SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah lawmakers hope a new, unusual law cuts down on increasingly troubling forms of cyber harassment by giving authorities the ability to send online bullies to jail for a year.
Law enforcement, school officials and support groups back the effort, but some lawyers and a libertarian-leaning group have balked at what they call vague language in the law. They believe it could be unconstitutional and lead innocent people to be charged with crimes.
The regulation won unanimous approval in the Legislature and makes it a crime to post information online that can identify someone, including their name, photo and place of employment, to “intimidate, abuse, threaten, harass, frighten, or disrupt the electronic communications of another.”
Similar laws in New York and North Carolina have been ruled unconstitutional in recent years, said UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, who called Utah’s measure a violation of the First Amendment.
He helped launch a lawsuit last week challenging a similar law in Ohio.
“There are some situations where you might say this is punishable, especially if it’s a threat,” Volokh said. “But again, it deliberately applies to speech that doesn’t fit within any First Amendment exception.” more here
“hope a new, unusual law cuts down on increasingly troubling forms of cyber harassment”
will this stop 3 people from cyber attacking Hannity’s advertisers, causing him to lose sponsors ?
I thought not.
first define “cyber harassment” assholes.
one mans harassment might be another mans social justice, right ?
A lot of this can be avoided if parents don’t give their kids smart phones, allow them to play on social media all the time unsupervised. Though it’s OK for PLU (people like us). heh!
How about a law that people must be trained to ignore online bullies, who if they’re bullying online clearly have no ability to physically harm the other?
Oh, right, that’s the job of parents.
So much for the first amendment and teaching kids how to respect it.
Benji is feeling Blue.
Sign his Get Well Wishes and Message Too
http://picpaste.com/Get_Well_Benji.jpg
It’s a bad law overall. If you have a case of so-called cyber bullying and can prove it then rather then sentence someone to a year prohibit them from owning or using electronic communications devices other then landline phones for a year. Make them sign warrentless, random search permissions and have the parole officer check from time to time. If caught then do time.
Also the definition of what constitutes illegal cyber bullying has to be nailed down.
I understand the motives, but it is impossible to outlaw all bad behavior. And the whole concept of “bullying” is pretty vague and subjective.
Yes, I know there have been teen suicides and those are always tragic. However, I do not think a law like this will help.
If Florida had such a law I’d use it. The periodic “outreach” emails I get from the people in Tallahassee who claim to “represent” me are full of threats in the form of their legislative efforts to extort more money from me or to further restrict my liberty, usually both at the same time.
And yet, Cankles is still free as a bird.
…a smelly, mangy, flightless bird.