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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday August 09 2020, @02:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the chilling-effect dept.

New Jersey prosecutors drop charges over tweeting a cop's photo [Updated]:

Update (~4pm ET): Mid-afternoon on Friday, August 7, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office dropped its cyber harassment charges against all five defendants, the Asbury Park Press reports. These charges stemmed from an incident involving a Tweet attempting to identify a New Jersey police officer. Our original story on the situation appears unchanged below.

A New Jersey man is facing felony charges for a tweet seeking to identify a police officer. Four others are facing felony charges for retweeting the tweet, the Washington Post reports.

[...] The complaint against Sziszak claims that the tweet caused the officer to "fear that harm will come to himself, family, and property."

"As a 20 year old that simply retweeted a tweet to help my friend, I am now at risk of giving up my career, serving time, and having a record," Sziszak wrote.


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 10 2020, @05:48PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday August 10 2020, @05:48PM (#1034419)

    Odds are approximately 100% that you're a criminal, albeit one who has either paid your debts to society or wasn't caught or wasn't punished to the full extent of the law. I mean, have you ever:
    - Parked in a metered spot without feeding the meter? Or parked in a spot that said "2 hour parking" for more than 2 hours?
    - Driven faster than the speed limit?
    - Crossed a street anywhere other than the corner?
    - Had a drink before you turned 21 years old?
    - Been around someone who was smoking pot, or smoked it yourself?
    - Been a bit behind on paying your taxes?
    - As a kid, swiped some candy from a store?
    - Gotten into a computer system you weren't supposed to have access to?
    - Gotten into a building or room you weren't supposed to have access to?
    - Worked for a business that (possibly unbeknownst to you) had connections to organized crime?
    - Brought back a souvenir from a foreign country without checking all the import restrictions and duties and such?

    I can keep going. The point is, there's almost definitely a law that could bust you, and if you're thinking "Well, these are just petty offenses, they aren't the sort of thing anyone would get killed over", then you need to remember that Sandra Bland was arrested and probably killed for failing to use her turn signal properly, and Michael Brown was killed over what would have amounted to a jaywalking charge.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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