Legal Analyst Says Cyber-Bullying Legislation Needs Focus

By Marianna Levyash - Talk Radio News Service

In a phone interview with Talk Radio News Service Thursday, Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Research Fellow Brian W. Walsh said that language used in the federal cyber-bullying bill, introduced earlier this year by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), is overly broad.

"The terms [in the bill]...don’t have a precise, clear, accepted, generally agreed upon definition in federal law,” said Walsh.

Sanchez drafted the “The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act” in response to the death of Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl from Missouri who committed suicide in 2006 after being cyber-bullied on the social networking site MySpace by a woman named Lori Drew, the mother of one of Meier's classmates. Drew was indicted and convicted on charges stemming from the incident in 2008, but was later acquitted in 2009.

The bill has received mixed reviews from a handful of members of Congress who have argued that it uses vague terms and would cause potential violations of free speech rights.

“We need to be extremely careful before heading down this path,” said Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) during a House subcommittee hearing on the legislation back in September.

The bill would amend the federal criminal code to allow criminal penalties to be levied upon anyone that “transmits in interstate or foreign commerce a communication intended to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to another person, by using electronic means.”

“We are going to end up criminalizing conduct that shouldn’t be criminal in the first place...it’s easy to draft an overbroad criminal law,” said Walsh.

Businesses right to reorganize is questioned

The House Judiciary Subcomittee on Commercial and Administrative Law held a hearing on Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, and whether the 2005 amendments have pertinence in the face of today's impending business distress. Chairwoman Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) opened the hearing with a comparison between the retail industry's recent increase in 'reorganizational' bankruptcy claims and the debate over the $700 billion bailout for Wall Street that President Bush has proposed.


The question Sanchez wanted answered is whether Chapter 11 works the way Congress intended it to, or if the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Privacy Act is making it harder for businesses to reorganize, thus reverting to the straight liquidation in Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code. Witness Lawrence Gottlieb of Cooley Godward Kronish LLP said that Chapter 11 has become, "nothing more than a vehicle through which secured lenders, whether they be banks, hedge funds, or private equity, sell the assets of a company through a quick sale process that provides very little, if any, opportunity for retailers to restructure their debt and rehabilitate their business".


Professor Barry Adler of the New York University School of Law said that "it is better to have failed firms be liquidated, because if they're dead economically, they're going to liquidate anyway. The assets can be redeployed to better uses, if the liquidation is quick, and creditors can receive a higher return than they would originally receive". The question remains of whether a failing business will better serve the economy if bailed out at the expense of taxpayers, or left to the hands of Adam Smith.

Karl Rove ignores subpoena

Four protesters were instructed to remove hats and shirts with political statements under the threat of arrest prior to a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law. Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was subpoenaed to testify before the subcommittee and failed to appear. The women, from the anti-war group Code Pink, said being arrested for wearing a t-shirt violated their constitutional rights and asked what actions would be taken against Rove for failing to answer his subpoena. Committee staff and US Capitol Police told the women it is against committee rules to allow the display of political positions in the hearing room.

Chairwoman Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) expressed disappointment at Rove’s unwillingness to appear before the subcommittee to discuss allegations that he politicized the Department of Justice and to respond to questions concerning his role in the firing of US attorneys. Sanchez said Rove’s claim of executive immunity are unlawful and know no precedent in the Supreme Court. She stated that the White House has not requested immunity for Rove and that Rove’s attorney previously said Rove would appear before Congress if subpoenaed.

Ranking Member Chris Cannon (R-Utah) defended Rove, telling the committee that Rove is out of the country on an engagement that was planned before the subpoena. He told the committee that Rove has offered to conduct personal interviews with committee members and to answer written questions, berating Democrats for failing to accept Rove’s offers. Cannon said the subcommittee called the hearing due to allegations of Rove’s involvement in the conviction of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman on corruption charges and said no evidence exists that supports these allegations. Cannon criticized the committee, saying it is failing to address issues of major concern to Americans like oil prices.

Congress investigates Federal Justice System for selective prosecution

The Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law and the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security held a second hearing to address "Allegations of Selective Prosecution" and "The Erosion of Public Confidence in Our Federal Justice System."

Chairwoman Linda Sanchez (D-CA) said the Judiciary Committee has previously investigated "whether the Department of Justice has allowed politics to seep into its decision-making" and now turns its attention to allegations of "Democrats being disproportionately targeted for Federal prosecutions under the current Administration." Sanchez also raised concerns that the DOJ has "investigated allegations of voter fraud" but has ignored vote suppression, citing many recent incidents of Republican efforts to deter non-Republican voters and thwart opposition "get out the vote" campaigns in the 2002 and 2004 elections. Sanchez said that the DOJ's failure to send a witness to testify despite an invitation was "unfortunate."

Witness Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH) testified about the 2002 Election Day phone-jamming operation conducted by Republican political operatives, noting that witness Allen Raymond had pled guilty for his involvement in the case and that former Republican National Committee Director James Tobin was convicted as well and later acquitted on appeal. He said that it is "unclear" whether the White House was involved in the scandal despite suspicious phone calls made to the White House that day, although witness Paul Twomey said there was "numerous evidence" of its involvement. Finally, Hodes said that there were "major delays" in prosecuting the case and that the DOJ had "at the very least" a "conflict of interest" in its investigation, and Twomey said that the DOJ has "decidedly Republican" interests.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said that previous hearings had shown "there was no illegal or unethical conduct" and cited former Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) 2004 congressional case as evidence that the DOJ was "using politics to help one party over another." Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) countered by saying that the hearing was discussing people who had violated laws and been found guilty and said that "the RNC is in big trouble."

Witness Mark Crispin Miller, political analyst and NYU professor, said the DOJ should work to prosecute unlawful Democratic practices as well, and deplored electronic ballot counting machines as a "secret vote count." He said that voter fraud is a "minor problem" that would be much better solved by video cameras in voting areas as opposed to "laws that disenfranchise tens of thousands of people."