Utah lawmakers hope a new, unusual law cuts down on increasingly troubling forms of cyber harassment by giving authorities the ability to send online bullies to jail for a year. Law enforcement, school officials and support groups back the effort, but some lawyers and a libertarian-leaning group have balked at what they call vague language in the law. They believe it could be unconstitutional and lead innocent people to be charged with crimes. The regulation won unanimous
approval in the Legislature and makes it a crime to post information online that can identify someone, including their name, photo and place of employment, to “intimidate, abuse, threaten, harass, frighten, or disrupt the electronic communications of another.” Similar laws in New York and North Carolina have been ruled unconstitutional in recent years, said UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, who called Utah’s measure a violation of the First Amendment. READ MORE
