A law professor is putting up the warning flag on this proposed law (HB 1966) and the very vague terms in it. It is being based on the tragic events that lead up to the death of Megan Meier and interestingly enough, the woman who intimidated Megan was convicted, so apparently current laws do work. One has to wonder then why this a one is being proposed. Read it yourself and see how alarmingly vague it is, how it appears to open up a whole can of worms if passed and how that could toss a bucket of cold water on free speech.
===
2 examples from the blog:
1. I try to coerce a politician into voting a particular way, by repeatedly blogging (using a hostile tone) about what a hypocrite / campaign promise breaker / fool / etc. he would be if he voted the other way. I am transmitting in interstate commerce a communication with the intent to coerce using electronic means (a blog) "to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior" -- unless, of course, my statements aren't seen as "severe," a term that is entirely undefined and unclear. Result: I am a felon, unless somehow my "behavior" isn't "severe."
2. A newspaper reporter or editorialist tries to do the same, in columns that are posted on the newspaper's Web site. Result: Felony, unless somehow my "behavior" isn't severe.
Read the rest at:
http://www.volokh.com/posts/1241122059.shtml
Read the law at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.1966:
"by repeatedly blogging (using a hostile tone) about what a hypocrite / campaign promise breaker / fool / etc. he would be"
Uh-oh Chris--Marcy Kaptur is on to you and your obsessive posting about her. This law is clearly a thinly-veiled attempt to quiet you.
Pink Slip
Wow. I've long since believed that for all the talk from the left about the religious right that the true threat to people's ability to talk and think for themselves came from the fringe elements of the political correctness movement. This proves it. Thank goodness Marcy Kaptur isn't my Congresswoman. This is just wrong on so many levels.
Seems like a short time ago that Dix Chicks where getting their CD scrushed in Clear Channel parking lots across America in Nazi book burning-like rallies...
Was it the Govt doing it?
Nope...
Embrace your little inner facist...you know you really cant wait to riflebut conservatives and their spawn into train cars...keep in mind, we wont go peacfully...
We allready know where this is eventually going to go....the final solution...liberal style....
Funny, didn’t we just come off a Republican president and congress that argued (and continue to do so) that American citizens have no right to privacy, no rights against being able to talk on the phone with out the government listening, no rights not to have your home searched in secret without a warrant.
Didn’t we just come off a Republican president and congress saying that Americans have no rights to lawyers, trials or judges? Bush argued that he should be able to pull an American citizen off the streets of the US, hold them indefinitely without trial of peers and judge them by tribunal and ultimately execute all in secret.
But Liberals are fascists…un-f’ing believable.
But yet the liberals couldn't stand to see testimony on national security go on behind closed doors.
However, now the current administration doesn't want the phone calls taped by the FBI between Eliot Spitzer and the escort service he used made public.
Maybe he was divulging national secrets too?
MikeyA
"But Liberals are ALSO fascists[.]"
FIXED. Anyone who tries to use the power of government to restrain our natural liberties is to be feared and fought.
Seems like a short time ago that Dix Chicks where getting their CD scrushed in Clear Channel parking lots across America in Nazi book burning-like rallies
Nobody got tossed in jail for expressing any opinions - the Chix said what they wanted, and people reacted the way they wanted...
For the record, I think this law would be foolishness...
Pink Slip
Free Speech, Liberal style.
If ''CON' is the opposite of 'PRO', does that mean Congress is the opposite of Progress?
This isn't right and you won't be abe to find liberals out there defending this.
Maybe Kerry should have just hand picked his crowds like Bush.
I can tell you Libs, there are tons of liberals on that student's side
Pink Slip
that's just dashed inconvenient.
Mad Jack
Mad Jack's Shack