-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: January 22, 2007 8:37:13 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Appeals Court Tackles "Thought Crime" by Filmmaker
NY court: FBI might have violated First Amendment
in efforts to take down conspiracy film
By Larry Neumeister
ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 19, 2007
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20070119-1617-film-fbi.html
NEW YORK – An effort by the FBI and federal prosecutors to remove a
short fictional film about a military takeover of New York City
from the Internet may have violated the First Amendment, a federal
appeals court said Friday.
But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said a lower
court was still correct to toss out a lawsuit brought against an
FBI agent and a federal prosecutor by a web hosting service
operator and Michael Zieper, who wrote, directed and produced the
film.
The appeals court said in a written opinion that the FBI agent,
Joseph Metzinger, and the assistant U.S. attorney, Lisa Korologos,
were immune from the lawsuit because it would not have been clear
to a reasonable officer in their position that they were doing
anything wrong.
Metzinger and Korologos got involved Nov. 8, 1999, when the New
York Police Department faxed information to the FBI's Joint
Terrorism Task Force about the film, “Military Takeover of New York
City.”
The film includes various shots of Times Square as an unseen
narrator who purports to be a military officer briefs other members
of the military about plans for a military takeover of Times Square
on New Year's Eve 1999.
The appeals court said Metzinger and Korologos were free to ask
filmmaker Zieper and Web site operator Mark Wieger to take the film
down – but Metzinger went too far when he said that FBI agents were
heading to Zieper's home and he could not stop them.
“A reasonable juror could conclude that some of the defendants'
actions here did cross the sometimes fine line between an attempt
to convince and an attempt to coerce,” the appeals court wrote.
While Metzinger spoke in a polite and non-threatening tone, and did
not refer to criminal statutes or legal consequences, he never made
it clear that Zieper's actions were lawful or that he would not
face consequences for making the video public, the court said. It
cautioned public officials “to make sure that the totality of their
actions do not convey a threat even when their words do not.”
Metzinger told Wieger he was worried the film could incite a riot.
Wieger blocked web access to the film beginning Nov. 15, 1999, but
restored it 11 days later.
Yusill Scribner, a spokeswoman for federal prosecutors in New York,
said the government had no comment.
Aden Fine, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represented
the plaintiffs, said the decision shows that even if “government
officials government officials use a polite tone and don't directly
issue threats, they can violate an individual's First Amendment
rights.”
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