Parody Cartoon Triggers Cyberstalking Charges

The following cartoon is one of a series, now available on YouTube, which parodies police corruption issues. While the video never mentions any one or any department specifically, some of the content is said to be reflective of internal affairs issues at the Renton, Washington police department. So much so that the local prosecutor has filed cyberstalking charges against the anonymous creator of the video, and is now armed with a court order to learn the person's identity.

Here is a link to a news story about the case...

http://www.kirotv.com/news/28758502/detail.html?cxntlid=cmg_cntnt_rss

...the document filed by the prosecutor's office...

http://www.mediafire.com/?8xp1bm4dwua6mmx

...and finally one episode of 8 so far that have appeared on YouTube...




While some may find the issue humorous to some degree, the seriousness of the matter should not be overlooked. Whenever we pass new laws, this is the result, more often than not. That prosecutor's will used these laws in ways that they were never intended, in order to criminalize you for being free and expressing your God-given Constitutionally protected rights.

Without mention of a specific person, without a valid case defamation or libel, I really don't see how the prosecutor got a judge to sign off on this in the first place. There is no proof that there is a "victim" here at all. Even if the video had mentioned someone by name, if what they are saying is actually the truth, then it could hardly be considered libelous, much less cyberstalking. It would be, in fact, an expression of one's disdain for known corruption.

Is merely talking about corruption now illegal in America? It appears so. Thanks to vaguely worded cyber-stalking laws implemented to appease knee-jerk reactionaries over cyber-bullying and the few tragic cases that make headlines. Meanwhile, we have equally vague interpretations and applications of such laws by prosecutors to the point where these laws can actually be twisted to PROTECT criminals, particularly within te system, rather than prosecute them, and to prosecute people for simply exercising what was once known as freedom.

Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual, a group of individuals, or an organization. It may include false accusations, monitoring, making threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, the solicitation of minors for sex, or gathering information in order to harass. The definition of "harassment" must meet the criterion that a reasonable person, in possession of the same information, would regard it as sufficient to cause another reasonable person distress.[1] Cyberstalking is different from spatial or offline stalking, however it sometimes leads to it, or is accompanied by it.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberstalking

Reasonable? Who is to decide what a reasonable person might think, or who a reasonable person might be? I don't think that's it's reasonable at all in the first place to charge someone with a crime simply for "monitoring" a page that is publicly displayed on the internet. Yet according to that description above, the laws could actually be twisted to the point that you could be held criminally liable for going to a web-page more than once. If I click on my local police department's web page twice in one week, could that be considered stalking? Some "reasonable" person like the prosecutor in this story would probably say "yes."

And be sure to check out this entry, on hometown ocrruption in America...

Hometown Martial Law: Wakeup and Smell the Fascism