Bad Bloggers? Getting Arrested for Blogging

In Good for Liberty, Bad for Security? Global Civil Society and the Securitization of the Internet authors Deibert and Rohozinski posit global civic society networks, consisting of civic networks, resistance networks, and dark nets, as some of the earliest adopters of ICTs to further their agendas.  The authors give many reasons for the use of ICTs by these networks, but the two most applicable for our discussions are overcoming traditional gatekeepers in the media and facilitating rapid sharing of information.

Blogs are used as a means of self-expression and Deibert and Rohozinski argue they are extremely important for networks because they allow alternative news coverage, a means of sharing information, and a way for organizations to gain supporters.  In the rest of the chapter, they describe blogger arrests by numbers from 2003-2006, the reasons for arrests, and the length of the sentences the convicted received.  Most of the discussion focused on bloggers in China and Iran, but little was said about bloggers arrested in the United States.  That got me wondering, who are the U.S’s “bad bloggers” whose blogs were worthy of getting them arrested?

First, I came across the World Information Access Report, written by Philip N. Howard.  According to this report, the United States arrested three bloggers in 2006 and 2007; one for violating cultural norms and two for “other” reasons.  Here is the graphic from that website:Although, I had a tough time tracking down these specific instances, I did find a couple worth mentioning:

Hal Turner, of Connecticut, was arrested because of his  Internet postings on June 2 and 3 where proclaimed “outrage” over the June 2, 2009, handgun decision by Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer, of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, further stating, among other things: “Let me be the firs to say this plainly:  These judges deserve to be killed.” The postings included photographs, phone numbers, work addresses, and room numbers of the judges along with a photo of the building where they worked.  Turner was arrested for inciting violence.

Another blogger, this time video blogger Josh Wolf San Fran, was arrested for not turning over his video of a burning police car during the G8 protest.  Here Wolf is arguing independent bloggers should have the same rights as mainstream journalists.

Resources:

Deibert Ronald and Rohozinski Rafal, 2008, “Good for Liberty, Bad for Security? Global Civil Society and the Securitization of the Internet”, in: Deibert, R. J., Palfrey, J. G., Rohozinski, R., & Zittrain, J.,  Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, The MIT Press, ch. 6, pp. 123-150.

Deibert Ronald, 2009, “The Geopolitics of Internet Control: Censorship, Sovereignty, and Cyberspace”, in: Andrew Chadwick & Philip N. Howard (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics, Routledge. Ch. 23, pp.323-336.

Howard, Philip N, and World Information Access Project. World Information Access Report – 2008. 3. Seattle: University of Washington, 2008.