stories filed under: "cursing"

San Diego Police Officers Are Using An Old Sedition Law To Punish People For Swearing Around Cops

from the fuck-the-police-but-especially-these-guys dept

Mon, Aug 10th 2020 12:12pm — Tim Cushing

It's pretty well established that offensive hand gestures are covered by the First Amendment, even when it's a cop receiving the finger. This free speech has resulted in "contempt of cop" arrests and citations, but there hasn't been a federal court yet willing to recognize a police officer's "right" to remain unoffended. And if the First Amendment is violated by cops in retaliation for flipping the bird, there's going to be some Fourth Amendment violations as well.

Somehow the Constitution hasn't gotten around to removing a terrible law from the books in San Diego, California. In this city, it's still a criminal act to say rude things within hearing distance of a cop. (It's actually illegal if anyone can overhear it, but only police officers have the power to turn something mildly offensive into a criminal citation.)

On the morning of July 15, 2019, Jawanza Watson and a coworker were walking to the coworker’s car after finishing their shifts at Firehouse Bar in downtown San Diego. It was close to 2 a.m.

“I was drunk, you know. I was having a good time. I know that I was feeling myself,” Watson, who now lives in Minneapolis, told VOSD. “And I was rapping a song, but it had cursing in it.”

Watson remembers a police car rolling up slowly beside him and his coworker, windows down. An officer got out and stopped Watson, he said, claiming that the lyrics he’d been singing had been directed at the police.

[...]

The officer wound up giving Watson a ticket for violating section 56.30 of the city code, which reads: “(It) is declared to be unlawful for any person within the said City of San Diego to utter or use within the hearing of one or more persons any seditious language, words or epithets.”

Yes, this law -- which has been in effect since 1918 (the same year the federal government passed its Sedition Act, which led directly to the "fire in a crowded theater" trope) -- is still being used by cops in San Diego to punish people for saying things the cops don't like.

The enforcement of this law appears to be an SDPD crime of opportunity. Records obtained by the Voice of San Diego show the PD has handed out "seditious language" citations 83 times since 2013. The only records containing any information about citizens cited show that 8 of 11 recipients of seditious language tickets in 2018 were Black.

Is it seditious to sing rap lyrics out loud? Is it seditious to direct those lyrics at a cop, as was claimed by the officer citing Jawanza Watson? Of course not. It can only be criminal if it's linked to an "imminent crime" against the government. Being drunk and boisterous in public can be its own criminal violation, but rapping out loud is just free speech. Unfortunately, no one in San Diego has raised a Constitutional challenge yet, allowing the outdated law to live on.

There's been no Constitutional challenge because the cops abusing the law are somewhat smart about it. They downgrade the charge to a criminal infraction, ensuring no misdemeanor paperwork will be filed and make its way to the prosecutor's office. Anything along those lines might result in someone lawyering up and getting this tool of official harassment struck down. Local prosecutors seemed to be about as surprised by the law's existence as the recipients of these tickets.

Hilary Nemchik, a spokeswoman for the San Diego city attorney’s office, which prosecutes misdemeanors, said her office hadn’t been aware police were enforcing a section of the municipal code prohibiting seditious language. She called it “antiquated” and said deputy city attorneys would not prosecute anyone for it.

It's not just one cop's personal toy. The tickets examined by VOSD showed nine different officers had issued seditious language citations in 2018. This includes one citation that sounds like the SDPD considers itself more of a KGB.

Each of the 11 most recent seditious language tickets were written in downtown San Diego — except one, which the defendant received in his own home in southeastern San Diego.

There are a lot of things that define America and swearing in your own home without fear of retaliation from the government is one of them. But not when the SDPD is running things. The law, which was supposed to protect the government from being overthrown, is being used to inflict monetary pain on people who say things cops don't like.

