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Police in Peoria, IL raided the home of a 27 year-old resident who set up a parody Twitter account for the Peoria mayor. The raid did not result in any arrests, but computers and phones were seized and the residents questioned. The police are investigating the account for breaking a law forbidding "impersonating a public official". If the case moves forward, the alleged owner of the account, Michelle Pratt, could face a $2,500 fine and up to a year in jail.
Even if it is eventually dropped, this could have a chilling effect on satirical political speech and seems like a massive overstep by a local police force to save face for an elected official.
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Fake Mayor Twitter Account Leads to Police Raid
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery:
Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a
simple yes or no answer.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 17 2014, @10:35PM
They asked Twitter. Of course, Twitter would have resisted if they had said it was for punishing impersonation of public figures, so they claimed the guy did some unspecified copyright infringement. IP and complete connection history was theirs in a matter of seconds.
I know because an AI agent that shares many hosts with me works at Twitter.
Account abandoned.