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Police, City Use Ridiculous 'Cyberstalking' Claim To Try To Identify & Jail Creator Of Mocking Videos
from the police-state? dept
An anonymous reader points us to the absolutely crazy goings on in Renton, Washington, where the police and city prosecutor are seeking jailtime for an anonymous person (or people) who created some Xtranormal videos mocking the Renton police force. Most of the news reports on this story keep calling whoever did this a "cartoonist," but all they really did was use Xtranormal -- a popular tool that wev'e used ourselves -- to create simple animated videos by typing in a script. You can see one of the videos embedded below (assuming it stays up):
Given standard Xtranormal fare, this may be the most boring such video I've seen. But, clearly, it's been created by someone who is an insider, probably on the police force, who is venting about certain administrative decisions and administrators. The police and the city prosecutor then cooked up a search warrant (embedded below) to try to identify the person behind the videos, who variously goes by the name MrFuddlesticks, whothehellispenny or tellinthetruth. That search warrant was obtained by a local news channel, KIROTV, who originally broke this story. It spells out various evidence as to why the videos are clearly about people and incidents involving the Renton police force.
And then, it tries to claim that the whole thing is "cyberstalking." Why? Because apparently some of the people the video is mocking say they're embarrassed about the videos. That seems to be the extent of the cyberstalking. As you read the filing, though, the details of the warrant appear to suggest that many of the references in the videos refer to actual events.
It's extremely difficult to see how anything here raises to the level of cyberstalking. KIROTV asked lawyer Venkat Balasubramani (whose blog posts we regularly link to here) his opinion on the search warrrant, and he noted that:
This seems like a pretty broad overreach. The prosecutor appears to be taking a exceptionally broad interpretation of the cyberstalking law, saying that anything done "with intent to harass... torment, or embarass" is criminal. As Eugene Volokh has pointed out, if the law really allows for such an interpretation, then the law is "clearly unconstitutionally overbroad." Furthermore he notes:
And then, it tries to claim that the whole thing is "cyberstalking." Why? Because apparently some of the people the video is mocking say they're embarrassed about the videos. That seems to be the extent of the cyberstalking. As you read the filing, though, the details of the warrant appear to suggest that many of the references in the videos refer to actual events.
It's extremely difficult to see how anything here raises to the level of cyberstalking. KIROTV asked lawyer Venkat Balasubramani (whose blog posts we regularly link to here) his opinion on the search warrrant, and he noted that:
“The cyberstalking angle doesn't pass the laugh test," Balasubramani told KIRO-TV. "It's a serious stretch and I'd be surprised if somebody looked at it and realistically thought these acts actually fit the statute and we could make somebody criminally liable."In fact, from the warrant, it looks like Google just handed over the info upon receipt of the subpoena, without questioning it at all. The city was then trying to get more info from Google about the gmail address that "mrfuddlesticks" was using, in an effort to identify the person.
When we asked about the more likely scenario, Balasubramani said, "I think they were trying to get at the speaker and they looked around for a statute that shoehorned their conduct into and sent that to Google and said ‘turn over the information.”
Historically, Google and You-Tube are far more likely to cough up an anonymous animator's real name when there's a criminal case, as opposed to just an internal affairs investigation into some personnel issues.
This seems like a pretty broad overreach. The prosecutor appears to be taking a exceptionally broad interpretation of the cyberstalking law, saying that anything done "with intent to harass... torment, or embarass" is criminal. As Eugene Volokh has pointed out, if the law really allows for such an interpretation, then the law is "clearly unconstitutionally overbroad." Furthermore he notes:
Moreover, the statute would be clearly unconstitutional as applied to this video, and the prosecutor and the judge ought to know this. (The prosecutor is Renton Chief Prosecutor Shawn Arthur; the judge on an earlier warrant was James Cayce, but I don’t know what the affidavit said there, and I don’t know the name of the judge who apparently issued the warrant based on the affidavit included with the KIRO story.) A search warrant can only be issued if there is probable cause to believe that it will uncover evidence of a crime; since the material described in the affidavit can’t be made criminal under the cited statute, given the First Amendment, the warrant ought not have been issued. The government is not permitted to use its coercive power to identify the author of this constitutionally protected video.This whole thing raises tremendous abuse of power and First Amendment questions. It seems that their entire intent is to try to identify someone who is mocking them publicly by abusing certain laws and procedures to reveal that anonymous parodist.
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I hope he covered his tracks
As far as I can tell, the only place he might have been vulnerable is with Xtranormal since he used more than the free level of service, they might have payment information. Even that can be obscured, though. Good luck, dude!
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Boring!
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Accountabililty
I don't want my prosector to develop groundbreaking ways to find and prosecute people the police department doesn't like. I want him to be prosecuting actual crimes.