Filed Under: cursing, free speech, offensive speech, police, protests, san diego, san diego police, sedition

22 Comments

Reporter Arrested, Thrown To The Ground For Cursing

Free Speech

from the someone's-about-to-get-a-lesson-in-the-1st-amendment dept

Wed, Nov 1st 2017 10:45am — Mike Masnick

Do the police in Fairfax County, Virginia really not know about the 1st Amendment? It certainly appears that way after watching the video of them violently arresting a reporter named Mike Stark, who was trying to cover the gubernatorial campaign of Ed Gillespie. Now, because some people will want to mention this, I'll note that the following is (a) true and (b) makes no difference at all to this story: Stark works for a highly partisan website that is strongly opposed to Gillespie. But the points here would be identical if it were a reporter at the other end of the partisan divide following the opposing candidate. The positions of the reporter (or the candidate) are meaningless to the basic question of why the fuck was Mike Stark thrown to the ground, piled on by cops and arrested.

And "fuck" seems to be the key word here. The background is that Stark appeared to be filming Gillespie's bus, and a police office told him to "get out of the road" (from the video it's a little unclear, but it really looks like Stark was standing in what appears to be a driveway, not a road). Either way, he backs up a bit and argues a bit with the cop, most of which is impossible to hear. But you can make out him saying "I'm a fucking reporter doing my job." At that point, another cop says "If you curse again, you're going to go to jail." To which, Stark responds in the most responsible manner possible: "Fuck this." At that point, the one officer points to him and says "Go to jail" and the other moves him up against a fence. The officers appear to have some trouble getting Stark's hands behind his back, though it does not appear due to Stark resisting, just police officers who don't appear to be very good at their job. So they just swipe his legs out from under him, throw him to the ground (hitting his head on the pavement) and then a bunch of other officers run over and they all just pile on Stark, who repeatedly says he'll give them his hands if they just get off him so he can move the arm out.

Eventually, the cop cites Fairfax County Ordinance 511 which does (amazingly) say that "If any person profanely curse or swear or be drunk in public he shall be deemed guilty of a Class 4 misdemeanor." So that law is on the books -- but it's bullshit. There is no way that such a law is even remotely compatible with the First Amendment. And, of course, when actually charged, Section 511 was nowhere to be found. Instead, the cops charged him with the favorite of police who have arrested someone for no cause: "disorderly conduct" and "resisting arrest."

This is... bad. It's a clear First Amendment violation and an attack on a reporter. Others who have been arrested (sometimes on similar charges) for filming in public, have sometimes been successful filing civil rights lawsuits against the cops.

On a separate, but related note, it appears the cops did not realize they were being filmed until towards the end of the video where one of the cops walks over and angrily says to the person holding the camera:

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't film us. Really would. Ok? This job's hard enough. Honestly? It's hard enough."

Yeah, must be real hard when you get to body slam a reporter for daring to say the word "fuck" and then have to answer to public scrutiny for your thuggish violation of his rights. Real tough job.

Filed Under: arrests, cursing, ed gillespie, fairfax county, first amendment, free speech, mike stark, virginia

80 Comments

Vladimir Putin Restricting Naughty Language And 'Unregistered' Bloggers

Free Speech

from the a-personal-threat dept

Thu, May 8th 2014 3:35pm — Timothy Geigner

I've always kind of known that Vladimir Putin was a bit of a bastard. Between his hypocrisy on government snooping, to his horrific record on matters of artistic and political speech, and his absolute willingness to destabilize his neighborhood in favor of having Russia pick up some territory that didn't belong to it in the form of Georgia and Ukraine. That said, two recent actions by Putin are starting to make me think this guy might just be as bad as everyone says.

The first is what appears to be an entirely childish attempt to stifle supposedly naughty language in the arts.

Any new film containing obscene language won't be granted a distribution certificate, so there's no chance of seeing it at the movie theater. And copies of books, CDs or films containing swearing can only be distributed in a sealed package labeled "Contains obscene language," a Kremlin statement said. According to state news agency ITAR-Tass, individuals caught using foul language face a fine of up to $70, while officials can be fined up to $40 and businesses nearly $1,400. They face a higher fine and a three-month suspension of business for repeated offenses.

