Kentucky Senate gets bill meant to protect minors from online threats, harassment
The Kentucky Senate will get a bill meant to protect minors from online harassment that could lead to their getting hurt or killed.
Senate Bill 182 was filed in response to the controversy in January 2019 over Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann standing face to face with Nathan Phillips, a Native American protester, in Washington, D.C.
After video of the encounter immediately went viral, Sandmann’s personal information began to spread online, accompanied by threatening and harassing messages. Local police stationed themselves in front of Sandmann’s house until the Department of Homeland Security told the family there were no more threats, according to Sandmann’s attorney.
The Senate bill, approved Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would make it a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail to publish identifying information about minors online with the intent to intimidate, threaten or harass them if that placed the minors in reasonable fear of injury.
The identifying information could include a minor’s name, date of birth, home or email address, phone number, school enrollment or place of employment.
The charge would be elevated to a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, if the minor was injured as a result.
The Senate passed a similar version of the bill last year, following testimony by Nick Sandmann’s father, but it failed to get a vote in the House Judiciary Committee.
The new bill’s sponsor, Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill, said Sandmann and some of his Covington Catholic classmates feared for their safety after people around the country began to spread their names and home addresses online. One of the committee members, Sen. John Schickel, said he has a loved one at Covington Catholic, and the school still hasn’t recovered from the public harassment campaign.
“The disruption to the educational process for the whole community, it really affected families who had nothing to do with it, who were not even there,” said Schickel, R-Union. “I can tell you that the administration struggled with it.”
Another committee member, Sen. Robin Webb, voted for the bill and said there is a need to protect minors beyond the Covington Catholic example.
“Working in sportsman’s issues and animal agricultural issues, I can tell you that 4-H kids and FFA (Future Farmers of America) kids are targeted. Youth hunters are targeted by animal rights groups and others who may not subscribe to our cultural heritage and the rights that we have,” said Webb, D-Grayson. “It is happening on a national level, and sometimes with international forces.”
The Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the ACLU of Kentucky testified against the bill, arguing that it could make criminals of people who have a legitimate right to speak truthfully on the Internet.
Rebecca DiLoreto of the KACDL told the committee about an underage girl represented by one of her group’s lawyers in juvenile court. The girl was drugged and sexually assaulted at a party by boys “who went to a prominent high school,” DiLoreto said.
After prosecutors agreed to give the boys a lenient plea deal, the girl was upset and posted on Facebook about the case.
“Her decision to name the perpetrators against her and the school they went to would qualify her for prosecution under this act, and I think that’s wrong. She had a First Amendment right to speak out,” DiLoreto said. “Given how women are committed to taking it less and less, I think you can expect more and more that women and girls will speak out on the Internet when things like that occur to them.”
