Peoria mayor orders surveillance and raid to apprehend owner of fake Twitter username
Source: Peoria Journal Star
Not long after learning about the parody Twitter account @Peoriamayor, the city’s real mayor, Jim Ardis, told police he wanted to find out who was publishing sometimes vulgar messages there, according to a search warrant filed Thursday.
The warrant, filed in Peoria County Circuit Court, details a two- to three-week process whereby Peoria police tracked down the location of the Internet address used for the account as well as the identity of the person who paid for the Web access.
Two judges signed off on warrants to get information from Twitter and Comcast. Another judge approved a Tuesday afternoon raid of 1220 N. University St., which led to one arrest for marijuana possession but no charges related to the Twitter account or any of the posts.
... On March 14, Judge Kirk Schoebein signed off on a warrant seeking subscriber information from Twitter. On March 29, two days after Twitter gave police the information they requested, Judge Lisa Wilson approved a warrant for Comcast to find out where the person who used the Internet to access Twitter lived.
Read more: http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140417/NEWS/140419023
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Parody accounts are protected speech, experts say
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140417/NEWS/140418980
A police raid of a West Bluff home seeking the author of a parody Twitter account about Mayor Jim Ardis was an intrusive, overly aggressive tactic that targeted a form of protected speech.
Several scholars and attorneys who specialize in First Amendment rights around the country questioned the pursuit of criminal charges for a fake social media account two days after plainclothes police executed a search warrant at 1220 N. University St. and seized several electronic devices with Internet access.
“If you were intent on unmasking an anonymous tweeter, there are ways to do that short of the blunt instrument of a search warrant,” said Chip Babcock, a Texas attorney who lists among his clients the Chicago Tribune, Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions Inc. and Phil McGraw, more commonly known as television’s Dr. Phil.
... “The simple and clear-cut answer is that parody is protected speech, particularly if it involves a public official. Even if the intent is to harm the official,” said Larry Burriss, a professor of journalism at Middle Tennessee State University. “But there is a kind of sliding scale: the more famous the person, the more outrageous the parody can be, so long as it is obvious it is a parody.”
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The Police Raided My Friend's House Over a Parody Twitter Account
http://www.vice.com/read/the-police-raided-my-friends-house-over-a-parody-twitter-account
Jon Daniel woke up on Thursday morning to a news crew in his living room, which was a welcome change from the company he had on Tuesday night, when the Peoria, Illinois, police came crashing through the door. The officers tore the 28-year-old’s home apart, seizing electronics and taking several of his roommates in for questioning; one woman who lived there spent three hours in an interrogation room. All for a parody Twitter account.
Yes, the cops raided Daniel’s home because they wanted to find out who was behind @peoriamayor, an account that had been shut down weeks ago by Twitter. When it was active, Daniel used it to portray Jim Ardis, the mayor of Peoria, as a weed-smoking, stripper-loving, Midwestern answer to Rob Ford. The account never had more than 50 followers, and Twitter had killed it because it wasn't clearly marked as a parody. It was a joke, a lark—but it brought the police to Daniel's door. The cops even took Daniel and one of his housemates in for in-depth questioning—they showed up at their jobs, cuffed them, and confiscated their phones—because of a bunch of Twitter jokes.
Now Daniel’s panicking.
“I’m going to fucking jail,” he told me yesterday when he was on a break from his job as a line cook. “They’re going to haul me away for this shit.”
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Right Quaxelrod?