As of the time of this writing, it's unclear exactly what will constitute "obscene" language, though the Russian government has helpfully noted that they'll be the ones judging such obscenities with an "independent examination," which is likely to be just as "independent" as you'd suppose. Given the fact that Russia has found the LGBT community in the past to be oh-so icky-icky, you'd have to imagine that language dealing with their community will be on the list, alongside some of the hallmark swear words, like religiously offensive language, f-bombs, and-

"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

Er, thank you, Mr. President. My problem with this should be obvious: I love swearing. Seriously, I use the f-word as a verbal comma. But putting me aside, the idea that a developed nation's leader could think so little of his own people as to make it the state's responsibility to protect their delicate little ears is beyond silly. Restrictions on free speech are one thing, but when you're restricting the only speech that makes logical sense as a reaction to the very restriction on that speech, things have gone recursively wrong. Because if your first reaction to someone telling you that you can't swear any longer isn't "Well, shit," then you have a problem.

But if you thought that Putin was going to get blasted for this motherly move online, you may not know that he also signed into law the requirement for bloggers with even modest readership to register with the government and ban anonymity on their sites, which we were among the first to report about a few weeks back:

Russia has taken another major step toward restricting its once freewheeling Internet, as President Vladimir V. Putin quietly signed a new law requiring popular online voices to register with the government, a measure that lawyers, Internet pioneers and political activists said Tuesday would give the government a much wider ability to track who said what online.

Widely known as the “bloggers law,” the new Russian measure specifies that any site with more than 3,000 visitors daily will be considered a media outlet akin to a newspaper and be responsible for the accuracy of the information published. Besides registering, bloggers can no longer remain anonymous online, and organizations that provide platforms for their work such as search engines, social networks and other forums must maintain computer records on Russian soil of everything posted over the previous six months.

This is, of course, aimed at chilling speech critical of Putin's Russian government, which currently seems to be attempting to scale back the whole democracy thing and inch closer and closer to the days of the Soviet Union. I don't say that lightly. Russia's restrictions on speech, freedom, persecution of minorities, and a clear aim towards expansion of real territory and cultural influence are something right out of the post World War Two era. This might scare some people, but not me.

Why? Because, just like the recent revolution in Ukraine, this kind of thing doesn't work any longer. And, yes, I realize that there are nations out there that still restrict the internet, speech, and freedoms, but they don't go from democratically free back to repression any longer. That whole thing about the internet being the "Wild West" is true in some ways. Putin will never be able to plug all the holes. He'll never be able to tamp down all the critical speech. And, like the former Ukraine government found before him, he will end up finding that the tighter he grips the internet's throat, the stronger it will fight back. It may not be quick, but it will happen.

Filed Under: blogging, cursing, free speech, offensive language, russia, vladimir putin

54 Comments

DailyDirt: More Than Words, Is All I Have To Say...

Studies

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, Jun 20th 2013 5:00pm — Michael Ho

The meaning of words change all the time, and they may be changing faster than ever before. It's hard for traditional dictionaries to really keep up with new words, but linguists are trying to record and categorize all the sounds they're observing. It ain't easy, but it's interesting to keep track of all the ways our language changes as people around the world are increasingly connected. Here are just a few examples.

