Actually, I wouldn't have done anything. As Barbara Streisand might have pointed out that before this news I had never heard of nor visited My Congressman Is Nuts but now I have scanned the entire site out of curiosity.

Re:Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It

[ZaMoose]

Technically, since Harry Reid DID say precisely that after Grayson entered Congress, your statement is true.

To wit:

"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right," Reid said Monday. "When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'"

He continued: "When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn't quite right.

"When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."

Re:Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It

[LandDolphin]

How were republicans responsible for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

From Wikipedia:
By party
The original House version:[9]

Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)
Cloture in the Senate:[10]

Democratic Party: 44-23 (66%-34%)
Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)
The Senate version:[9]

Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%-31%)
Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)
The Senate version, voted on by the House:[9]

Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
Republican Party: 136-35 (80%-20%)

The republicans had a high % to vote for it, but the Democrats had higher numbers voting for it than rebulicans.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by both parties from the "North" and faught by both parties from the "south"

Re:Cliffs Notes

[smitty777]

Not that it doesn't belong here, but this is less tech story and more a human story.

I agree with you. But one interesting (somewhat) relevant aspect of this article is the fact that it was online. Does it make a difference that it was a blog? Would he have any different legal footing if she had said this on television or on the radio? The web version certainly does leave a quite tangible trace of the "crime". Finally, if anything becomes of this, will it set a precedent? These are certainly interesting topics to explore.

Re:The question, really, is this:

[Trepidity]

Lying in a political context is hard to prosecute, unless it rises to the level of libel, which has a pretty high bar for public officials, and an even higher bar for political speech about public officials.

Lying on forms filed with the government is illegal, though, under a blanket "don't lie to the government" law. The jail part of the complaint seems to be for allegedly misrepresenting the PAC on the filing documents with the FEC: the filed documents claim the PAC isn't aimed at any particular opponent, but the website clearly is aimed at one opponent.

Re:I call bullshit

[Trepidity]

If you prefer, this and this predate the Fox story by several days.

Re:Oh, the irony

[Fallingcow]

My understanding of the situation (from the discussion of this same story on Fark a day or two ago) is that the main charge isn't even misrepresenting where she lives; it's telling the FEC that her PAC raises money for many candidates while actually only raising money for one, which lets her get around donation limits.

Website no longer necessary

[Locke2005]

Langley criticizes Grayson on her Web site for his "inappropriate behavior" and "childish approach" toward governing, and claims he "does not represent the values of central Florida." Grayson has pretty much made her case for her with this inappropriate and childish attack on her web site. The term "Streisand Effect" also comes to mind. I hope mycongressmanisnuts.com carries advertising, 'cause this dick move is going to drive a metric shitload of traffic to the site!

This seems silly on the surface

[UnknowingFool]

At first glance it appears that a Democratic congressman is suing a blogger for using "my" in the name of her website because she really isn't his constituent. Is this all there is to this story? Bear in mind, the only source I've found is Fox News which isn't exactly balanced reporting (if any of them are). From the story: "In a four-page letter sent to Holder, Grayson accuses Langley of lying to federal elections and requests that she be fined and imprisoned for five years." So what I can tell Langley had been questioned by some sort of official. Grayson says she lied. So her crime might be she lied to some officials about where she lived which isn't a high crime but is a crime.

Here's what I think went down: Grayson gets attacked on her site. He investigates the site to know whether it is by a PAC or an independent blogger. If it's a PAC there are various disclosures that must be done. Officials question Langley. Grayson thinks she lied about her constituency at least (and maybe other things like her independence). So he asks for legal action. Fox is spinning it to be more sensational than it is for ratings.