abortion, several of his colleagues at The Village Voice stopped
speaking to him. Hentoff has sardonically described himself as "a
member of the Proud and Ancient Order of Stiff-Necked Jewish Atheists"
On Jul 1, 9:12 am, Travis <baconl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Originally Published: 6/17/2010 12:30:00 PM
> Nat Hentoff: Philadelphia man indicted for using right to free speech
> ------------------------------
>
> This is a story that should be a warning to Americans, regardless of
> political party, because it dramatically illustrates what pre-eminent civil
> liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate documents in his book, "Three Felonies
> A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent" by means of the ever-increasing
> broad and vague federal laws that allow prosecutors to pin arguable federal
> crimes on any one of us, even for the most seemingly innocuous behavior.
>
> Consider what happened to an unemployed American, Bruce Shore, because of
> e-mails he sent to the Web site of U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky. As reported
> by Arthur Delaney on *huffingtonpost.com* <http://huffingtonpost.com/>,
> Shore, watching the Senate in inaction on C-Span, was angered when Bunning
> complained that, gosh, he has missed the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball
> game because he had to be in Congress to debate an unemployment benefits
> bill.
>
> "I was livid, I was just livid," recalled the 51-year-old Shore. "I'm on
> unemployment, so it affects me."
>
> Here is part of his Feb. 26 messages to Bunning staffers: "Are you'all
> insane. No checks equal no food for me. Do you get it?"
>
> The next month, FBI agents came calling to Shore's home in Philadelphia.
> They read him excerpts from his citizen's complaints and asked whether he
> was the author, which Shore readily admitted. Apparently these agents had
> heard something about the First Amendment, and told this indignant American,
> "All right, we just wanted to make sure it wasn't anything to worry about."
>
> But the ever-vigilant Obama administration was not satisfied. On May 13 U.S.
> Marshals appeared at Shore's door and handed him a grand jury indictment.
> James Madison, the father of the First Amendment, had insisted that the
> great right of freedom of speech must be placed beyond the reach of any
> branch of government. This is the indictment that forced Shore into federal
> court. The language is that of Communications Act of 1934 as amended and
> updated to include electronic messages in the Telecommunications Act of
> 1996: "(Shore) did utilize a telecommunications device, that is a computer,
> whether or not communication ensued, without disclosing his identity and
> with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten and harass any person who received
> the communication."
>
> Even if Shore had chosen to be anonymous, the feds could have tracked him.
> So this case should also be a constitutional test of anonymous First
> Amendment speech. This dragnet federal statute, without protest from
> President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, stated that if you
> intend to annoy or harass any person by exercising speech, you will be
> hauled into court.
>
> If found guilty, Shore — or anyone indicted for sending such harassing
> messages — could be imprisoned for up to two years and fined $250,000. I
> often am annoyed by my senator, Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., but so far, I have
> confined my harassing messages to him in my columns, which are transmitted
> in print and electronically. The same is true of my many annoying rebukes to
> the president, who apparently is quite sensitive to criticism. I'd better
> watch out.
>
> Silverglate said about this indictment of the First Amendment: "That a
> citizen is being charged under this statute for pestering a senator for not
> doing his public duty just shows the dangerous powers that these kinds of
> statutes give to heedless prosecutors. Even if citizen Shore ultimately wins
> the case, his life will have been turned upside-down and inside-out. This,
> of course, is the reason indictments like this are brought — to deter
> unwelcome speech."
>
> Said Shore: "I'm walking around in my head: 'jail for e-mail, jail for
> e-mail,' At this point I'm just looking at my government and going, anything
> is possible. When do the adults wake up and say, 'This gentleman is just
> angry and frustrated?' I'm just speechless. Shocked."
>
> Since Shore is a citizen actively involved in his government's fidelity to
> our founding document, I doubt he will remain speechless for long. For the
> rest of us, Frederick Douglass had this advice: "Find out just what any
> people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of
> injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them." This largely has been
> passive citizenry as the Constitution is being razed during these last 9½
> years. But maybe Shore, Silverglate and another crucial book, "In the Name
> of Justice" edited by Timothy Lynch, can arouse more Americans in self
> defense to ask themselves whether they are federal criminals not yet
> indicted.
>
> *Nat Hentoff is a syndicated columnist for Newspaper Enterprise Association.
> He is a renowned authority on the Bill of Rights. A native of Boston and a
> graduate of Northeastern University, Hentoff was a Fulbright fellow at the
> Sorbonne in Paris in 1950. He has written several books on subjects ranging
> from jazz to education.*
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