And those who wish to subvert it in the name of “tolerance”:
Sec. 881. Cyberbullying
`(a) 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.
`(b) As used in this section–
`(1) the term `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; and
`(2) the term `electronic means’ means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.’.
Okay then. Allow me to add on here:
(3) the terms ‘coerce,’ ‘intimidate,’ ‘harass,’ and ‘substantial’ shall not be clarified. That, taken along with ’emotional distress,’ leaves the notions of intimidation, harassment, and what constitutes substantial emotional distress in the eye of the beholder. Or, put another way, such vague definitions will allow the receiver of ‘cyber bullying’ to decide if and how much s/he has been ‘bullied.’ Which in turn will allow interpreters to hold even more power over the speech of others than they already do.
Can the court tell someone that his or her claim to ‘substantial emotional distress’ isn’t, in fact, ‘substantial’? Are we to believe that a court will rule that there is a single threshold for ‘substantial’ — and risk potentially minimizing the distress of those with thinner skins?
Do you think there is a chance that such legislation, should it pass, will be used to chill critical speech — in much the same way terms like racism and hate speech have, to the risk averse, come to mean those attitudes that make someone else uncomfortable enough to claim to have been on the receiving end of said speech? (see, eg., Britains new definition of “racism,” which happens to track with Ms Obama’s definition).
(4) the terms ‘severe’, ‘repeated,’ and ‘hostile,’ too, are open to interpretation and therefore, given that we live in an interpretive ethos wherein an ‘interpretive community’ decides on meaning (and so almost necessarily can reshape what was the speaker’s intent), are entirely subjective. And given that being charged itself is the kind of legal inconvenience and financial burden most people cannot afford to chance on more than one occasion (if at all), speech will almost necessarily be chilled.
What we have, then, is federally-mandated ‘civility.’ Which flies in the face of the intent of the First Amendment, which was meant to protect unpopular speech from the whims of a majoritarian attempt to stifle it.
Shame on Ms Chavez for getting into a statist bed with the progressives who would almost certainly use such legislation to attack dissenting opinions and chill speech through promise of legal harassment.
I’ve noted before that my problem with some of the social conservative agenda is that it tends to be statist in spirit, if not necessarily in practice.
Here we see an intersection of that agenda with the totalitarian aims of the progressive movement.
I urge people to contact Ms Chavez and ask her to pull her head out of her ass for a second and look around at the legal landscape she’d be helping to create.
Or, in other words, bully the shit out of her until she comes to her senses.
(h/t J Howard)
No comments yet.
See. Already.
Derek
The 13-year-old Meier’s suicide is clearly a tragedy.
Me I always always always manage to find a way not to write sentences what are that insipid. It’s something I really work at I don’t even get paid I just do it for love.
This legislation is related to Megan Meier’s suicide, intended as remedy for the likes of future Lori Drews. It’s Idiotic, of course, overreaching in the extreme, and cannot pass constitutional muster. I don’t know how it did not occur to the authors of it that a limited statute, prohibiting intentional use of a fictional “underage” persona to deceive actual minor children, without consent of parents, would suffice, if any new law was needed at all.
I blame Orrin Kerr, really. The law under which Drew was charged was perfectly appropriate under the strict language of the law and its legislative history and previous applications, and his misstating the law and consequences of its prosecution, helped egg on sponsorship of this disgustingly monstrosity of protection against hurt feelings.
Jeff,
Not to worry! The Supremes would never let such a blatantly unconstitutional statute pass muster. Seriously look at the way they stood up for that dear old document in Kelo, CFR, etc. What? Oh, never mind then…
Guess I will go send a stern finger wagging at Rep Chavez. Or some random swear words. Whichever.
I know that, Sarah. But have we gone back to originalism as a judicial given while I was asleep?
Because if not, I very much doubt such a law will be so constrained for more than a half a generation.
I urge people to contact Ms Chavez and ask her to pull her head out of her ass for a second and look around at the legal landscape she’d be helping to create.
What makes you think she doesn’t know? How do you know it’s not a bug but a feature?
Some of the Bill’s co-sponsors “Mr. DAVIS of Illinois, Mr. COURTNEY, and Mr. KIRK”
Davis is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Progressive Caucus, and Democratic Socialists of America. Kirk is a poster-child RINO.
Not so yea for the Land of Lincoln.
Hey Jeff G, read the rest of my comment. It’s the worst law ever.
I did, Sarah. Just making it clear that I know, too.
I don’t. But I do think Chavez is open to being convinced. At least, from my readings of her in the past.
“Me I always always always manage to find a way not to write sentences what are that insipid.”
Or at least, get paid by the pound of insipidness. Actually, insipid doesn’t quite do that sentence justice. It’s a sentence of the water is clearly wet kind of unnecessariness.
Hey! Where’s my hat tip? ;P
This is the problem with this type of feel-good legislation. It’s based on one single extreme example (I can’t think of any other kids who’ve committed suicide because of nasty web postings. You?) of bad behavior, and purports to “cure” the “problem” by taking away rights from EVERYBODY.
Stupid.
FTFY.
Gack. Everything about this case and its aftermath sucks. Poor kid kills herself, website terms of service get the status of federal law, and now a “cyberbullying” law.
Down the rabbit hole we go.
the chuck berry law
transferring minors so they can vote
out of state
“website TOS get status of federal law” is a gross distortion.
Calling the Myspace service a “protected computer” is a gross distortion.
But I guess if you get a pliable enough jury it doesn’t matter. Depending on how the judge rules on the defense’s request for direct acquittal, we may get to see what the 9th Circuit does with it on appeal.
What’s your point? That there’s a hard and fast objective threshold for “severe”?
What is it?
Does “repeated” mean two? Or is a greater pattern necessary?
The usual pattern with laws that come under these objections is… Law is proposed. The “right” says there is a problem, a slippery slope toward more restrictions. The “left” poo-poos that as paranoid, never happen, there are already rules similar etc. Law is passed. Court approves it. A number of years later it is expanded just as it’s opponents said it would be. Cassandras we are, sadly so.
Rinse, repeat my entire life. The bastards.
Usually by those who proposed it, and who insisted during debate that the right’s fears were unfounded.
“Calling the Myspace service a “protected computer†is a gross distortion.”
‘protected computer’ is a term of art in the statute and just refers to the computers the law covers.
“That there’s a hard and fast objective threshold for “severeâ€?”
Nope, but that courts have been dealing with terms like ‘severe,’ ‘substantial,’ and even ‘reasonable’ for years. Our founders even included words like that in the constitution.
“Does “repeated†mean two? Or is a greater pattern necessary?”
If I were a prosecutor, I would say something is repeated once it repeats — ie. happens more than once. The defense counsel would try to make it more than that, but I don’t think they’d win. In the stalking context i think more than once is enough.
Then why is the law written exclusive to cyberspace?
“I’m sure throughout the ages there have been kids who were driven to suicide by the taunts and words of bullies.”
And we want to keep them in the gene pool why?
So you can get a date.
You’re just after my lunch money.
“Then why is the law written exclusive to cyberspace?”
I can think of a few reasons. First is the fact that this is an ill thought reaction to the megan meier thing — so ‘cyberbullying’ needs to be curbed. Second, there was a supreme court case limiting the federal power to act in interpersonal relationships like this — but once you are in cyberspace, you likely are in federal jurisdiction because you are using servers in interstate commerce. Third is perhaps this is just a wish to provide a federal floor or cover for those areas that have not yet taken their laws that would cover harassment to cyberspace.
I said a measured legal response is appropriate even outside cyberspace. But that doens’t mean that this what these legislators are trying to do.
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