Teenagers communicate in weird ways sometimes, making sounds that aren't words (but still have meaning). There's a difference between "duhhh" and "duhhyy" -- and you should be insulted by the latter. [url]
Many terms of endearment are almost universal, like "baby" -- understandable in several different languages, but some cute names are not. Japanese women are commonly referred to as "an egg with eyes" as a compliment, but that doesn't quite translate well in English.... [url]
According to some linguists, young women are the leaders of language fads that spread into everyday conversations. For example, Webster's New World College Dictionary (Fourth Edition) includes the use of "like" as a way to add emphasis -- as in "It's, like, hot." [url]
Verbal profanities are stored in a different part of your brain than where most of your language skills reside, and cursing has been part of our language for centuries (if not longer). Some of the worst obscenities in Latin focus on body parts and sex, so it seems like the subject matter of curse words hasn't changed that much in a while. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: communication, cursing, dictionary, language, latin, linguistics, profanities, teenagers, terms, tone, verbal, words

7 Comments

Company Tries To Delete Recording Of Exec Cursing Analyst During Conference Call Via Copyright Claim

from the copyright-is-not-your-personal-time-machine dept

Mon, Feb 25th 2013 10:46am — Tim Cushing

Oh, look. It's our good friend "copyright" being used to perform a some light censorship. Certain entities seem to love this aspect of copyright -- the fact that it can be used to sweep something embarrassing under the rug.

The entity involved in activating copyright's wonder twin powers (form of a broom!) is Canada's Encana Corporation. And what needs to be swept away? A muttered expletive directed at an analyst who had the audacity to ask a tough question during a conference call.

Encana Corp, Canada's largest natural gas producer, apologized on Thursday because one of its executives cursed after an analyst asked about whether new Canadian investment rules would prohibit its takeover by foreign state-owned entities.

When asked the question by Canaccord Genuity analyst Phil Skolnick, interim CEO Clayton Woitas said: "The answer would be no." Then, in a whispered comment that was clearly audible on a replay of the call, someone can be heard saying, "fucking asshole."

Nice. Apparently, the swearing executive somehow forgot that being in a room full of microphones means even the under-the-breath swearing will be broadcast. Encana, of course, swiftly apologized for the low flying insult. But, instead of leaving it there (which would be perfectly acceptable -- people being fallible and all that), it has decided it needs to erase the recording from the internet, in hopes that reality will fall in line with the official transcript of the conference call.

Unfortunately for Encana, the recording has already been uploaded to Chirbit, an audio sharing site, and so far the play button has been pushed over 55,000 times. Encana is now leaning on Chirbit to take the clip down.

On Thursday, Chirbit founder Ivan Reyes said he has received a takedown request from Encana. Mr. Reyes has declined, citing fair use provisions in copyright law and a site policy directing that such requests be sent to the poster of audio.

Encana, in its request, says:

“Encana is the copyright owner of the Recording. It was expressly stated at the outset of the Conference Call that 'this conference call may not be recorded or rebroadcast without the express consent of Encana Corporation',” the letter states.

“The Recording has been posted without Encana’s consent. The unauthorized use of this Recording clearly constitutes copyright infringement. ... Encana views this matter extremely seriously and requests that you respond to the undersigned on or before the close of business on Friday, February 22, 2013, failing which, Encana will have no other recourse but to take all actions as may be available to it to protect its proprietary rights.”

Encana is trying to erase two words from the internet, something its spokesman finds reasonable and, more sadly, possible.

“I think any individual or organization that has something embarrassing broadcast over the web without proper permissions would make any attempt to have that content eventually removed as, understandably, we do not wish to have that clip living on in perpetuity on the web,” he said.

The clip was uploaded by a Globe and Mail reporter who had recorded the conference call, common practice among journalists to ensure accuracy in their reporting. Copyright over the entire call, much less those two words, is a pretty grey area. Over at the Canadian Intellectual Property Blog, Jahangir Valiani breaks down this scenario.

To be clear, assuming there is no agreement to the contrary, the only aspect of the conversation posted that Encana may be able to claim copyright over is the three words said by its employees. Copyright to the question posed by the third party would belong to that third party unless the person who posed the question assigned it in writing to Encana.

For copyright to exist in a statement, the statement being copyrighted must be an “original… work”. The test for originality in Canada requires the author to exercise skill and judgement, where the skill and judgement exercised must not be so trivial as to be characterized as purely mechanical. While the qualitative test for a statement to be a “work” is low, there is a quantitative minimum that must be met for copyright protection.

