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Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of culture, technology, politics, and law. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.
[Let me see if I get this right. A California teenager is transplanted to Utah and doesn't quite fit in at his new school. Some of his enemies set up a web site. He replies with his own anonymous site, praising some teachers and students and denouncing others. In response, the Utah police raid his home, put him in jail for seven days, and now plan to charge him with criminal libel. This notwithstanding the fact that one of the most celebrated cases in U.S. legal history dealt with how Peter Zenger escaped criminal libel charges. --Declan] ********** My article on a very similar 1997 case dealing with criminal libel charges brought against high school students: http://www.time.com/time/digital/daily/0,2822,12129,00.html Slashdot thread: http://slashdot.org/features/00/06/01/1526235.shtml Zenger case background: http://www.sar.org/newslett/Zenger.txt ********* http://www.sltrib.com/05282000/utah/52983.htm Salt Lake Tribune By Joe Baird MILFORD Ian Michael Lake didn't fit in this southwest Utah railroad town. On that everyone in this close-knit community of 1,500 can agree. And most believe the Milford High School junior crossed a line when he posted a Web site disparaging faculty members and classmates in graphically vulgar terms. But there is serious and, perhaps, litigious disagreement developing over how he became marginalized and whether Lake's inflammatory home page merited the seizure of his home computer and seven nights in a juvenile detention facility. There is also the question of the constitutionality of criminal libel charges he may soon face. [...] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------