Re: Ex-GOP senator's wife pleads to email attack campaign
Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> wrote:
* Gunhus is accused of using a Hotmail account (Katie Stevens -- kylomb@hotmail.com) to send the disparaging email messages, which talked about how Ciresi had represented corporate polluters and anti-union companies.
Is what she wrote being alleged to be untrue? From my perspective disparaging politicians is like shooting fish in a barrel. Usually all that is needed is to truthfully compare their campaign speeches to their actual voting or other practices. At 9:48 PM -0400 6/14/01, Declan McCullagh wrote:
* And what about the legal risk to free speech? The Minnesota Civil Liberties Union reasonably argues that a criminal law that bans sending pseudonymous messages is unconstitutional. A Supreme Court decision, McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (http://www.epic.org/free_speech/mcintyre.html), says that a prohibition on the distribution of anonymous campaign literature violates the First Amendment. The state law seems to be ecumenical in its application: A Republican has used it to attack the Sierra Club (http://www.fcregister.com/ziegler11_6_00.htm).
I'm being represented by attorney Robbin Stewart (Brother of Cypherpunk Bill Stewart) in an anonymous speech case as we speak. Robin has had several victories in Indianapolis for anon political speech. His first victory was inspired from Freematt's Alerts, Robbin had read some commentary from my list on McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission that prompted him to challenge a city ordinance that ordered him to remove a campaign sign from his residence (The sign didn't have who paid or wrote it written on it.) The ordinance was overturned in the Indiana Supreme Court. Regards, Matt- ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt@coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************
Matt: That's a good point, and I should have highlighted it in my article. No, she's not alleged to have said anything that was untrue. If she did, Ciersi could have sued for libel rather than relying on the state to prosecute. -Declan At 01:11 PM 6/15/01 -0400, Matthew Gaylor wrote:
Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> wrote:
* Gunhus is accused of using a Hotmail account (Katie Stevens -- kylomb@hotmail.com) to send the disparaging email messages, which talked about how Ciresi had represented corporate polluters and anti-union companies.
Is what she wrote being alleged to be untrue? From my perspective disparaging politicians is like shooting fish in a barrel. Usually all that is needed is to truthfully compare their campaign speeches to their actual voting or other practices.
At 9:48 PM -0400 6/14/01, Declan McCullagh wrote:
* And what about the legal risk to free speech? The Minnesota Civil Liberties Union reasonably argues that a criminal law that bans sending pseudonymous messages is unconstitutional. A Supreme Court decision, McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (http://www.epic.org/free_speech/mcintyre.html), says that a prohibition on the distribution of anonymous campaign literature violates the First Amendment. The state law seems to be ecumenical in its application: A Republican has used it to attack the Sierra Club (http://www.fcregister.com/ziegler11_6_00.htm).
I'm being represented by attorney Robbin Stewart (Brother of Cypherpunk Bill Stewart) in an anonymous speech case as we speak. Robin has had several victories in Indianapolis for anon political speech. His first victory was inspired from Freematt's Alerts, Robbin had read some commentary from my list on McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission that prompted him to challenge a city ordinance that ordered him to remove a campaign sign from his residence (The sign didn't have who paid or wrote it written on it.) The ordinance was overturned in the Indiana Supreme Court.
Regards, Matt-
************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt@coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************
participants (2)
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Declan McCullagh -
Matthew Gaylor