Blogging Can Be Dangerous to Your Freedom

[Octafish]

By Christopher Scholl
WhoWhatWhy.com on Apr 5, 2014

An Alabama blogger posted a simple question on his website this week: “Why did it take five months for me to be released from jail?”

Roger Shuler’s extraordinary imprisonment last autumn came after he blogged about allegations of an affair between a powerful Republican and a lobbyist, and in conservative Alabama, it seems that can land you some enemies.

SNIP...

But the scent of southern politics surrounded the case. The judge who placed Shuler in jail happened to have been appointed by the state’s Chief Justice, Roy Moore. As WhoWhatWhy reported, Moore is a controversial Republican, and a key player in Karl Rove’s GOP effort to draft conservatives to the bench.

There have been consistent protests about Shuler’s incarceration. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press cited Shuler as the only journalist in the western hemisphere to be jailed like this. The American Civil Liberties Union protested, too. Even The New York Times finally caught on to the case, covering Shuler’s story months later, in January.

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So what led to his release? Judge Claud Neilson wrote that Shuler’s wife, Carol, “removed most of the subject matter of the injunction from the ‘Legal Schnauzer’ blog, from Shuler’s YouTube account, and from Shuler’s Twitter account.” He warned, however, that Shuler is under a permanent injunction and cannot post the comments again.

CONTINUED w/links....

http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/04/05/get-jail/

Shuler's the guy who worked to draw attention to the Rove-GOP railroading of Gov. Don Siegelman.