TN legislature says Fuck You to the US Constitution

Tennessee: Post an offensive image online? Go to jail

After criminalizing the shared use of Netflix accounts, Tennessee law makers continued to demonstrate their misunderstanding of the internet by passing a law that makes it illegal to post offensive images online.

The law makes it a crime to “transmit or display an image” that could “frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress” to anyone who views it — which is about as ridiculous as making it illegal to open your eyes for fear of seeing something you don’t like.

Violators found guilty could get up to a year in jail and $2,500 in fines. What’s worse, the law can be applied to anyone who finds the image offensive, not just the person the image was directed to.

The law itself is actually a revision of pre-existing legislation that criminalizes the act of making phone calls, sending emails or other general communication that the sender reasonably knew would cause “emotional distress” to the recipient.

Aside from the over reaching nature of the legislation, it’s likely to come under heavy fire from activists who will be quick to point out the questionable violations the law has to first amendment rights.

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Tennessee Lawmakers Censoring The Internet

June 10, 2011 by Marcy Bonebright

Tennessee recently made it illegal to "transmit or display an image" online if it is likely to "frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress" to anyone who views it.
Lawmakers in Tennessee may have run afoul of the Constitution in passing a recent law. The law makes it illegal to “transmit or display an image” online if it is likely to “frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress” to someone — anyone — who views it.

“Tennessee law already made it a crime to make phone calls, send emails, or otherwise communicate directly with someone in a manner the sender ‘reasonably should know’ would ‘cause emotional distress’ to the recipient,” Ars Technica reported.

“The new legislation adds images to the list of communications that can trigger criminal liability. But for image postings, the ‘emotionally distressed’ individual need not be the intended recipient. Anyone who sees the image is a potential victim.

If a court decides you ‘should have known’ that an image you posted would be upsetting to someone who sees it, you could face months in prison and thousands of dollars in fines,” the article read.

Constitutional scholar Eugene Volokh recently discussed the law in a blog post, saying it was “pretty clearly unconstitutional.”

“If you’re posting a picture of someone in an embarrassing situation — not at all limited to, say, sexually themed pictures or illegally taken pictures — you’re likely a criminal unless the prosecutor, judge, or jury concludes that you had a ‘legitimate purpose,’” Volokh wrote.

“Nothing in the law requires that the picture be of the ‘victim,’ only that it be distressing to the ‘victim’… And of course the same would apply if a newspaper or TV station posts embarrassing pictures or blasphemous images on its site.”

The full text of HOUSE BILL 3OO is available here.