Slashdot Mirror
Prosecuted For Critical Twittering
lee1 writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation is trying to urge a federal court (PDF) to block what they claim is the unconstitutional use of the federal anti-stalking law to prosecute a man for posting criticism of a public figure to Twitter. The law was originally targeted against crossing state lines for the purpose of stalking, but was modified in 2005 to make the 'intentional infliction of emotional distress' by the use of 'any interactive computer service' a crime. The prosecution's theory in this case is that using Twitter to criticize a public figure can be a criminal act if the person's feelings are hurt."
I'm suing all of Slashdot for imposing years of emotional distress on me every April 1st. I'll settle for no less than $1 million and a public flogging of kdawson.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
if you are a public figure you need a tough skin. how can it be a crime unless it slander?
This is absolutely brilliant. While we are at it, let's bring up a private prosecution against old butch Oscar Wilde. That will learn those satirists.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Did someone get their feelings hurt? Maybe they should go back to grade school where someone will give a sh!t.
Yay, a law that's about to be ruled as unconstitutional!
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
I swear the prosecution must not like the law because that's an obvious setup to have it struck down on first amendment grounds. It's like the perfect test case to get the law thrown out, especially with the current supreme court and their love of allowing anything under the auspices of political speech.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
but she sounds like a major thundercunt. You guys remember the age of sanity, when people did go running and crying to the courts when their FUCKING FEELINGS were hurt? Jesus Tapdancing Christ!
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
You know what, some people gave their LIVES for the first amendment .. and you jerks want to get rid of it because of some ugly crybaby bitch, and yes she IS an ugly crybaby bitch by every definition of the phrase and I'm NOT sorry if that offends.
I can't believe this is happening I'm in total shock. How can there even be such an asinine law? 2005 .. Bush, GOP Congress .. oh, no wonder.
Shouldn't every person who voted for this law, and also the prosecutor who persecuted under it be prosecuted for treason?
Your favorite band sucks. Yo mamma so fat. You're stupid, retarded, a pathetic waste of oxygen! You're so--hangon a sec, gotta get the door...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I don't understand why public figures are supposed to be protected against any kind of accusations. Their actions are not private, they affect large numbers of people. Interests of those people, and imbalance of power that makes it possible to inflict harm on the population, leave absolutely no reason, other than public interest itself, to protect a public figure from accusations or criticism.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell ... is precedent. This suit is prima facie doomed to fail.
Today in news we are going to California where a man is on death row for thinking about speaking his mind. The first case backed by the new law protecting people from hearing, seeing or mind reading anything that could offend them. The man was going to compliment a lady on her nice dress when the mental police intercepted his thoughts. In this case the friend walking next to the woman would have hurt feelings as he was not intending to compliment her new hair cut.
I'm serious. The prosecutors these days are trying to stretch as many laws as they can get away with.
I know that in my state in some criminal case, in order to get an extra charge in, some guy was charged with risk of injury to a minor. All because he swore in front of them. Yes, now saying a swear in front of a kid is risk of injury because it technically falls under corrupting the morals clause. I never heard if that charge ever stuck though. A problem with making vague laws.
The judge should be applying precedent in this case. Even if it doesn't apply directly to this law, it's been established in the past some laws that protect private citizens don't apply to public figures. One could easily justify ruling in favor of the defendant on those grounds.
...was the actions of the prosecution. I mean seriously, they want to prosecute someone who perhaps said something negative about a public figure?
Hey prosecutor...the world outside of your asshole is a lot different than the view from your bellybutton window. Just FYI...oh, and fuck you and your fucking theory that someone committed a crime here, in case you needed more justification to trample all over my rights.
Is anybody going to post the tweet, or are you bed-wetting babies too scared your mommy will spank you for using "bad words"?
... especially my sense of reality. Can I sue them?
Can you buy constitution toilet paper - outside of congress and the supreme court that is?
In February, William Lawrence Cassidy was indicted for interstate stalking, a felony charge. The indictment stated that Cassidy used Twitter to “engage in a course of contact that caused substantial emotional distress” to an unnamed person.
