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October 4, 2006

Bloggers Gone Wild

T
he New Orleans Times-Picayune reported today that the FBI is investigating potential threats MADE BY BLOGGERS against a north Louisiana teenager who received suggestive e-mails from former Congressman Mark Foley.

If true, this is a case of bloggers gone insane. I suppose it's one thing to publish the personal contact information of someone in retaliation for exposing conduct that embarrasses the political party with which you identify. In that same vein, disparaging remarks about someone's mental state is another classic D.C. retaliation tactic (though fraught with the risk of defamation liability).

But communicating directly with a witness to intimidate him and influence a high-profile federal investigation? That carries the strong odor of a federal crime under "the Witness Tampering statute" (among others).

If I were the supervising federal prosecutor for this investigation, I'd already have a grand jury subpoena in the hands of the FBI for facsimile service on the head of security for the kid's internet service provider. By tomorrow, I'd have FBI agents knocking on the front door of the bloggers at 6:00 a.m. to ask just exactly what they had in mind when they sent the kid the communications at issue.

Politics is not life and death. Unfortunately, it looks like the current and former pages who had contact with Foley, whether unwelcomed or not, are next on the hit list for those whose sympathies lay with the GOP.

UPDATE: To clarify my remarks about sending FBI agents to speak to the bloggers in question, two points. First, such action would have to be based on confirmation that the contents of the communications to the Louisiana victim were in fact of a potentially threatening nature. Second, the reason I would suggest such a course is because there is nothing more fundamental to a criminal investigation than protecting young victim-witnesses from retaliation of any kind. This is not to say I'd recommend the same action if an investigation involved allegations of fraud by corporate insiders witnessed by other high-level corporate officials.

Posted by shertaugh at October 4, 2006 4:58 PM

Comments

Sending the FBI to start knocking on doors before actually determining if a criminal threat was actually made in the first place seems more like something the administration would do.

Posted by: Mojo at October 4, 2006 9:19 PM