← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · hqz
Thread ID: 8070 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-07-12
2003-07-12 16:05 | User Profile
A Web Site Causes Unease in Police [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/12/national/12NET.html]http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/12/national/12NET.html[/url]
Last year, in response to a complaint by the Kirkland police about Mr. Sheehan's site, the Washington Legislature enacted a law prohibiting the dissemination of the home addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and Social Security numbers of law enforcement, corrections and court personnel if it was meant "to harm or intimidate."
. . .
The ruling, by John C. Coughenour, chief judge of the Federal District Court in Seattle, said Mr. Sheehan's site was "analytically indistinguishable from a newspaper."
"There is cause for concern," Judge Coughenour wrote, "when the Legislature enacts a statute proscribing a type of political speech in a concerted effort to silence particular speakers."
The state government, he continued, "boldly asserts the broad right to outlaw any speech ââ¬â whether it be anti-Semitic, anti-choice, radical religious, or critical of police ââ¬â so long as a jury of one's peers concludes that the speaker subjectively intends to intimidate others with that speech."
Bruce E. H. Johnson, a Seattle lawyer specializing in First Amendment issues, said Judge Coughenour was correct in striking down the statute because it treated identical publicly available information differently depending on the authorities' perception of the intent of the person who disseminated it.
"It forces local prosecutors to become thought police," Mr. Johnson said.
. . .
But Bill Finkbeiner, a state senator who was the main sponsor of the law that was struck down, said the judge's opinion left little room for a legislative repair. He said he was frustrated.
"This isn't just bad for police officers and corrections employees," Mr. Finkbeiner said. "It really doesn't bode well for anybody. Access to personal information changes when that information is put in electronic form."
2003-07-13 21:27 | User Profile
JusticeFiles.org [url=http://justicefiles.org/]http://justicefiles.org/[/url]
Policing the Police [url=http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Embassy/9534/sheehanappealverdict.html]http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Embas...ealverdict.html[/url]
COPWATCH.com [url=http://www.copwatch.com/]http://www.copwatch.com/[/url]