Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-California) is the latest moron to cry “what about the children?” while trying to score cheap political points while wiping her ass with the First Amendment. Sanchez took a swipe at free speech by proposing the “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act.” Yes, another law named after a dead kid. That almost never ends well for free speech (or any other kind of freedom for that matter).
Here is part of what her bill would criminalize.
(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 e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones and text messages.
In other words, this entire blog would probably be illegal. I will state with no equivocation that I regularly try and cause substantial emotional distress when I write about dumbasses who try and mess with my First Amendment. I want them to curl up in their bedrooms at night, sobbing and weeping from feeling guilty for their sins against the Constitution. I want them to feel so much distress that they repent and atone for their crimes. No luck yet, but at least I manage to educate my readers about these flunkies and asshats.
According to Wired, her bill got a chilly reception in committee from both Republicans and Democrats. However, in an exclusive interview, Mr. Bartow Dworkin, the president of the International Association of Imbeciles, and a full time law professor, supported the bill.
We believe that when people are mean to other people on teh internets, this is sexist and racist and ummm, WHAT ABOUT TEH CHILDREN? It is bad enough that we are confused about what might have happened to our favorite race-baiting website, but don’t our leaders understand the gravity of this situation? A child died! It must NEVER happen again. Nobody must ever die again, or else people will die.
Dworkin then ran off to his subcommittee meeting of the ABA’s “future of the legal profession” meeting without further comment, but he did tell us that we needed to read the law review article “Cyber Civil Rights.” “Here, take this,” he said. However, the pages were all stuck together, so we weren’t able to read the article. We did line a bird cage with the pages, but the bird chose to die from jaundice rather than suffer the indignity of having to shit in the presence of such stupidity.
I would give a full discussion of what a piece of garbage Sanchez’ bill is, but Eugene Volokh already pwned it in his Huffington Post article.
