In Leon Texas, a group of people armed with cameras were arrested for posting the name of the Chief of police and his home address on their chat program. The police then promptly arrested those same men under a law in Texas, Texas Penal Code – PENAL § 36.06. Obstruction or Retaliation, where publishing such information is deemed illegal. Not sure it not also a government overreach into protected speech of the First amendment, but it still stand on the books, not having been tested as yet.

“First, the individuals arrested are not the publisher of the webpage—YouTube is. Second, even if they are the publisher, they didn’t put the address out there, and the statute provides that to show intent, the publisher would have to leave it up for over 48-hours or to repost it to another website.”(1)

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 has a solution for commercial purposes such that for copyright law purposes, they would treat online service providers as deemed innocent middle-men in any underlying conflicts, disputes or claims of infringement between someone with a legitimate copyright and any user who posted any infringing content for purposes other than “fair use.” I understand commercial law is not penal law, and Federal law is not State law, but the principle seems to be similar. In my mind, and I am not a Texas lawyer, it is like walking down a street, a police officer tosses a bag of drugs at my head, to protect myself I grab it and then promptly arrest me for drug possession. Did I have the drugs on me? Yes. Did I have true possession or intent? I don’t think so. The same with the auditors. Did they have the address on their chat? Yes. Did they have intent to publish it? Did they receive notice and 48 hours to take it down? And lastly, should notice be sent to the auditor themselves or to YouTube as the company that physically was hosting the chat? Not to mention that the whole thing seems to be on shaky constitutional grounds to begin with.
All I do know is that if I owned property in Leon Valley, I would be looking to sell because in the next few years they are going to be paying out a lot of money for those arrests. That bill is almost certainly going to be passed on to the people who are property owners.