Lol, couldn’t they have expressed this a bit differently?
RI repealed a vapid law created in 1989. The law made it a crime to lie on the internet. It was originally enacted to thwart scammers and whatnot. I guess I’m glad the repealed it, but I’m a bit perplexed as to the reasoning expressed.
But state lawmakers have now decided that white lies online should no longer be a crime. The General Assembly voted this month to repeal an obscure 1989 law that made fibbing on the Internet a misdemeanor punishable by fines of up to $500 and as much as a year in prison. Gov. Lincoln Chafee signed the measure.
“This law made virtually the entire population of Rhode Island a criminal,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union.
The repeal of the Rhode Island law was prompted in part by a 2010 case in which a former prison guard was arrested for setting up a fake Facebook page in the name of his boss, the state’s corrections director. The charges were later dropped, though the guard lost his job. The man’s attorney, John Grasso, said what his client was accused of doing “may not be bright, but it shouldn’t be illegal.”
“Everybody lies online,” Grasso said. “You shouldn’t be dragged into court and told that you can’t tell people you’re 6 feet tall when you’re not.”
I would have gone with something like, ‘this law is unenforceable’ and/or ‘this law is in violation of the 1st amendment’. Or something of that nature. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have gone with ‘this state is so chuck full of people who constantly lie we couldn’t possibly enforce this law, because we’re all a bunch of liars.’
Well, that’s just my opinion, anyway. Which, btw, I entirely disagree with the Grasso lawyer. Setting up accounts and impersonating someone else on line is in many cases, and should remain, a crime.
Read more: here.
Grasso has just confessed of having lied in court all his life! Arrest that man!!
I just don’t understand things sometimes. I mean sure, we all know lawyers lie. But, can’t they just keep the pretense that some don’t?
There is no such thing as a lawyer joke, why?, they are all true stories.