Woman Blogs About Police, Goes to Jail. Fair? Unfair?

[Lemur]

This is an interesting case, and I'd like to hear Orgahs' opinions on the matter.

So this lady in Charlottesville, VA has been blogging obsessively about her local PD, which is no big deal. But then she takes it kind of far:

It's fair to say that Ms. Strom was unusually focused on the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement task force, a 14-year-old unit drawn mainly from the police departments of Charlottesville, Albemarle County and the University of Virginia. (Her blog at http://iheartejade.blogspot.com, expresses the view that the task force is "nothing more than a group of arrogant thugs.") In a nearly year-long barrage of blog posts, she published snapshots she took in public of many or most of the task force's officers; detailed their comings and goings by following them in her car; mused about their habits and looks; hinted that she may have had a personal relationship with one of them; and, in one instance, reported that she had tipped off a local newspaper about their movements.

Predictably, this annoyed law enforcement officials, who, it's fair to guess, comprised much of her readership before her arrest. But what seems to have sent them over the edge -- and skewed their judgment -- is Ms. Strom's decision to post the name and address of one of the officers with a street-view photo of his house.

All this information was publicly available, including the photograph, which Ms. Strom gleaned from municipal records.

Apparently Virginia has a "harassment by identification" statute, which allowed the police to arrest her for her posts.

So, is she a martyr to freedom of speech? Or has she crossed a line by posting the home address of an officer? What say the Orgahs?

Personally, I think she was in the wrong, although the legal implications of jailing someone for posting publicly available information are troubling. But still, she's in the wrong.