According to court documents, the person was Alyce Zeoli, the leader of a Buddhist organization known as Kunzang Palyul Choling. Cassidy was allegedly a member of KPC before having a falling out with Zeoli, who is known as Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo to KPC members. After the split, he began directing several thousand public Twitter messages toward Zeoli, some of which were threatening, according to prosecutors.
Twitter case
So let me get this straight. You can be sued for criticism of a public figure, something clearly covered by the 1st Amendment.
I'm sure that if people like this "public figure" had their way it would be a criminal offense, punishable by x years in jail.
On the other hand, actual murderers are being released from overcrowded jails. This is going to start people thinking that instead of using words, they should use a gun. Might end up with a lesser sentence.
Just a thought.
I live in France. Here it is perfectly acceptable for a man to stop his car by the side of the road and have a pee over the car tyre.
I'n some US States, that same man would probably be spending the rest of his life on the Sex Offenders list. With Sarah's Law and all that entails, his life would effectively be ruined for obeying the cal of Nature...
It is any reason that the US is being regarded as a laughing stock in many places aound the world yet they carry on as if they were still a Superpower. Bonkers.
F... F... S!!!
This seems to be a feud between some cult and someone who doesn't like the cult. For once, it's not Scientology. It's some offshoot of Buddhism.
One side of the argument can be seen here. An old article about William Cassidy may provide some background.
As far as I can tell from a superficial reading, both sites are nutcases.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."
--Salman Rushdie
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
we can has sue the interwebz
Do they deploy 'any interactive computer service'? It seems they do not! There is no other feasible explanation for creating a new set of laws that is ending with "on computer" clause. They should just declare "war on computers... and any new stuff we don't get", and be done with it.
Our leaders are whiny bastards.
Mod parent up!
...criticism of elected officials.
"STFU", he explained.
I know plenty will say that it's not germane to the case itself regarding defense of free speech, but... WTF did this guy say in his "tweet", and about whom?
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
It just says "public figure". Who is the public figure? I started skimming through the brief for it and saw nothing and the article doesn't mention who it is.
I'd like to know who gets the criminal justice system involved when someone says mean and nasty things about them and makes them cry.
If the victim is a reincarnate master of Tibetan Buddhism, shouldn't she be impervious to emotional distress? (Yes, sometimes it pays to RTFA)
I read the EFF filing and the definition of a public figure in this case is a woman who has a verified twitter account with 17,221 followers and who posted videos on a service like Youtube which had 143,000 views. This public figure holds no political office and appears to be outspoken about her religious beliefs.
I noticed that the actual contents of the tweets aren't documented in the EFF filing. As tenuous as their assertion about this involving a public figure, I'd like to see the actual tweets before actually judging the merits of this case. Hell according to EFF, all of the regular slashdot commenters are "public figures".
I know they wanted to assert the public figure definition so they can attempt to use a first amendment argument in this case, but I just don't see it with the evidence being presented.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
several THOUSAND twitter posts... I think we've left criticism behind, somewhere around the 100-200 post mark, even if they weren't threatening.
The real issue here, though, is juristictional. Because of the US's hodge-podge collection of jurisprudence, they need laws for people committing these types of offences across jurisdictional lines. If they had a common juristiction, like any sane country, this wouldn't be an issue, but as the Dukes of Hazard have taught us, there's a giant loophole created just by leaving the county the crimes were committed in.
For the US, there really isn't any other way but to have a law like this, even if it is overbroad, (imagine the two parties trying to decide exactly how many twitter posts constitutes stalking, they can barely agree to not default on their loans).
In reading the EFF brief, you will the notice that the argument to protect the defendant's speech under the first amendment (which I support, BTW) is founded on the Victim being a public figure. The evidence in support of that assertion is, essentially, that 1) she has posted 'dozens' of web videos, which have been view hundreds of thousands of time, though we don't know by whom and 2) she has approx 17000 twitter followers. This begs the question - how many twitter followers do you need in order to become a 'public figure'? I have roughly 11 twitter followers, so I probably don't qualify. Where's the dividing line? I also have videos of me explaining things on YouTube. I have no ides how many times they've been viewed, but probably not many. How many video views does it take to make someone a public figure?
What did he say about her? I think there needs to be a retwitting campaign (plus postings to other social networking sites).
