New State law makes the painful Images displaying a Crime - Mashable

Residents of Tennessee: Come July 1, 2011, the State can punish you with prison, or fines should you "transmit or display an image" online social networks like Facebook and Twitter has the opportunity to "frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress" included - to anyone who sees it.

The State of Tennessee amended Tennessee Code title 39, chapter 17, part 3 of his harassment, which was once centered on the malicious person to person communication, applies to any person transmitting potentially offensive web images.

The exact wording of the Act now reads:

a person commits an offence who intentionally:

(4) Communicates with another person or transmits or displays an image in a way in which there is a reasonable expectation that the image will be considered by the victim by [by telephone, in writing or by electronic communication] without legitimate purpose:

(A) (i) with malicious intent to frighten, intimidate or emotional distress; or

(ii) in a manner that the defendant knows, or reasonably should know, would frighten, intimidate or emotional distress to a person in a similar situation of reasonable sensitivities; and

(B) further to disclosure, the person is frightened, intimidated or distressed emotionally.

No electronic communication is safe under the new Act, as paragraphs have been added to included pictures shared via social networks where the victim could see eventually. The Bill now includes language requiring that the social networking sites to submit materials offending the Government, if there is a warrant or a court order or if the person who posted the images provides consent.

The vagueness of harassment amended Tennessee law has much as unconstitutional, including the Law Faculty of the UCLA Eugene Volokh Professor.

Volokh describes several behaviors that will soon be illegal:

"If you are displaying an image of a person in an embarrassing situation - absolutely not limited to, say, sexually themed images or images taken illegally - you are probably a criminal, unless the Attorney, the judge or the jury concludes that you had a"legitimate purpose".".Similarly, if you display an image for the distress of the religious, political, racial, ethnic, etc group, you too can be sent to jail if Governments decision maker believes that your purpose was not "legitimate." "There is nothing in the Act requires that the image is the"victim", only that it be arduous"victim"."Same is true even if you don't have the intention of those and those in distress, but reasonably ought it to have that material - say, photographs of Mohammed, or blasphemous jokes about Jesus Christ, or harsh insults of cartoon of a political group - would be because emotional distress to a person in a similar situation of reasonable sensitivities. "" And of course the same applies if a newspaper or a television station post embarrassing photos or blasphemous images on its site.""

The amendment was adopted on 18 may, enacted may 30 by Governor Bill Haslam and will enter into force on 1 July.

This is not first incursion in controversial Tennessee digital Act. The digitally-conscious-but-not-exactly-savvy State made previously illegal share sites like Netfix passwords.

[via Ars Technica]

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, jonathanparry

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