Prosecuted For Critical Twittering

Posted by Soulskill on Monday August 1, 2011 @06:29AM from the tweets-are-for-jailbirds dept.

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."

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In the words of a wise man... by idontgno · 2011-08-01 06:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."
--Salman Rushdie

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