December 22,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the policy of the Ridgewood blog is to never share information about posters with anyone friend or foe. There is one major exception and that is with “terroristic threats “. Law enforcement must investigate all “terroristic threats”, failure by local police to investigate “terroristic threats ” could lead DHS and or the FBI to do so. It is all part of the “war on terror” and the broader anti-terror laws .
The Ridgewood blog has an “anti threat policy” ,ie no threats allowed ,so Information is shared with law enforcement is a professional courtesy and for everyone’s safety.
“A terroristic threat is when a person threatens to commit any crime of violence against another person with the intent to terrorize. Because this is a speech based crime, it can often be difficult to determine if a person’s actions constitute a criminal offense.”criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/violent…/terrorist-threats.htm
First we determine we are being contacted by law enforcement , if the person requesting information is not law enforcement then no information is shared .
2nd we check to distinguish if there was any threat or it is some bogus claim. If we determine there was no apparent threat made the Police would have to get paperwork like anyone else to take a look .Given there is well over 100,000 comments live on the blog that might take the later half of the 21st century to find anything .
Remember there really is no anonymity on the internet , you IP address gives away your location , sometimes people can invest in stealth IP’s based on
Canadian servers or else where, as some of the blog stalkers do making them more difficult but not impossible to trace.
Most importantly the anonymity of the blog means you take soul responsibility for your own comments , you are not a protected source like with a newspaper.
Here is the Statue PJ. The key is the following “circumstances reasonably causing the victim to believe the immediacy of the threat and the likelihood that it will be carried out.”
a.A person is guilty of a crime of the third degree if he threatens to commit any crime of violence with the purpose to terrorize another or to cause evacuation of a building, place of assembly, or facility of public transportation, or otherwise to cause serious public inconvenience, or in reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience. A violation of this subsection is a crime of the second degree if it occurs during a declared period of national, State or county emergency. The actor shall be strictly liable upon proof that the crime occurred, in fact, during a declared period of national, State or county emergency. It shall not be a defense that the actor did not know that there was a declared period of emergency at the time the crime occurred.
b.A person is guilty of a crime of the third degree if he threatens to kill another with the purpose to put him in imminent fear of death under circumstances reasonably causing the victim to believe the immediacy of the threat and the likelihood that it will be carried out.
Thanks for the details here.
What is the origin of this post, pj? Don’t give anything up without a subpoena.
Hey P J did some big baby get their felling hurt?
Is calling someone a big baby considered threatening?
Well let see if the big baby calls the police and the police get a subpoena from a judge to get my IP address?
REMEMBER
There are several legal claims that come into play when someone is falsely accused or improperly prosecuted for a crime. The most common are civil claims based on either defamation of character, or malicious prosecution and/or false imprisonment.
Was it a big baby who cried out in fear, or was it the big baby’s overbearing “mama” who stomped her fat foot and declared that someone called,her precious guy a bad name?
Only out of curiosity, would you ever withhold a post and report it directly to law enforcement? I would guess it would have to be something specific and threatening.
PJ is pretty damned good at keeping some of the vitriol from spilling over the edge. Never hurts to send a friendly reminder. PJ should chair the republican debates.
New York City police on heightened alert ahead of holidays
https://pix11.com/2015/12/22/new-york-city-has-received-credible-threat-sources/
CORRECTION: This story has been amended after NYPD officials denied a report, based on sources, that there was a “credible threat.”
Let me ask the posters. Has anybody seen any post that are terrorist in nature on this Blog? Are you kidding me. If posters truthful opinions and comments about current events in Village of Ridgewood hurt someone feeling and they spin it into a “terroristic threats “ is an effort to use the legal system to obtain the name of people who disagree with them. We have reached a new low here in Ridgewood.
NJ court rules that IP addresses are private
A US court has ruled that users have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their internet surfing records and that police must obtain warrants from higher than usual courts in order to force ISPs to hand over records. However there was no requirement to inform the subject of such a request that it had been carried out.
