Posted on 05/25/2010 2:39:51 PM PDT by Beaten Valve
When Sen. Jim Bunning complained on the Senate floor in February that he'd missed the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball game because of a debate on unemployment benefits -- a debate the Kentucky Republican himself prevented from proceeding to a vote -- Bruce Shore got angry.
"I was livid. I was just livid," said Shore, 51, who watched the floor proceedings on C-SPAN from his home in Philadelphia. "I'm on unemployment, so it affects me. I'm in shock."
Instead of just being angry, Shore took action: He sent several emails to Bunning staffers, blasting the senator for blocking the benefits.
"ARE you'all insane," said part of one letter Shore sent on Feb. 26 (which he shared with HuffPost). "NO checks equal no food for me. DO YOU GET IT??"
In that letter he signed off as "Brad Shore" from Louisville. He said he did the same thing in several messages sent via the contact form on Bunning's website. "My assumption was that if he gets an email from Philadelphia, who cares?" he said. "Why would he even care if a guy from Philadelphia gets upset?"
Bunning might not have cared, but the FBI did. Sometime in March, said Shore, agents came calling to ask about the emails. They read from printouts and asked if Shore was the author, which he readily admitted. They asked a few questions, and then, according to Shore, they said, "All right, we just wanted to make sure it wasn't anything to worry about."
But on March 13, U.S. Marshals showed up at Shore's house with a grand jury indictment. Now he's got to appear in federal court in Covington, Ky. on May 28 to answer for felony email harassment. Specifically, the indictment (PDF) says that on Feb. 26, Shore "did utilize a telecommunications device, that is a computer, whether or not communication ensued, without disclosing his identity and with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, and harass any person who received the communication."
The language of Shore's indictment is taken directly from the statute -- there's no description of the actual crime. The Kentucky U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment, but said it's a typical indictment.
Shore knows he's in trouble but he isn't sure why. He said he thought sending angry letters to Congress was a First Amendment thing. He swears he didn't intend to make a threat. "If I send 50 letters to Congress, is that illegal or is it just me wasting paper?"
Harvey Silverglate, a prominent civil liberties lawyer and the author of "Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent", has long argued that vague laws allow the federal government to prosecute citizens for things most people wouldn't consider crimes. (The message of his book's title is that the average person unintentionally commits three felonies a day. "Half of the anonymous Internet comments would" be illegal according to the statute used against Shore, said Silverglate.)
"If nothing else the U.S Attorney has managed to harass a defendant. Now we have to find out if the defendant managed to harass anybody," said Silverglate, who looked at Shore's indictment. "When finally the government is forced by a judge's order to specify what the criminal harassment consisted of, if in fact the words used are quite innocuous and don't by any standard rise to the level of a real threat, it's going to be an example of exactly what my complaint is about."
Bunning's office is not involved in the prosecution. A staffer said the office received lots of email over the unemployment issue and turned some over to the Capitol Police. It's up to the Capitol Police whether to involve federal or local law enforcement, and up to those agencies to pursue a case.
Shore said he's been unemployed for the past two years since losing his job as an office manager. He recently received his final unemployment check, joining the ranks of 35,200 Pennsylvanians and hundreds of thousands of Americans who've exhausted all their benefits. He said he used a credit card to book a hotel room in Covington for Friday.
He's particularly alarmed because he's already got a criminal record: In 1995, he and his girlfriend pleaded guilty to 35 burglaries in Bucks County, Pa. The Philadelphia Daily News dubbed them "Bonnie & Clyde": "Their last embrace came in their Northeast Philadelphia apartment. Cops with a warrant did some breaking in of their own and caught the couple, well, coupling -- surrounded by half the booty they'd burgled."
Shore said he got out of prison in 1999 and his lived since then with his mother, who is 81. He's afraid his email indiscretion will wipe out his progress, which includes community college and classes at Temple University, where in 2004 he was on a team that won a $2,000 prize in an IT excellence competition.
"I'm walking around in my head: jail for email, jail for email," he said. "At this point I'm just looking at my government and going, anything is possible. When do the adults wake up and say, 'This gentleman is just angry and frustrated?' I'm just speechless. Shocked. I probably dropped 10 pounds in a week. To think you turn your life around, you don't do anything wrong after you make a mistake when you were younger..."
sounds like this guy needs to sell his TV and buy some food with the money
The guy sounds like an idiot...but they should just drop it. People do have the right to redress government. He shouldn’t have lied about where he was from, but he’s a liberal...you can’t expect wisdom or intelligence.
OK, and why wasn't that action to try finding a f****** job?
Originates from the Puffington Post.
I’d like to read about it from a less sympathetic to the “victim” source.
35 burgleries - kind of a big deal!
On the other hand NO ONE in the Senate or House is any longer deserving of temperate remarks. They've left over 20 million young people UNEMPLOYED and with no hope.
They should be quaking in fear up on Capitol Hill.
Well, at least he's good at something.
I do not in any way sympathize with this guy’s entitlement mentality....BUT....the Constitution does give us the RIGHT TO PETITION FOR REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES! And you can be angry, agitated, less than polite, whatever. Just so long as you don’t threaten to harm or kill anyone. Allowing a case like this to move forward can have a dangerous chilling effect on free speech. I don’t have to agree with anyone’s grievance to defent their right to make it to Members of Congress.
Trolling is a federal felony?
If we can be arrested for sending angry e-mails to congress critters anonymously what's next, Free Republic?.
This is really scary that the Govt did more than investigate, they call a grand jury. If you can not call, email or write your representative or any public official with criticism inclusive of foul language, then this country is already gone.
So what if this guy has a criminal record. He did his time. If he threatened Bunning then that is a whole other matter, but if it is someone just venting at the idiocy that is Gov’t in general, then we are all in deep shit then...
He better hope that he gets a few conservatives and libertarians on the Grand Jury, because the Liberals will want to shut him up and will most likely indict.
I suspect that politicians get a lot of letters from unhappy constituents, so it seems unlikely that the FBI is going to pursue this unless there is some reason this particular letter stood out.
Claims that he didn't mean to be threatening mean nothing to me. If he wants my sympathy, he should release the letter so I can form my own opinion.
criminal record or not when did we loose our right to “seek redress of grievances” from our elected officials?
on the other hand if he goes to jail he’ll be one of Baracks success cases as he’ll no longer need unemployment!
An unemployed burglar.... what is this world coming to? lol
Even though this guy is a JA I don’t think sending annoying emails is worthy of this charge ....
The guy is a realy piece of work though ... “Hey Bunning where’s my free money, I’m hungry!”
In many places there are no f****** jobs.
Wow, I didn't know you could be unemployed and collect unemployment for two years straight.
Why is everyone attacking the victim in this case. Sure he should get a job. Sure he has a record.
The point is he sent non-threatening emails to Congress and is being prosecuted for those emails. From the story it seems the govt will have to prove in intended to harass.
Isn’t that what we are doing every single time we send any correspondence to Congress? Unless you are sending your comments with a check of course.
I agree with the concern. If the congress-critter is annoyed, it’s a felony? Well, Obama doesn’t like tea parties, shall they all be arrested for annoying the One when they send letters, petitions or show up with signs?
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