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Great Job, Sport!
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Re: Accountabililty
Speaking out against the government is a crime. Everywhere. Always has been.
They call it “sedition”.
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http://memedepot.com/uploads/0/207_not_sure_if_serious.jpg
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Embed added
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What contempt?
Be reasonable: People are peaceful, happy, quiet. No-one is rioting.
You see? It's just a few seditious fools out there, and the state will take care of them quickly and efficiently. No muss.
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Does it matter if the person actually DID commit those acts, or were officially investigated for them? Because it looks like that's the case, from the warrant.
"'Just thinking about getting bent over a Harley wearing chaps by a butt pirate gives me the heebie-jeebies' The reference in this video dicusses a past incident involving Traffic Sergeant Matthews."
Horrible mental images aside... if this is the truth, and already a matter of public record, then what exactly is the problem?
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More judicial stupidity
They didn't pay attention to this in the ICE seizures, either. Apparently "guilty until proven innocent" is how many judges operate nowadays.
Hopefully their higher-ups in the circuit courts will smack them down. A man can dream, can't he?
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And I hope the guy who made them can sue the fuck out of these bastard Cops who give good Police a bad name.
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well
Holy shit 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999% of the interwebs needs to be shut down NOW (for the children etc)........
I say we find the creator of keyboard cat and publicly behead them in a middle school gym for daring to embarass cats & their owners.....
Then we can start on all those that ever took the piss out of Michael Jackson (This will also double as population control since we can set up mass extermination camps..all we need to do is show people something deemed "humorous yet embarassing" and if they crack a smile we shoot em in the back of the head MAFIAA (not a typo) style....
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Re: I hope he covered his tracks
Subpoenas can be challenged by making a motion to quash, search warrants cannot. That is why a search warrant requires a magistrate to validate the existence of probable cause.
What's especially disgusting about this is that the remedy for an unconstitutional search is exclusion from evidence in the criminal proceeding. Since it is clear that here they are using the criminal justice system on a pretensual basis in order to obtain information. Its absolutely revolting that the prosecutor would take part in this.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/us/07nurses.html?pagewanted=all
Very similar - prosecutor colluding with law enforcement. Bullied citizens, crushed peoples lives, did not respect his office nor understand his authority or responsibility to the community. Now he is being prosecuted.
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There, subpoena me, arrest me. My opinion may incite riot.
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If only!
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Nice Job
I saw this on local news this morning and I'm sure it will go federal. It's good timing - the public is generally upset at dysfunctional government and the media is tuned in to this issue at he moment with the budget mishandling.
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Re: well
Techdirt certainly does. The Maz embarrasses himself on a daily basis here and should probably sue himself for it.
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Not the ones being made fun of.
The individuals under attack don't take risks. They are leeches who achieved their current soft positions by riding on the backs of the real cops and sucking the life out of their hosts when they had served their purpose.
These are the individuals who cause the men and women in blue to have so much trouble with their image. I still remember back when I was young and the police were heroes who put their lives on the line to protect the innocent. Well, maybe not heroes but they were respected. Today the leeches have sucked all that respectability out of the force by dragging the whole system through the muck with them as they pursue their personal interests.
The same corruption has happened in all walks of society, but the police had the farthest to fall and the most to be embarrassed about.
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Re: If only!
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Couldn't the person-in-question sue the government for violating his Constitutional rights in civil court?
Losing in civil court would probably be enough to embarrass someone out of a job I would hope.
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Re: Re: well
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Kiro7 News: Renton Police Shopped Prosecutors To Make Case
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crooked police.
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ANOMOUS
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CROOKED COPS
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That police officer is out there risking his or her life day after day, and here you are criticizing them.
How dare you, sir? HOW DARE YOU?!
You should be locked away for your disrespect to a uniformed officer of the law
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Re: Re: I hope he covered his tracks
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With luck the Streisand Effect will kick into high gear in this town and the people might have to question what really is happening there.
They were embarrassed, and it seems they have alot to be embarrassed about and they keep adding to the pile.
The truly sad thing is, no matter how many of these types of cases that get reported, there is always someone with power who thinks they will never make the same mistake and do the same things.
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Re: I hope he covered his tracks
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...it's too bad that they're the ones who get killed or fired.
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Typical...
And of course the video will generate a lot of criticism of the police, which they seem to deserve.
It's a mark of corrupt cops that they cannot tolerate anyone photographing or videotaping them or mocking them. Maybe the cops there should just change their name to Renton Gestapo.
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Someone else, who was actually anon, submitted it first.
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Re: ANOMOUS
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Re: CROOKED COPS
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Re: Typical...
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