Man arrested for criticizing cops in e-mail to paper

This is so incredibly stupid that I almost had to do a double-take when I saw this.

A Louisiana man has been arrested because he dared to criticize the police chief of a nearby town in an e-mail to a newspaper. The charge? "Criminal defamation."

The statute under which he was charged actually covers some acts that wouldn't be considered defamatory by any usual definition. Most would define defamation as including only false information. This law doesn't specify that the information has to be false - so its constitutionality is highly questionable right there.

The very fact that the man was arrested for this means that if he didn't have grounds to criticize the police before, he sure does now. It's kind of like how the bad "reviews" for 'The Fight That Never Ends' proved the book was right about school bullies still dwelling on stuff when they were over 30.

This incident also smacks of the same tyranny that guided the NKU "trespassing" arrest that resulted from The Last Word disagreeing with university graybeards.

Now the police department in the Louisiana story is the target of a federal lawsuit.

(Source: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003965200)