Hate Is Hate, in Any Medium

A former UC Irvine student has been indicted by a federal grand jury on 10 counts of civil rights violations. Jose Machado is alleged to have sent an anonymous computer message to about 60 UCI students, mostly of Asian heritage, threatening to “make it my life carreer [sic] to find and kill every one of you personally.” Irvine has the UC system’s highest percentage of students of Asian extraction.

Already, the case, said to be the first federal prosecution of a cyberspace hate crime, is raising free speech questions. It has generated doubts about whether the Internet should be subject to the laws governing other media. One constitutional law expert even questions using taxpayer dollars to prosecute anyone over words transmitted via computer. Some people might wonder what constitution he’s been studying.

In no medium has the cloak of free speech ever successfully been placed over harassment or death threats directed at specific individuals. There’s no reason to make an exception for computer communications. Making a computer threat against a public official already is a felony in California.

Clearly, other media are covered. After a former high school football coach was found to have made harassing phone calls to a colleague who had exposed a high school sex scandal, he was sentenced to jail time and 200 hours on a road crew. Using the Postal Service to threaten to “kill, injure and intimidate” is a federal offense.

The Jose Machado case is the kind that should be pressed, although it could be argued that prosecutorial emphasis on the death threats might carry more weight than a hate-crime emphasis.

Respected advocates of online communication want to ensure that this newest form of electronic exchange is taken seriously. Supporting the pursuit of this case is one very strong way to do that.