There are times when I really don’t enjoy living in California, this is one of them.
The idea for a law, by Rep. Linda Sanchez, Democrat, of California is sheer lunacy. She has proposed a bill that would make it a federal felony to use blogs, text messages, and Internet messaging (“electronic means”) to harass someone and cause them “emotional distress.”
So if my local paper, the Enterprise Record, posts a web story that “causes somebody emotional distress”, do the aggrieved then just dispense a lawyer from a vending machine in front of the newspaper office and walk in with a lawsuit? There will be DMVesque line with a wait.
It’s coming to that it seems.
Linda Sanchez (D-CA) coming after bloggers
“Greg Pollowitz at NRO Media Blog sends the alert (via The Volokh Conspiracy) that Rep. Linda Sanchez, Democrat of California, has proposed a bill that would make it a federal felony to use blogs, text messages, and Internet messaging (“electronic means”) to harass someone and cause them “emotional distress.” Eugene Volokh pulls these snippets out of H.R. 1966:
Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both….
[“Communication”] means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; …
[“Electronic means”] means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.
(h/t to Helogenic Climate Change)
Here is her official website where you can contact her and let her know what you think about this idea. Be nice.
http://lindasanchez.house.gov/index.cfm?section=contact
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I pressume Ms. Sanchez will send to jail my accountant. He communicates with me by electronic means and, believe me, what he tells me by e-mail these days causes me substantial emotional distress
best
The law would be subservient (there’s probably a better legal term) to the US (and maybe CA) right to a free press.
For people who aren’t press, you could always fall back to US Mail, though that comes with a few interesting restrictions.
There are already libel laws that ought to be adequate. Note that if it’s true, it’s not libel or slander.
This proposed law may also be “overbroad” and “vague” – both attributes that have scuttled other draconian laws.
For those Emailing Sanchez, you might consider asking her about various realistic hypothetical cases and ask her why existing laws (libel, slander, stalking, criminal threatening, etc) are not adequate.
How can I contact the daft woman to give her some grief? Her website only allows for email from the USA and I am in Europe.Is she the future of American freedom of speech? if so you are all doomed
We in the west fought 2 world wars for freedom, including freedom of speech. Democrats in the U.S. Congress appear to wish to turn that over, what with successfully keeping Christopher Monckton silent.
Your is a superb blog. lol, Bertie
See this article [http://www.reason.com/news/show/133221.html] for a Canadian experience.
When it becomes law, this crap is real and will be used against people. We must fight it.
Unfortunately,
you can’t legislate good behavior. No law, will make someone play nice with others when they choose not to.
Katherine (12:45:51)
The vaugness of the language would allow any activist judge to take it any direction they wanted. When the focus is on “communication” as opposed to actual acts or “personal threat to do bodily harm” or some other SPECIFIED language then you’re asking for trouble with a bill like this.
“Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior…”
Hmmm… Lookout Joe Romm.
Does this mean I’ll be able to sue Hansen? I work in the railway industry in the UK and his oft repeated remark about death trains is causing me severe emotional distress.
This is a a sinister and dramatic development, especially when you are in opposition of a political doctrine which is based on a religion.
What do I say, it’s impossible.
We have seen many, many times how they respond to a simple remark like: “There is No Consensus” to get them in a state of “substantial emotional stress”.
I’m afraid we have to close down this blog. NOT
Let’s stop this nonsense right now and write some nice mails to the Rep’s website.
P.s Someone in the room whispered a remark in my ear which could soften the effect of such a Bill.
How can anyone determine if a person living in the US has got into “a state of emotional distress” because of an e-mail or a blog posting, if half the population is living on a diet of Valium and Rohypnol already?
There is now way to execute such a law without detoxing the population first.
Traquilizer anyone?
Mental distress! Mental distress!
I feel emotional distress caused by Sanchez. Who do I call to get her locked up?
As DaveE (11:35:34) & Katherine (12:45:51) point out, the key is “severe, repeated, and hostile behavior”.
A few years back I researched policy on harassment in relation to my (former) work (online education).
Some of the policy statements are quite lengthy, with much attention to detail. The details, no doubt, arise from experience with past cases.
I sensed no intent to hang innocent people; on the contrary, the policy wording seemed chosen with an acute awareness of the responsibility to guard against such possible abuses.
I’d want to see the proposed definitions of the terms “coerce”, “intimidate”, “harass”, and “substantial emotional distress” before rendering judgement. In policy, such terms can be much more narrowly defined than in everyday use.
Those incapable of cool restraint might be alarmed, but people conducting themselves sensibly probably have nothing reasonable to fear so long as some sensible people are keeping a close eye on the evolution of the wording.
I’m with Adoucette on this one; its a serious problem in New Zealand as well. There have been many instances of young people being text-hounded to the point of desperation by their class-mates, and others, and I believe at least one suicide has resulted. This is also a tactic used by the reptiles who cruise the web looking for vulnerable young people to prey upon.
