Representative Linda Sanchez (D.-Los Angeles) wants to outlaw "cyberbullying."
Only someone from Los Angeles would introduce a bubbleheaded measure that puts a jail sentence on the infliction of "emotional distress."
Oops, did I type that? Under Sanchez's proposed law, if my commentary hurt her feelings -- or those of any other touchy Angeleno , for that matter -- I could be thrown in jail for two years.
Before coming to NBC, I ran Valleywag, a Silicon Valley tech gossip rag. My painfully accurate reporting there discomfited countless bigwigs of tech, including Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, who told the Financial Times that I was the "single most tediously mean-spirited person" he'd ever met. (He objected to my noting that he'd run his cash-starved company down to $9 million in cash last October, a fact he never disputed but wished I hadn't published.)
Facebook investor Peter Thiel, who's had better luck as a backer of dotcoms than as a hedge-fund manager, was similarly discomfited by my reportage, declaring me "the Silicon Valley equivalent of al-Qaeda."
The thin-skinned titans of tech, in short, would love Sanchez's proposed law.
As would politicians themselves, LatinoPoliticsBlog.com notes, calling the bill an "assault" on free speech.
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Sanchez and her advocates will likely argue that she has good intentions. The cyberbullying bill is named after Megan Meier, a St. Louis teenager who committed suicide after reading comments posted by Lori Drew, a neighborhood mom posing as a boy named "Josh."
Drew was acquitted in July on charges of wire fraud and other misdeeds, in a decision that drew praise from civil-liberties advocates. The judge in the case threw out a jury's guilty verdicts, and legal analysts have pointed out that the right way to pursue bullies like Drew is through civil charges, not criminal prosecution.
The alternative is a nightmarish world where citizens get prosecuted for speech.
Think that's laughable? Ask people who live in Missouri, where seven people have been charged with violating a cyberbullying law passed in 2008 -- including one person who emailed city hall to protest a real-estate development.