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

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  1. #1
    Nobody expects the Senior Member Lemur's Avatar
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    Question Woman Blogs About Police, Goes to Jail. Fair? Unfair?

    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.
    Last edited by Lemur; 08-16-2009 at 16:07.

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    Ranting madman of the .org Senior Member Fly Shoot Champion, Helicopter Champion, Pedestrian Killer Champion, Sharpshooter Champion, NFS Underground Champion Rhyfelwyr's Avatar
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    Default Re: Woman Blogs About Police, Goes to Jail. Fair? Unfair?

    If the information was publicly avaliable anyway, then it's hard to say that she's done anything seriously wrong. I wouldn't call her a martyr to freedom of speech though, she's obviously just a nutter.
    At the end of the day politics is just trash compared to the Gospel.

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    Nobody expects the Senior Member Lemur's Avatar
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    Default Re: Woman Blogs About Police, Goes to Jail. Fair? Unfair?

    Well, given how the world works these days, there's a lot of information about you available to anyone who has the obsession time. Should there be consequences for those who aggregate and organize that information when it could bring harm to the subject?

    Should there be laws that cover aggregators, or should we work harder on making more information private?
    Last edited by Lemur; 08-16-2009 at 16:45.

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

    She shouldn't have been arrested. It's just a blog.

    She broke the law yes, but there are all kinds of crazy statutes...

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    Arena Senior Member Crazed Rabbit's Avatar
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    Default Re: Woman Blogs About Police, Goes to Jail. Fair? Unfair?

    Unfair. She may be obsessed, but that law against 'harassment' is stupid. The cops provided no evidence that she was actually harming them in any way.

    And they're really lousy at being 'undercover' if she found all this out about them. Compiling information should definitely not be a crime.

    Eugene Volokh, what I would call an expert, also has this to say;
    One thing I stress in the article is that much (though not all) such crime-facilitating speech does have value to law-abiding readers as well. Knowing the identity of an undercover police officer can help noncriminals know which of their acquaintances aren't what they seem, and can help criminal defense lawyers figure out how to better defend their clients. Even knowing a person's home address could be useful if you want to organize picketing of their homes. Such residential picketing could be restricted by city ordinance, but in some cities it isn't; and even if focused residential picketing is banned by a city ordinance, parading through the targets; neighborhood in order to express your message of condemnation to the targets' neighbors is constitutionally protected. See Madsen v. Women’s Health Ctr., 512 U.S. 753, 775 (1994); Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 480-81 (1988).
    CR
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    TexMec Senior Member Louis VI the Fat's Avatar
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    Default Re: Woman Blogs About Police, Goes to Jail. Fair? Unfair?

    Quote Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit View Post
    Unfair.
    You can say that, but I bet you're just getting a bit nervous.


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    L'Etranger Senior Member Banquo's Ghost's Avatar
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    Default Re: Woman Blogs About Police, Goes to Jail. Fair? Unfair?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemur View Post
    Well, given how the world works these days, there's a lot of information about you available to anyone who has the obsession time. Should there be consequences for those who aggregate and organize that information when it could bring harm to the subject?

    Should there be laws that cover aggregators, or should we work harder on making more information private?
    Quite the opposite, in my opinion. Most countries need laws making more information available to the citizens. Information is power, and the less of it conserved to government discretion, the better.

    Any information that is publicly available, is publicly available. If a blogger can access and aggregate it, you can be sure villains can and will. This woman wouldn't have made it any easier for organised "bad" people to find this policeman if they wanted - which is, I presume, the rationale for implying this should be illegal.

    Government agencies ought to get used to the idea they work for the citizenry, and in most cases, the citizen has a right to information. If someone working in law enforcement or national security may be exposed, then a judge should be approached prior to need, and a case made to suppress the information on their identity from the public record.

    I would have thought your First Amendment would have trumped any tin-pot local statute - but then that Constitution seems to be largely ignored these days. And then we get into a discussion about whether bloggers have the same consideration as "mainstream" journalism.
    "If there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this one."
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    Nobody expects the Senior Member Lemur's Avatar
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    Default Re: Woman Blogs About Police, Goes to Jail. Fair? Unfair?

    I think the legal consensus that's congealing in the courts and state legislatures is that bloggers have exactly the same rights and responsibilities as "normal" journos.

    The First Amendment has many exceptions, including the age-old "yell fire in a crowded theater" chestnut. There are also State Secrets, which are rightfully and justly exempted from free speech. Libel, slander, incitement to violence, the list goes on.

    I dunno, posting the identity and home address of undercover police strikes me as serving little or no public benefit while endangering a schlub who puts his life on the line for his community. Don't see the upside, and the downside is obvious.

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    L'Etranger Senior Member Banquo's Ghost's Avatar
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    Default Re: Woman Blogs About Police, Goes to Jail. Fair? Unfair?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemur View Post
    I dunno, posting the identity and home address of undercover police strikes me as serving little or no public benefit while endangering a schlub who puts his life on the line for his community. Don't see the upside, and the downside is obvious.
    I don't disagree, except the information was already public. The downside was already extant.
    "If there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this one."
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    Member Senior Member Proletariat's Avatar
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    Default Re: Woman Blogs About Police, Goes to Jail. Fair? Unfair?

    She's crazy like we all agree but who cares, the undercover cops should be more undercover. Let them be a little scared


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    Sovereign Oppressor Member TIE Fighter Shooter Champion, Turkey Shoot Champion, Juggler Champion Kralizec's Avatar
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    Default Re: Woman Blogs About Police, Goes to Jail. Fair? Unfair?

    § 18.2-186.4. Use of a person’s identity with the intent to coerce, intimidate, or harass; penalty.
    It shall be unlawful for any person, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, or harass another person, to publish the person’s name or photograph along with identifying information as defined in clauses (iii) through (ix), or clause (xii) of subsection C of § 18.2-186.3, including identification of the person’s primary residence address. Any person who violates this section is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
    Any person who violates this section knowing or having reason to know that person is a law-enforcement officer, as defined in § 9.1-101, is guilty of a Class 6 felony. The sentence shall include a mandatory minimum term of confinement of six months.
    It doesn't sound like a silly statute at all. What this woman did amounts to stalking. A mandatory sentence of 6 months in confinement because the victims were police officers seems overboard, though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Suspect's blog
    The above is intriguing in that it seems to support what I’ve repeatedly stated: publishing pictures and other identifying information of Law Enforcement is not a crime. What is illegal -- and I knew this already -- is harassment, which is the angle the aforesaid code plays. Really what it boils down to is motivation.

    I deny my intent was to harass Dasani. I’m not trying to harass any of the officers. I HeArTE JADE is, and has been, a means to exhibit some of the things I’ve experienced because of my curiosity about, and interest in, the JADE Task Force.

    I suppose though, when it comes to my actual motives and what I say vs what a group of Law Enforcement claim my motives are and what they feel, the latter people are all that matter.

    With that in mind, I expect what will come out in court, in my defense, will still be scandalous for Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement.
    Not very convincing.

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