It looks to me as though Ms. Sanchez is trying to address this issue and make it possible to deal with Drew and his like. The problem, of course, is whether or not a well-meaning proposal can be diverted and mis-used to further far more sinister ends. That would never happen in America, I thought, but then a name – McCarthy, is it? – seems to be in the back of my mind.
Light snow starting to fall in the hills around Dunedin, more forecast and massive dumps in the ski-fields inland. Well, it will be winter in three weeks, after all. Oddly enough, ten years ago we were worried that the ski-fields would rarely see decent snow; this weekend, still nearly a month from opening day, you can’t get up the access roads.
adoucette (12:04:59) :
Clearly the language of her bill as presented is way too broad and also a tad vague, but then the original language of bills often start out this way and then get modified as the flaws in the specificity (or lack there of) are pointed out.
I shouldn`t rely on it, here in the UK we have an anti terrorism act that is now used by some Local authorties to spy on residents that put their dust bins out to early.
You in the US have the clean air act, you know where that has led.
Well it looks like Steve McIntyre is going to be in trouble for causing repeated emotional distress to Mann, Wahl, etc.
Pielke, Jr., could be in trouble for constantly correcting MunichRe which I’m sure constitutes harassment, as could Pielke, Sr., for causing emotional distress to all who swear by globally averaged temperatures, and refuse to consider land use/land cover change as important as CO2 forcing, at least regionally and locally.
Then of course we have websites such as Gore Lied whose very existence I am sure may be construed to cause lots of emotional damage.
On the other hand, RealClimate could be sued for causing emotional distress to all skeptics and deniers, and Joe Romm would be in trouble for harassing anyone who is not a true believer in the program (such as Hansen). And let’s not forget ExxonSecrets, whose very existence is designed to harrass.
Ah, what a tangled web we weave … clearly Sir Walter Scott was ahead of his time!
When next Ms Sanchez runs for re-election, her opponent will be able to sue any newspaper who endorses her more than once.
By its very nature, a newspaper is a “communication” to “a person”.
Sam Adams would be filing suit right now against The Oregonian and Willamette Week if this law was on the books.
Let’s cause some substantial emotional distress among the AGW crowd:
1. http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/05/graph-says-it-all.html
2. http://www.seablogger.com/?p=14172
Stop the Socialists
politics by seablogger
I think the carbon tax, whether it takes the from of cap and trade, or a sweeping new regulatory mandate, is essentially dead. Two forces have defeated it: blue dogs and a dim sun. You don’t need me to explain further, eh?
3. AGW = DEAD
This is what they said about the Patriot Act.
Then we find out they were gathering info on everybody.
How will this be used? As a dissenting opinion vise, to squash out anyone who says anything contrary to our “Rulers” agenda.
You know there will be an exception for those in power. There always is.
Executive and Legislative priveledge and all that.
The Federalists would have been proud of this Sanchez law.
There are two newly concocted crimes which are promoted by NGOs:
–“Habeas data”:Which makes any (in this case any BLOG) “data” to be cosidered a proof.
–“Mediate authorship”: Which makes any authority automatically guilty of “crimes against humanity”, as for example, a president or prime minister will be accountable for the crimes commited say by a soldier when fighting against terrorists (“progressives”-of course-) who attacked his/her country, blaming the authority of being the “Mediate author” of the crime.
Libel and harrassment are already illegal under various state codes. And there already is Federal law against interstate harrassment, which was broadened to include the Internet:
The wrinkle in Sanchez’s bill is the impossible-to-define “substantial emotional distress to a person”, an open invitation to litigation if ever there were one, and a blatant threat to the First Amendment by restricting even political speech if the object of such speech could convince a judge or jury that it caused “substantial emotional distress.”
So if I were to repeatedly post on various blogs comments to the effect that this Rep. Sanchez is a vile woman who is nothing less than a domestic enemy of the Constitution, and she were to claim that these posts upset her, I could be sent to jail. This is not the beginning of a slippery slope toward tyranny; it is well down the slide toward the bottom.
/Mr Lynn
This bill in its present form would be found unconstitutional, as it violates the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment. Among other things, it is overbroad, and likely void for vagueness.
Specifically, it would be illegal under this bill to criticize a candidate for public office, or a holder of a public office, via the enumerated forms of communication.
This bill is a grandstanding stunt, and will not see the light of day. If it does make it into law, it will be quickly challenged in court and overturned.
Much ado about nothing.
Move to Canada and make some sort of statement in print or online, in a group setting, on the street or over the phone about any socio-ethnic group and win a free session with a HRC (Human Rights Commission) tribunal. Where you can actually be banned from expressing your views on the offending subject ever again in your lifetime.
This is what happens in a left of center country, if you want to see your future look North my American Friends.
Let us hope Roger is right. However, sentiment for ‘hate speech’ and ‘hate crime’ laws, which penalize distress to specific groups, is proliferating in supposedly democratic countries, not excluding the USA, and this kind of legislation, based on ’emotional distress’, could easily be extended to the InternetWasn’t Mark Steyn tried in Canada for supposedly offending Moslems in magazine columns?
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
/Mr Lynn