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.
You guys remember the age of sanity, when people did go running and crying to the courts when their FUCKING FEELINGS were hurt?
So the age of sanity is now?
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.
Yeah, that's what happens when you're too angry to preview. Been a long day. Oh well.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
... especially my sense of reality. Can I sue them?
You know what, some people gave their LIVES for the first amendment
And they still do, and will continue to do so. The idea of freedom being a "set it and forget it" feature is BS. It must ALWAYS be defended against evil. Especially the kind of evil conducted under the guise of good intentions.
Life is not for the lazy.
According to the brief, she is the founder of www.tara.org. Can't find anything that states what the tweet contained, but I assume it was something that criticized her role as a Buddhist leader...or something like that.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
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
FTFPDF:
She also makes her public teachings available to her followers through the Buddhist
organization Kunzang Odsal Palyul Changchub Choling ("KPC") which she founded
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jetsunma_Ahkon_Lhamo
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.
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.
It should be noted that the first such law in the USA was passed as a State law in..California. Hardly a bastion of the GOP.
Remember, the Dems are the people who get really upset over people hurting other people's feelings. Most Republicans would say "F**k 'em if they can't take a joke", or words to that effect....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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.
"You guys remember the age of sanity, "
I remember the pretense that there was such. It's the "Good Old Days" fallacy.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." - Thomas Jefferson
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.
I don't care how many followers she's got, she's nuts. Classic schizophrenic "religious experience".
I remember the days when kids knew about the "Good Old Days fallacy". Things have been going down hill since then.
If the victim is a reincarnate master of Tibetan Buddhism, shouldn't she be impervious to emotional distress? (Yes, sometimes it pays to RTFA)
Obligatory:
When I was going up things were better! You didn't have to work hard just to pay your bills! You could poop wherever you liked and people would clean it up! And whenever you screamed someone put boobs in your face and FOOD came out of them!
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2323#comic
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...
Are you referring to stalking laws in general or the origin of the wording of the terrible modification of the law. It's no surprise to me that California, home of Hollywood, has anti stalker laws. It would surprise me if they were as bad as this one.
You do know that Arnold ran on the Republican ticket, right?
The amicus brief identifies her has the founder of some buddhist organization. They provide a link to her twitter account and point out that it's a verified account.
Check page 8 (page 13 of 24 by Acrobat's numbering).
You do know that Arnold ran on the Republican ticket, right?
But he married a Kennedy, which says a lot more about his political beliefs.
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?
I realize it just says public figure but public figures do not pass laws.
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!
Not really. My fiancee has Republican leanings, and my own political leanings are so far left that even the Democrats appear to be a right-wing party. Just because we're deciding to spend our lives together doesn't mean we agree on every point... in fact, we disagree on several points. We agree on some points, but there's nothing that says we have to agree on all of them.
Part of the problem is that it's simply asinine to form a two-party system. At a minimum, there's two axes that need to be considered, meaning 4 parties if you want to cover all the bases: there is a difference between social conservatism and fiscal conservatism, and the thing the Republicans don't want you to know is that it's entirely possible to be a fiscal conservative while still supporting civil rights, liberties, and securities. In other words, it's possible to believe in an equal society with a social safety web, while still wanting the books to be balanced.
There was such. Remember when you were a kid and then a bit older? Well maybe you don't but I do. If someone insulted you, you insulted them back. If someone bullied you, you punched them in the face. If someone mocked someone you liked, you heckled them and didn't fear being thrown to the lawyers and court?
Yeah. So these days, if you insult someone you're likely to get drawn up on 'human rights' charges. If you hit a bully, you're going off to anger management courses, maybe being charged with assault, or thrown out of school. And if you try to heckle someone back, they're likely to slash your tires and light your car on fire.
Yeah there was an age of sanity.
Om, nomnomnom...
That was in your previous life as a dog. You're a human now. Better luck next time.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"Whaddya mean I hurt your feelings?
Didn't know you had any feelings."
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.
It sounds like it's part of an immature back and forth between two buddhist twitter camps actually. The KPC it refers to is evidently the tara.org camp. I guess the other guys were saying mean things? I could be misinterpreting. The author there seems to think that obviously, everyone knows who is who in the American Buddhist twitter community.
Maybe they felt that Buddhism wasn't competing well in the "Religious loons online" contest, and they were worried scientology was going to take home the cup again this year.
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.
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.
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.
Congress isn't even letting Obama act as President, never mind dictator!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
France is still a superpower. Any country that can wipe out the earth's population is a superpower.
for the emotional stress they cause me.
Be seeing you...
Wow... someones wearing their collar(s) a wee bit tight! Friend, if you'll put that koolaid down for a second, perhaps you'll notice that O and W have the same handlers. That's because most folks are now clear the nastiest job in D.C. is the guy whose hand is inserting in the Presidents rectum to move the mouth. And sadly that guy works for Corporate America. Republicrats now come in two flavors, "Bought and Sold" and "Extra-Crazy." Apparently you have a penchant for the second kind, its nice to have friends you can talk to, eh? ;-)
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"
Do you have a citation or did you just make this up?
there is a difference between social conservatism and fiscal conservatism
but... that sounds really hard! i just want to choose between a black man and a woman, that's much easier!
Seems to imply Cassidy had the property under surveillance, and sounds threatening to me. The last one is just your example with more innuendo.
But there have always been limits to freedom of speech. For example, slander and military secrets.
"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.