The Supreme Court of the state of New Jersey said that information about a person’s use of the internet was so private that police there cannot order ISPs to release surfing details of suspects with a municipal court subpoena. They must receive a grand jury subpoena, it said.
“The court holds that citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the subscriber information they provide to internet service providers,” said the court’s ruling. “Law enforcement officials can obtain subscriber information by serving a grand jury subpoena on an Internet service provider without notice to the subscriber.”
Chief Justice Rabner said: “Individuals need an ISP address in order to access the internet. However, when users surf the web from the privacy of their homes, they have reason to expect that their actions are confidential. Many are unaware that a numerical IP address can be captured by the websites they visit. More sophisticated users understand that that unique string of numbers, standing alone, reveals little if anything to the outside world. Only an internet service provider can translate an IP address into a user’s name.”
The case involved Shirley Reid, who was accused of hacking into her employer’s computer system.
After Reid’s ISP, Comcast, handed over details of her account, including the IP address from which she accessed the internet, she was found guilty of computer theft in connection with the hacking incident.
Reid overturned that decision on appeal and at the Supreme Court of New Jersey stage, arguing that the evidence should be suppressed.
Reid’s lawyers had argued that a person should be informed when a subpoena is issued permitting the release of their telecommunications subscription details so that they can oppose the move. The Supreme Court of New Jersey, though, said that as long as the subpoena is from a grand jury the information can be released without the knowledge or consent of the user.
“Modern technology has raised a number of questions that are intertwined in this case: to what extent can private individuals ‘surf’ the ‘web’ anonymously? Do internet subscribers have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their identity while accessing internet websites? And under what circumstances may the State learn the actual identity of internet users?” said Chief Justice Rabner in his ruling.
“We decline to adopt a requirement that notice be provided to account holders whose information is subpoenaed,” he said. “For obvious reasons, notice could impede and possibly defeat the grand jury’s investigation. Particularly in the case of computers, unscrupulous individuals aware of a subpoena could delete or damage files on their home computer and thereby effectively shield them from a legitimate investigation.”
The court said that although Reid was successful in having the municipal warrant-obtained evidence suppressed, the police were not barred from approaching Comcast again and obtaining the records using an appropriate warrant.
Legal Protections for Anonymous Speech
Say that you receive notice that a someone has subpoenaed your ISP for information about your identity, and you move to quash (i.e., block or challenge) the subpoena. How will a court decide whether or not to allow the plaintiff to uncover your identity? This is a complex question that quickly brings us into a realm full of technical legal language and concepts. For those interested, this section and the State Law: Legal Protections for Anonymous Speech section that go with it delve into some of the details. If this makes your eyes glaze over, don’t worry — this section could be a good place for your lawyer to begin research.
Courts have recognized that the right to speak anonymously and pseudonymously is part of the First Amendment right to free speech, and accordingly some level of scrutiny is required before stripping an anonymous Internet speaker of that right. At the same time, those harmed by unlawful anonymous speech — whether by defamation, misappropriation of trade secrets, or whatever else — also have a right to seek compensation for their injury. When considering a subpoena or other discovery request seeking to unmask a speaker, courts attempt to balance these two competing rights.
While the courts in various jurisdictions have struck this balance in different ways, there is a growing consensus among courts that a would-be plaintiff must make a substantial legal and factual showing that his/her claim has merit before a court will unmask an anonymous or pseudonymous Internet speaker. In other words, these courts require a plaintiff trying to unmask an Internet speaker to bring forward a substantial amount of evidence to support the underlying legal claim (i.e., evidence that the anonymous speaker actually defamed the plaintiff or committed some other unlawful act that injured the plaintiff). These courts also impose a requirement that the plaintiff provide notice to the speaker whose identity is sought and an adequate opportunity to respond.
Well, James, all this information makes inquiring minds want to hear more from YOU!
There was case law about responsibilities of blog owners with the “eye on Emerson “‘or “Emerson eye” blog which got nasty a few years ago. Blog owner was not held responsible for content as long as posts we not “edited” for their content, but the anon posters who mad false accusations were “unmasked”‘via ip addresses.
7:42 – False accusations are different from name calling.