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Judge Orders Man To Delete Revenge Blog
nonprofiteer writes "A Minnesota man violated a restraining order obtained by his ex-girlfriend by blogging about her mental health and sexual issues, and sending links to posts on the blog to her family, friends, and co-workers. The judge then extended the restraining order by 50 years, ordered the guy never to write about his ex on the Internet and ordered him to delete the blog he created. Even though there was no evidence that what he had written was false, the judge said the ex-girlfriend's 'right to be free from harassment' outweighed the guy's 'right to free speech.' 'I believe it's rare, if not unprecedented, for a court to order an entire blog deleted,' says technology law professor Eric Goldman."
no he is not a health organization.
Why bring up the ACLU? Any American who values the Constitution would be concerned.
Except that the guy consented to the restriction not to adversely affect her privacy.
He already willingly forfeited his right to free speech in this case, the court is simply enforcing his word. If this punishment were overturned, then it would be precedent to make NDAs unenforceable as well.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Well, you need to look into constitutional law a little more. First amendment rights vary according to the type of speech and the subject.
Political speech gets very broad protection -- your political rants and screeds, no matter how odious, pretty much are protected. When you start advocating violence against a particular person or group, however, you have reached the boundary. You are not protected from the consequences of said speech, either.
Commercial speech (ie: advertisements) get much less protection. Like the FTC might come down on you for truth in advertising issues. The FDA prohibits certain forms of advertising for prescription drugs.
If you direct attacks at a particular person, who that person is has impact on your protection. Is the person a politician either in or running for office? Fire away, pretty much. Does the person live in the public eye? Famous actors have to put up with a lot of crap. Is the person just a normal Joe trying to get by? The court tolerates much less crap aimed at them.
Libelous and slanderous speech is always subject to remedy.
Anyway, the d-bag in question clearly wasn't making a political point, and the victim certainly wasn't a politician or movie star. This was a private person trying to have some privacy, and some d-bag being a d-bag in a very public way. It is a fact that the truth is always an absolute defense against libel, so maybe if what he said was true you can't shut him down for libel. But hurtful speech directed against a private person is not going to get very much first amendment protection. And I'm OK with that. That's a very different thing from a political rant.
By "carefully toeing the line" I presume you mean "not actually violating the restraining order"?
Looks to me like the guy just found new ways to harass her in the legal sense that didn't violate existing restraining orders. So the Ex took out a new restraining order that covered the new form of harassment.
The man should be punished for harassing his ex-girlfriend. Depriving him of his First Amendment rights, however, should not be part of that punishment.
Why not? The whole point of a restraining order is to prohibit harassing behavior without tossing the culprit in jail. I think it more noteworthy that the judge made the restraining order for 50 years. From googling around, I gather such orders generally aren't longer than a year before they're reviewed. In that light, this one seems unusually onerous.
More googling indicates the ruling was appealed and mostly upheld though the length of the restraining order was cut from 51 years to 50 years, which is apparently the legal maximum for a restraining order in Minnesota. They seemed to think the terms of the original restraining order were otherwise legal and constitutional.
By "carefully toeing the line" I presume you mean "not actually violating the restraining order"?
In my limited experience judges don't find it clever if you violate the spirit of the law without violating the letter. If the restraining order specified no harassment, for example, and he was going to argue that forwarding upsetting posts to family members doesn't precisely meet the definition of harassment set forth on paper, the judge will most likely (and justly, in my opinion) hand him his ass.
The guy signed an six-month HRO that prohibited him from (1) committing any acts “intended to adversely affect [Johnson's] safety, security, or privacy,” (2) having “any contact” with Johnson “in person, by work or home e-mail, by telephone, or by other means or persons,” and (3) visiting Johnson's Morgan Stanley “worksite.”
I would say blogging personal information, publicizing it and directly contacting family friends and co-workers are acts intended to adversely affect Johnson's privacy. As punishment he is now being given a stronger/longer HRO. He lost his right to free speech when he signed the HRO.
At that point, however, he could still face prosecution for libel if he couldn't prove what he'd said was true.