This assumes that she filed the complaint that started the proceedings and the prosecution isn't just doing it on their own.
Inching closer and closer to the "thought police" aren't we?
It seems to me that this won't be something ruled unconstitutional... not definitely anyway.
I hate to say it, but I could understand the law in terms of FB or Instant Messenger. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I understand. So with FB or IM there I am chilling in my own little area and you come to my page or send a message to my username that is hateful, etc... then you are harassing me. However, if you post something to your FB page bashing me or utilize your IM to send a friend an IM about me... then well... too bad for me. I didn't have to go read it your page / content. If I get my poor little feelings hurt in the latter situation then I shouldn't have a chance of being able to say you were harassing me.
A Twitter account is kind of the same as a FB or IM account. Not everyone uses them in both directions, but some people do. If "the perp" came to the guy's twitter feed and started calling him out and belittling him (on the guys own channel) then that might be a problem. However, if the perp had his own twitter account and was bashing ABOUT the politician then it should be a non issue.
I read the article and didn't see which was the case, but I'm not sure it's as simple as we think. Ofcourse, the problem might be that the EFF says that the lawmakers didn't even differentiate between the two types of scenerios. In that case a judge might claim that while the spirit is valid the implementation of the law sucks and that it needs to be fixed.
My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
i can say whatever i want about a public figure verbally, on a stage, radio or even TV. but the moment i send those words over this interweb thingy everyone keep going on about its considered stalking/harassment? i love our laws!
"Whaddya mean I hurt your feelings?
Didn't know you had any feelings."
SWOOOOOSH.... Thats the sound of this once-great nation circling the drain... I don't know why Comrade Oblowme doesn't just do like Hitler did, and declare himself dictator-for-life...I'm sure there wouldn't be very many in congress who would complain. YOU KNOW thats his aim, with all of his complete disregard for the Constitution. I'm sure there is many back-room meetings between Oblowme and his puppetmasters on whether to *allow* another election in 2012 after the shellacking the US communist party... err democrat party got last year.. I predicted that there would be an "incident" just before the November election which would "force" CinC to declare martial law and put a stop to that election.. I bet if their tealeaf readers had seen how bad they lost the House, Oblowme would have arranged such an "incident".. I'm thinking I was simply 4 years too early with my prediction... God help this country...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
It has no legal enforcement, no legal ramifications. An atheist isn't excluded from anything due to IGWT.
An overly sensitive atheist may have his feelings hurt because the majority expresses its belief in the Judeo/Christian deity through the coinage, but that's about as far as it goes.
If this might be true, then Tweeters should be required to put in their profile that they're too sensitive to take criticism. And they better be ready to sue the press for hurting their feelings as much as individuals. Gottabeahoax.
Per the Virginia Declaration of Rights, on which the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence are based:
By nature, inherent. Natural rights. And that was written by a Christian, George Mason.
test
Back in the early days of the USA political discourse was very often not civilized. The Hamilton-Burr duel didn't come out of nowhere. It was the culmination of extreme vitriol in public between the two.
Some pretty nasty cartoons and articles were put forth as evidence in the Hustler v. Falwell trial at the Supreme Court.
However, making threats across state lines, that's a different animal altogether. It doesn't need stalking laws to prosecute.
The text quoted seems approximately correct, with an appropriate definition of 'intentional'. If the intent was to cause harm, emotional or otherwise, to the person they tweeted about then it seems appropriate that it fall within the statute. If the intent was to comment on a public figure and the harm (if any) was an unfortunate side effect, then it should absolutely not fall within the statute. IANAL, and I have no idea which side the legal definition of 'intentional' comes down on.
A quick Google shows Alyce Zeoli donating to Democrats, and it looks like the right Alyce.
I'd bet her organization, the Kunzang Palyul Choling, donates heavily Democrat too.
She is a major Buddhist public figure in the US.
What is worse than a Police state. I dont have the words someone help me. Fascist police state?
for the emotional stress they cause me.
Be seeing you...
dont live in the US , just tell me who got upset and ill insult them more, me singing that Vanilla Ice Classic "cant touch me", yer you cant "touch me"
Your tax dollars at work.