The statements made by the Encana executives in this scenario do not qualify for copyright protection as they fail to meet both the criteria for a copyrightable work. The obscenity was not an exercise of skill and judgement. It was an impulsive response to a question that the speaker found insulting. In fact, if the speaker had exercised skill and judgement, it is likely that the he wouldn't have said the obscenity at all.

Valiani says that, in this case, copyright protection for the exec's "unguarded moment" isn't impossible, it's just highly unlikely. If Encana has any recourse, it would be to pursue legal action for breach of contract, as Encana specifically prohibited third-party recording. As noted above, Chirbit is leaving the clip up, citing fair use.

This likely won't satisfy Encana, which clearly wishes the clip to be vanished into the copyright cornfield. The reality of the situation is that even if it gets the clip taken down, the recording will very definitely resurface. Encana's best move is to simply let it go. People swear and do inappropriate things at inappropriate times. Continued pursuit of the offending clip will only "Streisand" it, causing it spread across the internet like a sweary wildfire. Even if Encana is within its rights, it gains nothing by attempting to whitewash something that is already public knowledge.

Filed Under: abuse, analyst, canada, censorship, copyright, cursing
Companies: encana

35 Comments

High School Student Expelled For Tweeting Profanity; Principal Admits School Tracks All Tweets

Free Speech

from the hello-free-speech-rights dept

Mon, Mar 26th 2012 2:27pm — Mike Masnick

Tinker v. Des Moines is considered a key lawsuit in defining the free speech rights of students. While there have been a few cases that limited the ruling, it's still seen as the key case in establishing that students have First Amendment rights and that schools can't just arbitrarily shut them down.

I'm reminded of all this after hearing that a student, Austin Carroll at Garrett High School in Garrett, Indiana, was expelled from the school for a silly tweet that used the word "fuck" repeatedly. Supposedly he tweeted something along the lines of "Fuck is one of the fucking words you can fucking put anywhere in a fucking sentence and still fucking makes sense." A little juvenile, but he's in high school. He insists that he tweeted this from home, but the school insisted that it was done at school. But the details suggest the tweet came at 2:30am when he was definitely not at school.

What's coming out, however, is that the school was apparently spying on how students use Twitter:

The principal at Garrett High School claims their system tracks all the tweets on Twitter when a student logs in, meaning even if he did tweet it from home their system could have recognized it when he logged in again at school.

I'm not entirely sure what they mean here by it "could have recognized it when he logged in again at school," but it seems clear that the school was aggressively monitoring social networking activity, and chose to expel the kid because of his decision to express himself. It sounds like Austin isn't fighting the expulsion, but simply found an alternative school to complete his last few months and get his diploma, but that's pretty ridiculous. I don't see how the school has a legitimate argument for expulsion here as it appears to violate his basic First Amendment rights. Even beyond that, though, it's really pretty shameful what the school is teaching its students. Spying on students and punishing them for expressing themselves gives exactly the wrong kind of message to students.

Filed Under: austin caroll, cursing, free speech, garrett high school, schools
Companies: twitter

149 Comments

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San Diego Police Officers Are Using An Old Sedition Law To Punish People For Swearing Around Cops

from the fuck-the-police-but-especially-these-guys dept

Reporter Arrested, Thrown To The Ground For Cursing

from the someone's-about-to-get-a-lesson-in-the-1st-amendment dept

Vladimir Putin Restricting Naughty Language And 'Unregistered' Bloggers

from the a-personal-threat dept

DailyDirt: More Than Words, Is All I Have To Say...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Company Tries To Delete Recording Of Exec Cursing Analyst During Conference Call Via Copyright Claim

from the copyright-is-not-your-personal-time-machine dept

High School Student Expelled For Tweeting Profanity; Principal Admits School Tracks All Tweets

from the hello-free-speech-rights dept

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