Oh, Fuddlesticks!(Speech or cyberstalking?) (a police officer exposing police misconduct using the internet) (Brief article)

• Author: Sullum, Jacob

A COP OPERATING under the pseudonym "Mr. Fuddlesticks" isn't a fan of the Renton, Washington, police department. Using the animation site Xtranormal, the officer created a series of YouTube cartoons mocking the department, questioning decisions by its top officials, and alluding to various examples of police misconduct.

Seeking to unmask Mr. Puddlesticks, the department obtained a warrant demanding information about him from Google, which owns YouTube. The legal rationale: Mr. Fuddlesticks' parodies, which never mentioned Renton or named any police officers, constituted "cyberstalking," a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

After KIRO, the CBS affiliate in Seattle, broke the story in August, a local attorney challenged the warrant on First Amendment grounds. King County Superior Court Judge James Cayce, who had approved the warrant on July 28, scheduled a hearing on the matter and imposed a stay in the meantime. Suddenly the Renton police lost interest in the warrant...