Seems to imply Cassidy had the property under surveillance, and sounds threatening to me. The last one is just your example with more innuendo.
The applicable law describes the required intent for the offence as follows:
(2) with the intent-- ...
(A) to kill, injure, harass, or place under surveillance with intent to kill, injure,
harass, or intimidate, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person in another
State or tribal jurisdiction or within the special maritime and territorial
jurisdiction of the United States
I would parse that as meaning that intent to cause substantial emotional distress (or, for that matter, intent to intimidate) qualifies only in combination with intent to place someone under surveillance, something that the indictment does not allege at all. (The EFF brief does suggest that some parts of the law should be interpreted as applying only where surveillance is involved, but not in relation to "substantial emotional distress".)
Even if the judge parses the law as I do, that doesn't necessarily mean throwing out the entire indictment, which alleges that the defendant acted "with the intent to harass and cause substantial emotional distress to a person in another state". The "intent to harass" part is not limited to acting with intent to place someone under surveillance.
But there have always been limits to freedom of speech. For example, slander and military secrets.
you can't have 'intentional infliction of emotional distress' and the first amendment of the constitution both on the books, they are contradictory. Get rid of one or the other.
"Atheism is a belief" is a non sequitur.
Actually, it might work better to phrase it something like: Atheism isn't a belief; it's a non-belief. Something can't be both a belief and a non-belief at the same time.
We might also note a logical point that's probably too subtle for most religious people: Not believing in a god (typically on the grounds that there's no evidence supporting a claim that any god exists) isn't the same as believing that there is no god. Atheism is basically a position of a skeptic: If you claim there's a god, you should be prepared to present evidence. Otherwise, you shouldn't bother people who don't think it's been shown that there is a god.
In the bolded sections above (emphasis mine), what you describe is not atheism -- "god does not exist" -- but rather agnosticism -- "we have no verifiable empirical evidence that god exists, so I withhold judgement."
Atheism is indeed a belief system of sorts, centered around the belief that god does not exist. Agnosticism is open to the idea that god might exist, and thus you should be prepared to present evidence. It's right there in the etymology -- a- + theo- + -ism, a system of belief in no god -- vs. a- + gnosticos + -ism, a system of belief stating that one does not know whether or not god exists.
While the deeply theist will put their fingers in their ears and "la la la" away to ignore people saying "there is no god," the deeply atheist will do the same to ignore people saying "there is a god." Meanwhile, the agnostic shrugs.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
If so might it hurt his/her feelings if we/I said the
prosecution is bogus and bunk? Does this go so
far that the defense could hurt the feelings of a
public prosecutor. Goodness help us it the
appointed PUBLIC attorney was held in contempt
for being stupid or inept.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
The culture is majority religious, majority of that Christian, but with the ideal of protecting the rights of the minorities. I don't have a problem if the majority expresses its beliefs through government as long as it has no real effect.
Well, I do. But, honestly, some dumb text on a coin is not worth bitching about. It's not a perfect world, and I'm not going to let the little things get me upset.
I did draw the line at the Ten Commandments in the courtroom. The intended meaning, and the implication those entering will get, is that the Ten Commandments are a source of law in that courtroom. Example:
None of these are covered by secular law, but a non-Christian has reasonable fears that if the judge believes in these and connects these to the history of our law, then not abiding by these will be prejudicial to the non-Christian. That's too close to a theocracy for me.
We are actually doing much better than most of the world. European countries have official or state-supported churches, but with respect for the rights of minorities. Muslim countries of course are very religious, with no rights for religious minorities (which makes me wonder why leftists who supposedly support civil rights also support the expanding Muslim influence that opposes civil rights).
Right now I can think of several that have an official religion or church. I should have added, "or have other tight involvement with a specific religion." For example:
Germany is technically secular, but financially supports the churches, and individual states can have strong formal religious ties with a church (Bavaria/Catholicism being most famous, and the Protestants up north).
Italy is technically secular, but the Catholic Church has a big say in politics. Plus there's a compulsory tax. You have a choice: fund government welfare or fund churches. It's technically an opt-out, but in reality most of the money goes to the churches, and most of the money where people didn't declare a recipient (most of the filers) goes to the churches.