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."

Comments

Haha

[afidel]

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.