James Buss, a high school teacher in Wisconsin, anonymously posted a comment on the Boots and Sabers blog under the name "Observer." In the comment, Buss stated that high teacher salaries made him sick and appeared to praise the Columbine High School shooters, stating, "They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time!" Because Buss is a former president of the teacher's union, in hindsight there is good reason to believe that the comment was tongue-in-cheek and intended to ridicule the conservative point of view on teacher salaries.

School officials viewed the anonymous comment as a threat and notified the police. The police traced the comment back to Buss and arrested him. He spent an hour in prison and was released on $350 bail. The school district also suspended him from his teaching job. The local district attorney considered charging Buss with disorderly conduct and unlawful use of computerized communications systems under Wisconsin law. The district attorney ultimately determined, however, that Buss's comment was protected speech under the U.S. and Wisconsin constitutions because it did did not incite imminent lawless action.

A nine-minute video featuring Tom Cruise excitedly proclaiming the virtues of Scientology was leaked onto the Internet. Gawker, YouTube, and other sites posted the video. The Church of Scientology's lawyers sent out cease-and-desist letters and emails to a range of re-publishers, most of whom removed the video. Gawker Media refused to comply.

On January 15, 2008, the Church of Scientology (through counsel) sent an email to Gawker Media alleging that posting the video on Gawker and Defamer (another Gawker Media site) violated its copyright and demanding its removal. The Church also asserted that "several criminal laws are implicated since this work was stolen," citing theft (California Penal Code 484 et seq); receiving stolen property (California Penal Code 496); and interstate transporting or transmission of stolen goods (18 U.S.C. 2314), but did not directly accuse Gawker of committing any of these criminal offenses.

Gawker responded to the Church via email, rebuffing the criminal claims and asserting fair use:

We are using this video in the context of news reporting and critical commentary, which are uses that may not be authorized by your client, but which serve the public interest. For this, and other reasons, we believe our use is fair. We further do not accept that we have broken any criminal laws in publishing it, and in any event, several of the statutes you cite are inapplicable in this case.

The video is still posted on Gawker, and the Church is believed to be considering legal action.

On December 10, 2007, an investigator with the Kansas University Office of Public Safety delivered a search warrant to the Lawrence Journal-World, a highly regarded newspaper in Lawrence, Kansas, demanding access to the newspaper’s computer servers. The search warrant, issued by Douglas County District Judge Stephen Six, sought information about the identity of an individual who had posted anonymous comments on the newspaper's website, LJWorld.com.

Investigators were seeking the identity of a user who had posted comments on the paper's website under the screen name "a2thek." The pseudonymous user had commented on an article about a Kansas University student who was found dead in a KU dorm room, indicating that the death was heroin-related.

According to the Lawrence World-Journal, the investigator left before executing the warrant:

When presented with the search warrant, the newspaper was given the opportunity to call its attorney [Bernard Rhodes], who contacted the district attorney’s office and the court to object to the search warrant. During that time period, the KU investigator left the Journal-World offices without executing the search warrant and did not return.

Rhodes stated that he believed the search warrant was issued contrary to the federal Privacy Protection Act, which restricts the ability of law enforcement to conduct searches of news-gathering organizations.

On January 6, 2008, after the paper made the search warrant public, a2thek posted a follow-up comment apologizing for providing inaccurate information in his earlier comment:

This infomation [sic] is not 100% correct and I would like to take some time to apologize for any mis-information. The guy that works with me I overheard in the bathrool [sic] making this speculation of what actually happened so I dont [sic] know if it's actual fact or hearsay. I do once again dont [sic] want to draw any lines or conclusions being I really dont know anything about all of it and I think the guy at work was just an aquitance [sic] and went to school with the guy and that's what he heard. I guess when a autopsy is performed that will get you the answers that your looking for. Sorry for all the misleading info once again.

Peter Lowney, a political activist from Newton, Massachusetts, was convicted in December 2007 of violating the Massachusetts wiretapping statute (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, § 99) and sentenced to six months probation and fined $500. The criminal case arose out of Lowney's concealed videotaping of a Boston University police sergeant during a political protest in 2006. Apparently Lowney was shooting footage of the protest when police ordered him to stop and then arrested him for continuing to operate the camera while hiding it in his coat. According to a press release from the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, the footage appears to have been posted on a "video-sharing website." As part of the sentencing, the court ordered Lowney to remove the footage from the Internet.

Egyptian law student Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suliman ("Kareem"), using the psuedonym Kareem Amer, posted a series of articles critizing the Islamic faith, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and Al-Azhar University to his blog and websites, Modern Discussion and Copts United. He was first arrested for his posts in October 2005, at which time he was detained for 12 days and forced to surrender his books and some personal articles and writings. In March 2006, Kareem was expelled from Al-Azahar University because of his posts. (For more information on the expulsion, see the CMLP database entry, Al-Azhar University v. Abdul Kareem Nabeel.)

Al-Azhar informed the Public Prosecutor's Office in Alexandria of Kareem's writings. On November 06, 2006, Kareem was arrested. When he refused to recant, he was held in solitary confinement until he could face trial. He was charged with three basic crimes: contempt for religion (both generally and Islam in particular), defaming President Mubarak, and disrupting public order.

On Feb. 22, 2007 in Maharram Beik Court, after what reports have described as only five minutes of consideration, Kareem was was sentenced to four years in prison for his speech -- three years for contempt of religion and one year for defaming Mubarak. The charges relating to alleged disruptions of public order were dropped.

On March 12, 2007, the Court of Appeals in Alexandria upheld Kareem's conviction and four-year sentence. The court also approved a civil claim brought by a group of Egyptian lawyers seeking to fine Kareem for "insulting Islam."

Status:

Several sources, including freekareem.org, have reported that Kareem's lawyers intend to appeal the case to the Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest appeals court.

Terri and Munir Chavla, operators of a community forum called LocalScoop.net, along with three anonymous users of the site sued Mark Kavakich, the local chief of police. According to the lawsuit, Kavakich posted messages on the site threatening to uncover the identities of anonymous users who had criticized him and sent an email to the site's operators threatening civil and criminal action. Plaintiffs also allege in their complaint that Kavakich sent them a subpoena seeking the identities of users of the site.

On April 20, 2004, the court issued an order granting plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order, enjoining defendant Kavakich from a) making any threats, either generally or specifically, to prosecute or identify people who post messages on the Internet, specifically, at www.localscoop.net; b) enforcing subpoenas, dated 4/12 and 4/14/04, against www.localscoop.net webmaster Russell Stevens; and c) from threatening to use or making use of any compulsory process to prosecute, identify or confront people who post messages on the Internet, specifically at www.localscoop.net, except by leave of court based upon a showing of probable cause.

The case then proceeded through discovery and court ordered mediation. On January 24, 2006, the court approved the parties' consent decree settling the case. The settlement involved the payment of $42,000 to the plaintiffs and the continuation of the limitations outlined in the preliminary injunction.

Plaintiffs received legal asssistance from Witold Walczak, ACLU of Pennsylvania Legal Director.