Sheriff’s Raid to Find Blogger Who Criticized Him Was Unconstitutional, Court Rules

[Onkel Neal]

https://theintercept.com/2016/08/26/sheriffs-raid-to-find-blogger-who-criticized-him-was-unconstitutional-court-rules/

The raid was sparked by the sheriff’s investigation into who was behind the anonymous blog that accused local officials, including him, of corruption and fraud. Through a blog and a Facebook page called “John Turner,” ExposeDAT used public records to show conflicts of interest.

The sheriff sought warrants when Tony Alford, a local business owner, filed a criminal complaint about the blog. On August 2, Larpenter and his deputies raided the Andersons’ house after they traced the IP address of the John Turner Facebook page through a warrant to AT&T.

Man,if you're going to take on the local sheriff, post from a library or coffee shop.

I wonder how far the accusations went? And if there is an investigation on the sheriff now?

Previous news coverage: https://theintercept.com/2016/08/04/sheriff-raids-house-to-find-anonymous-blogger-who-called-him-corrupt/

[Onkel Neal]

and a link to the Expose Dat blog (http://exposedat.in/wp/)

("Dat" is a colloquialism for "that" in Louisiana, for all our non-US friends)

[Catfish]

Of course it was unconstitutional. Since when can people be prosecuted for speaking freely, and just of all uncovering some obvious corruption ? Without getting a permission first?

But then, Assange, Snowdon ...

[Jimbuna]

Something similar happened in my local town about ten years ago. The criticisms and allegations were levelled against the council leader and some senior party members.

Whoever was responsible used a proxy server to cover the location of the website being used and it was only after public disclosure of the substantial sums of taxpayers money that was being spent to uncover said person or persons that the investigation was dropped.

Strangely, the disclosures stopped around about the same time.