Woman Investigated for Linking to Police Web Site

A Wisconsin woman is suing the city of Sheboygan for a criminal investigation launched against her in what is being called a landmark case. What makes this case unique is the reason the plaintiff, Jennifer Reisinger, was investigated. The city targeted Reisinger for simply linking to the city’s police department web site.

According to Reisinger, Sheboygan city attorney Stephen McLean sent her a cease-and-desist notice ordering her to remove the link from her web site. The lawsuit reveals that Mayor Juan Perez told McLean to send the notice, even after he informed the mayor that consent was not needed to post a link to another web site. Frightened by McLean’s letter, Reisinger promptly removed the link from her site. The city didn’t stop there, though. The suit claims a criminal investigation was launched against Reisinger, even after she complied with the order.

Reisinger believes the city took these extreme measures in an effort to punish her for supporting a recall of the mayor. She says the city’s investigation hurt the image of her business and even resulted in death threats. After being informed by a police lieutenant that she was being investigated for the use of links to city government sites, Reisinger hired attorney Paul Bucher to represent her. He encouraged her to repost the link to the police department web site. The city withdrew its demands not to link to city web sites last November. Reisinger isn’t backing down though, instead filing a federal lawsuit which lists the city attorney, police chief, and city clerk as defendants. She is seeking $250,000 in compensatory damages, as well as unspecified punitive damages and declaratory relief, for what she calls a violation of her First Amendment rights.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel spoke to Internet law and copyright specialist Bruce Boyden about the case. He believes that if the case were to go to trial, it would be the first of its kind. Boyden stated that some web sites require permission to link to them, but that he had never heard of a company enforcing violations where no copyright or trademark was violated. Internet links, like most speech, are not protected in some cases, such as copyright infringement and threatening language. While neither the lawsuit nor the cease-and-desist order indicate the way the link to the police department web site was used, Boyden says it appears to be legitimate.

Boyden also provided valuable commentary on the case. “Linking to the Web site is no different than listing the street address of the Sheboygan police department,” he said. “I have never heard that you can’t link to a government Web site that, by the way, is paid for with taxpayer money.”

Indeed, the city’s laughable demands would not apply to any comparable real-world scenarios. Permission would not be needed to distribute the police department’s street address. It needs to be available so people can locate the police station. Similarly, if linking to the police department’s web site were illegal, how would anyone be able to find it? A simple Google search yields several links to the police department’s web site (not to mention a street address, a phone number, and a map). By the city’s logic, should it not be a priority to investigate every search engine on the Internet? I probably don’t need to explain how illogical the city’s actions were. The mayor’s cease-and-desist order was a blatant abuse of power and just supports Reisinger’s view that he is not fit to hold public office. Jennifer Reisinger used her freedom of speech to combat a corrupt government, and the government used corruption to combat her freedom of speech.

Hopefully, this case will establish that a city cannot stop people from posting links to its web site. It would be a sad day when not only cannot ordinary people legally build upon the creations of others, but can’t even acknowledge their existence.

Source: Sheboygan woman files landmark case over Web links