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To: Lazamataz; Publius; lawgirl; kristinn; Cato
The normal self-policing methods of Administrative moderators being flagged or spotting abuse on their own and banning the culprit forthwith are not working?

I haven't researched the issue in depth, but at a cursory analysis, I think the First Amendment would make any such criminal prosecution theory sink...and you would find it difficult (to say the least) to get a U.S. Attorney to even look at the case (based on a theory of obscenity and interstate trafficking in porn). We weren't able to even get the ban on kiddie internet porn to withstand the absolutists currently haunting the U.S. Supremes.

And unless the perpetrator just so happens to live in your jurisdiction, you will not be able to enlist State or County agencies...which would be even less likely to do anything. Unless you could first obtain a protective order (TRO in legal parlance) to bar the nuisance activity. Then repeated violations would give you more solid standing to go after the character.

The victims and the Corporation (Free Republic.com) would perhaps have standing to bring an civil action sounding in tort law, the tortious interference in business (restraint of trade), defamatory damaging of business reputation, and on the personal level, intentional infliction of emotional distress.

As a furst step, I suggest that the Moderators be given the ability to "nuke" all posts and email by such an obvious troll...and spare the victims the angst that you rightly express. I assume that the guy must be using an alias when he registers.

Perhaps a precondition should be made so that Free Republic posting privileges require a secure ISP-tracking cookie be enabled on the posting system.

176 posted on 05/09/2005 6:26:01 AM PDT by Paul Ross (Working for God on earth does not pay much, but His Retirement plan is out of this world.)
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To: Paul Ross
The victims and the Corporation (Free Republic.com) would perhaps have standing to bring an civil action sounding in tort law, the tortious interference in business (restraint of trade), defamatory damaging of business reputation, and on the personal level, intentional infliction of emotional distress.

FR isn't a money-making entity so I see the above going exactly nowhere.

Probably the key thing is to limit comments on the guy's posts to mail to admins and not starting long threads like this filled with outraged comments; this gives the guy precisely what he wants.

187 posted on 05/09/2005 6:28:36 AM PDT by Strategerist
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To: Paul Ross

How about making porn available to minors??? many young FReepers come to this site.


190 posted on 05/09/2005 6:28:59 AM PDT by eastforker (Under Cover FReeper going dark(too much 24))
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To: Paul Ross
Your post is well written and quite thoughtful.

Personally, I long for the days when kickin' the livin' shi'ite out of a piece of scum like the one in question would have folks writing congratulatory letters to editors.
Manners would be much improved.

254 posted on 05/09/2005 6:42:42 AM PDT by tomkat
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To: Paul Ross; Jim Robinson; John Robinson

While I don't agree with your analysis of what legal recourse action we have, I definitely agrree with a nuke option where the mods, Jiim, and/or, John Rob could destroy the poster and lall his/her posts, including pings to others.

To Mr. Jim and John, apologies I am pinging you a lot but some really great ideas are being floated around here.


715 posted on 05/09/2005 1:05:36 PM PDT by Killborn (Playing Russian Roulette with a Loaded Semi-Auto)
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