I blogged about this case last week (Is It a Crime to Publish Parody Videos That Use “Lewd … Language” Meant to “Embarrass and Emotionally Torment” Police Officers?); yesterday, the judge stayed the search warrant aimed at unmasking the author of the videos, pending a hearing on whether the search warrant should be quashed. [UPDATE: The request to quash the warrant came from lawyer Harish Bharti, who is representing an unidentified client (who might well be the anonymous author of the videos).]
As I argued in my earlier post, under the City Attorney’s interpretation of the Washington cyberstalking statute that the videos supposedly violate, that statute violates the First Amendment and is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face; if that’s so, then the warrant should indeed be quashed, because it will not reveal evidence of criminal conduct. It will be interesting to see what ultimately happens in court. Thanks to Ed Grinberg for the pointer.