Hell, Rico breaks that one all the time

Rico says he doesn't think Tennessee will come after him, but Jennifer Van Grove has a post at Mashable.com about a new law there (the home, if you recall, of the Scopes trial and other legal battles):

Come July 1, 2011, the state may punish Tennessee residents with jail time or fines should they “transmit or display an image” online— social networks such as Facebook and Twitter included— that has the possibility to “frighten, intimidate, or cause emotional distress” to anyone who sees it.
The state of Tennessee amended Tennessee Code Title 39, Chapter 17, Part 3 of its harassment law, which was previously focused on malicious person-to-person communication, to apply to anyone transmitting potentially offensive images on the web.

The exact language of the law now reads:
(a) A person commits an offense who intentionally:
(4) Communicates with another person or transmits or displays an image in a manner in which there is a reasonable expectation that the image will be viewed by the victim by (by telephone, in writing or by electronic communication) without legitimate purpose:
(A) (i) With the malicious intent to frighten, intimidate, or cause emotional distress; or
(ii) In a manner the defendant knows, or reasonably should know, would frighten, intimidate, or cause emotional distress to a similarly situated person of reasonable sensibilities; and
(B) As the result of the communication, the person is frightened, intimidated, or emotionally distressed.

No electronic communication is safe under the new law, as subsections have been added to included images shared via social networks where the victim could possibly see it. The bill now includes language that requires social networking sites to hand over the offending materials to the government if there’s a warrant or court order, or if the person who posted the images provides consent.
The vague nature of Tennessee’s amended harassment law has many calling it unconstitutional, including UCLA School of Law professor Eugene Volokh. Volokh describes several behaviors that will soon be illegal: “If you’re posting a picture of someone in an embarrassing situation— not at all limited to, say, sexually-themed pictures or illegally taken pictures— you’re likely a criminal unless the prosecutor, judge, or jury concludes that you had a ‘legitimate purpose’. Likewise, if you post an image intended to distress some religious, political, ethnic, racial, or other group, you can be sent to jail if governments decisionmaker thinks your purpose wasn’t ‘legitimate’. Nothing in the law requires that the picture be of the ‘victim’, only that it be distressing to the ‘victim’. The same is true even if you didn’t intend to distress those people, but reasonably should have known that the material— pictures of Mohammed or blasphemous jokes about Jesus Christ, or harsh cartoon insults of some political group— would ’cause emotional distress to a similarly situated person of reasonable sensibilities’. Of course the same would apply if a newspaper or television station posts embarrassing pictures or blasphemous images on its site.”
The amendment was passed on 18 May and signed into law on 30 May by Governor Bill Haslam and will go into effect 1 July.
This is not Tennessee’s first foray into controversial digital legislation. The digitally-conscious-but-not-exactly-savvy state previously made it illegal to share passwords to sites such as Netfix.

Rico says one can only sigh at such backwardness...