Legislators like pushing
cyberbullying/cyberharassment bills, but seldom seem to consider how their
badly/broadly-written laws will be abused. Like many legislators pushing cyber
legislation, New Jersey politician David Norcross just wanted to help the
children.
State Sen. Donald Norcross
(D-Camden) said the bill is tailored specifically to protect children, closing
a loophole in state law that prevents people from being criminally prosecuted
for online harassment of minors.
"There have been cases of
cyber harassment across the country that have taken a tragic turn, and ended in
the loss of life," Norcross, who co-sponsored the bill with state Sen.
Nicholas Sacco (D-Hudson), said. "We have to make sure that our state laws
reflect the reality that children are being harassed and bullied every day on
the Internet. That means making sure those who engage in this conduct can be
held accountable under the law."
The bill would ban people from
using electronic devices and social media to threaten to injure or commit any
crime against a person or his property, or send obscene material to or about
someone.
So much for the "specific
tailoring." Norcross wanted to protect kids from bullies, but instead it's
"protecting" a cop from a local man with a long history of colorful
speech and law enforcement interactions.
They’ve busted him for smoking
pot, running a business past curfew, and not keeping his restaurant’s kitchen
clean enough.
On Friday, however, it was Ed
Forchion’s mouth that got him slapped in handcuffs, freedom of speech
notwithstanding.
Days after Forchion stood outside
his eatery and pot temple shouting “f— the police!” and calling one of the
police officers a “pedophile,” NJ Weedman was charged with cyber-harassment and
disorderly conduct.
The cyber-harassment charge,
according to a copy of the complaint filed by Officer Herbert Flowers, was
based on a Facebook and YouTube video of the confrontation in which Forchion is
heard telling Flowers he’s a pedophile, while the disorderly conduct was for
Forchion’s F-bombs against police “in public and social media forum.”
F-bombs are protected speech, so
even the "disorderly conduct" charge is largely baseless. But the use
of the cyberharassment law -- which carries a possible penalty of 18 months in
jail and a $10,000 fine -- is completely ridiculous. If Forchion committed no
crime by calling Officer Flowers a pedophile in person, no crime was committed
simply because this confrontation was recorded (by a third party) and posted to
YouTube (also, apparently by a third party).
This is simply a bad law being
abused because that's what bad laws -- no matter how well-intentioned -- allow
people like Officer Flowers to do.
Officer Herbert Flowers has a
history of subjectively interpreting Constitutional rights. He may have been
upset by Forchion's F-bombs, but that doesn't explain his decision to punish
Forchion for using his First Amendment rights. But Flowers has been down this
road before.
Here's the conclusion reached by
the New Jersey Appeals Court, at the tail end of a six-year legal battle.
[W]e conclude that a reasonable
police officer in 2006 could not have believed he had the absolute right to
preclude Ramos from videotaping any gang activities or any interaction of the
police with gang members for the purposes of making a documentary film on that
topic.
The unreasonable police officer
was none other than Herbert Flowers.
Ramos is a documentary filmmaker.
In 2006, he was working on a project about the emergence of gangs in Trenton.
Flowers is a police officer employed by the Trenton Police Department. Ramos
contends that he had five encounters with the Trenton Police during the time he
was filming the activities of various members of the “Sex Money Murder” Bloods
sect, one of the largest Bloods gang units in Trenton. Three of the encounters
involved Flowers. He alleges that Flowers’ actions during those three
encounters interfered with his constitutional rights to free speech and
assembly, as well as his right to be free from unlawful police search and
seizure.
One of those encounters:
On July 6, 2006, the Trenton
police responded to a call from the Trenton Public Library to investigate a
meeting being held by known gang members on its premises. One of Ramos’s
sources gave him a tip that he should go to the library to film the events as
they unfolded. Once Ramos arrived at the library, Flowers told him he was
interfering with a police investigation, adding: “I am sick of you already, I
am sick of seeing you, I do not want to hear you anymore, you are not allowed
here anymore.” Ramos asserts that Flowers grabbed his video camera and put it
in his car.Flowers then told Ramos: “If I see you again … I am locking you up
and I don’t care what for … you better not let me see you again … watch what
happens.”
The filmmaker was charged with
multiple violations after his arrest by Flowers. Only one charge stuck
(obstructing a sidewalk), which was downgraded to a mere city ordinance
violation.
Flowers is using a badly-written
law meant to close statutory loopholes that prevented adults from being charged
for harassing minors via social media to punish an adult for saying mean things
to him to his face. Because Flowers didn't arrest Forchion on the spot, this
means he had to go looking for "evidence" of Forchion's supposed
"cyberharassment," which the officer somehow feels is a better statutory
match for verbal abuse he experienced in person. Sure, Flowers could try to sue
Forchion for defamation, but that takes time and Flowers' own cash. Flowers
would rather have taxpayers finance his vendetta and see Flowers face a
possible $10,000 fine and a stretch in jail than walk away from the disorderly
conduct charge he likely won't be able to make stick.
This is why we warn against the
unintended consequences of laws like these. It's not because we don't care
about bullied kids. It's because adults -- especially those in positions of
power -- will abuse them to stifle speech. Rather than simply ignore the
personal attack, Flowers chose to treat it as a criminal offense. The end
result is that Forchion, a.k.a. "NJ Weedman" -- a person who runs a
"pot temple" he apparently feels is beyond the reach of state
regulation -- is now the least ridiculous participant in this confrontation.
Just another child on the
internet not getting it... AT ALL!
Why many hospice doctors like me
won't participate in legal physician assisted suicide
On June 9 California will join
four other states — Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana — in allowing
physician-assisted suicide. Meanwhile, my state, Arizona, and a dozen or so
others are considering their own “right to die” laws. As a hospice physician,
about twice a year I am asked by a patient to prescribe a lethal dose of a
medication. Oncologists throughout the country report that up to half of their
patients at least ask about it.
But even if it were legal in
Arizona, and I knew a patient met all the criteria established by law, I would
still not hasten his or her death. That would be my right as a doctor, and it
will be the right of doctors in California as well.
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