Cartoonist Targeted With Criminal Probe For Mocking Police
Posted: 4:46 pm PDT August 3, 2011
Updated: 1:08 pm PDT August 4, 2011
The Renton City Prosecutor wants to send a cartoonist to jail for mocking the police department in a series of animated Internet videos.
The "South-Park"-style animations parody everything from officers having sex on duty to certain personnel getting promoted without necessary qualifications. While the city wants to criminalize the cartoons, First Amendment rights advocates say the move is an "extreme abuse of power."
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We asked attorney Venkat Balasubramani to review several parody videos and the court documents. He's an expert in cyber-law and constitutional issues.
“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."
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.”
[snipped]
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Renton Police Respond To Parody Videos Investigation
Posted: 5:22 pm PDT August 4, 2011
Updated: 5:31 pm PDT August 4, 2011
RENTON, Washington -- On Wednesday, KIRO 7 Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne broke the story of a cartoonist who is apparently being targeted by the Renton City Prosecutor for producing a series of videos mocking the Renton Police Department.
The city is attempting to jail the cartoonist on charges of cyberstalking. First Amendment advocates have called the move an "extreme abuse of power."
The mystery cartoonist hasn't been revealed yet, but the Renton police and the local prosecutor got a judge to approve a request sent to Google -- the videos were posted to YouTube, which is owned by Google -- to discover the cartoonist's identity.
Renton police responded to the fallout from KIRO 7's investigation Thursday by holding a news conference and issuing a statement [snipped]
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FOLLOW-UPS:
Renton, Washington: Where Cartoons Are a Bigger Offense Than Gross Abuses of Police Power
Jacob Sullum | August 5, 2011
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The police did not claim that the first set of cartoons constituted a crime. But in their July 28 application for a search warrant demanding information about Mr. Fuddlesticks from Google, they say a second set, uploaded in April, amounts to "cyberstalking" because the cartoons include "embarrassing and emotionally tormenting comments about past sexual relationships or dating relationships" involving three city employees. That definition of cyberstalking is broad enough to encompass, say, criticism of Deputy Chief Troxel for using official police resources to spy on his girlfriend (who was also a city employee).
Washington state's definition of the crime is indeed broad, so broad that it is hard to reconcile with the First Amendment. The part on which the Renton investigation hinges makes it a gross misdemeanor to transmit "an electronic communication" with "intent to harass, intimidate, torment, or embarrass any other person" when the communication includes "any lewd, lascivious, indecent, or obscene words, images, or language, or suggesting the commission of any lewd or lascivious act." KIRO has added to its collection of Mr. Fuddlesticks cartoons since yesterday, so you can judge for yourself whether any of the six available here qualify as a crime under this definition. If they do, it's the law that needs to go, not the cartoons.
The cartoons do repeatedly refer to sexual relationships, but their main target is waste, incompetence, misconduct, and a culture that tolerates them. [snipped]
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Is It a Crime to Publish Parody Videos That Use “Lewd ... Language” Meant to “Embarrass and Emotionally Torment” Police Officers?
• August 4, 2011 5:55 pm
Yes, the Renton (Wash.) city prosecutor’s office concludes, applying the Washington “cyberstalking” statute — an excellent example of the dangers of the broad “cyberbullying” and “harassment” statutes that I have often condemned. KIRO-TV reports:
The Renton City Prosecutor wants to send a cartoonist to jail for mocking the police department in a series of animated Internet videos.
The “South-Park”-style animations parody everything from officers having sex on duty to certain personnel getting promoted without necessary qualifications.... [Last week, the prosecutor filed] a search warrant accusing an anonymous cartoon creator, going by the name of Mr. Fiddlesticks, of cyberstalking (RCW 9.61.260). The Renton Police Department and the local prosecutor got a judge to sign off as a way to uncover the name of whoever is behind the parodies....The series of web-based short cartoons feature a mustachioed street cop and a short-haired female bureaucrat. The dry, at times, witty banter between the two touches on some embarrassing insider secrets, some of which seem to match up with internal affairs investigations on file within Renton PD.Cartoon Character of Officer: “Is there any reason why an anonymous video, with no identifying information that ties it to the department or city is being taken more seriously than officers having sex on duty, arguing with outside agencies while in a drunken stupor off duty, sleeping while on duty, throwing someone off a bridge, and having inappropriate relationships with coworkers and committing adultery?”Cartoon Character of Bureaucrat: “The reason is that internal dirt is internal. The department will crucify certain people and take care of others.”A criminal court document, uncovered by Team 7 Investigators, not only shows how badly the city of Renton wants to “out” the cartoonist (who goes by the name MrFiddlesticks), but states some of the fake character’s lines discuss real life incidents....
Here’s the potentially relevant text from Rev. Code Wash. 9.61.260:
A person is guilty of cyberstalking if he or she, with intent to harass, intimidate, torment, or embarrass any other person, and under circumstances not constituting telephone harassment, makes an electronic communication [defined as transmission of information by wire, radio, optical cable, electromagnetic, or other similar means ... includ[ing] ... internet-based communications] to such other person or a third party: (a) Using any lewd, lascivious, indecent, or obscene words, images, or language, or suggesting the commission of any lewd or lascivious act ....
Under the prosecutor’s view, any statement — including on a blog, in a YouTube video, in a newspaper article, on television, or whatever else — is a crime if it is made “with intent to harass, ... torment, or embarrass” the subject of the person “[u]sing any lewd, lascivious, indecent, or obscene words, images, or language.” A comedian’s joke that “lewd[ly]” or “lascivious[ly]” described President Clinton’s behavior with Monica Lewinsky, or for that matter Congressman Weiner’s behavior, would be a crime if it was made “with intent to ... embarrass” the President or the Congressman. The Hustler parody attacking Jerry Falwell, which the Supreme Court held to be protected against civil liability under the “intentional infliction of emotional distress tort,” would be a crime. Indeed, in this very case, the theory is that the videos are criminal because they described alleged police sexual misconduct using “lewd” or “indecent” words with the intent to torment or embarrass particular officers. (The theory expressed in the document — a search warrant application — is that the videos sufficiently identify the particular police officers who were involved in the incidents to which the video alludes.)
If the prosecutor is right that the statute should be interpreted this broadly, then it’s clearly unconstitutionally overbroad. Speech to the public doesn’t lose its constitutional protection because it’s intended to torment or embarrass. (It may lose such protection when it’s intended to be perceived as a true threat of criminal attack, but that’s not the issue here.) Nor does lose its constitutional protection because it uses “lewd” or “indecent” terms. And while one-to-one speech said to an unwilling listener may in some circumstances be restricted — which is the reason traditional telephone harassment laws, if properly crafted, may be constitutional — this rationale can’t be used to suppress speech said to the public, even if the people discussed in the speech are tormented or embarrassed by it.
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 is James Cayce.) 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.
Thanks to Cory Andrews for the pointer. UPDATE: I originally said I didn’t know which judge signed this warrant, but that was a mistake on my part — Judge Cayce’s signature is right there on the last page.
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