Authority (fwd)

Owen DeLong owen at delong.com
Wed Dec 10 20:00:26 UTC 2003


I apologize for further troll feeding, but, I think this warrants some
clarification...

> I take issue with anyone who publicly accuses another entity of wrongdoing
> beyond his scope of authority.
>
You can take issue, but, there is no scope of authority for accusations.
Anyone can make an accusation against anyone else at any time.  At least
in the united States.  It's part of what is known as free speech.

> If people are speeding in my neighborhood, I can not go and take down
> their pictures, personal information, license plate numbers, etc., post
> them pupubliclyand accuse them of breaking the law (even if they did!).
> That's liabel, and it is illegal (and wrong).  It is no less wrong just
> because it is up to the victim of the post to take corrective/punative
> action in a civil forum (ie lawsuit).
>
Actually, you can.  There is no law against it.  The word you were looking
for is Libel, not Liabel, and, for a claim to be libelous, it must meet
the following criteria:

	1.	It must be published
	2.	It must be provably false
	3.	It must cause harm

Legally, you can take pictures of anything in a public place and publish
them.  Legally, you can write down a license number observed in a public
place.  Further, unless the person can claim that your statement they were
speeding is false by preponderance of the evidence, they are unlikely to
succeed in suing you for libel.  You can take issue with it all you want.
Whether it is right or wrong to do so is a separate issue.  However, it
is most definitely _NOT_ illegal at least not under the libel laws.

> The correct action would be to lobby the authorities (police in the
> example, arin in this situation) to take enforcement measures, NOT to
> demand that the "criminals" justify their actions to you (specifically
> speaking to whom my email was originally addressed).  There are fiscal and
> legal ramifications to what is being done here.
>
I suggest you do some further study before making legal claims.  What you
have done here is merely demonstrate an ignorance of the law.  I don't 
always
agree with William, but, I haven't seen him do anything illegal yet.

Owen



-- 
If it wasn't crypto-signed, it probably didn't come from me.
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