First Amendment takes a Bipartisan Hit

The "reauthorization" (that should be read: massive broadening) of the Violence Against Women Act is a First Amendment nightmare. This bill actually criminalizes protected speech if anyone claims to be "distressed" by it.


The Senate has passed 68-31 a bill to renew the government's main domestic violence program. Fighting domestic violence? All good. And, of course, the bill contains plenty of juicy sound bites for politicians on both sides of the aisle to leverage, so ensuring bipartisan support.

But, as usual, the Devil is in the details. For example, Section 107 of H.R. 4271 strengthens the law to make it a criminal offense for anyone who "... engages in conduct that ... would be reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress ...". 

Since "substantial emotional distress" is a purely individual and subjective measure and one doesn't even have to be communicating to the distressed person to run afoul of the law, it opens up all kinds of First Amendment issues. Send a tweet or make a Facebook post criticizing a public official and they may just claim to be "caused substantial emotional distress".

Read the HR bill here: http://bit.ly/Kgi7H9