OfficialSpin: Results Beyond Words ?

Is It Illegal to Send Email?

Ashish Sirohi, a former Columbia Univeristy has apparently been arrested because of an email (a quite innocuous one) he wrote criticizing a couple of his former professors (Robert Pollack and Karen Blank). Click here to see the chargesheet in .pdf.

The email was sent to 13 people, but not to either of the professors. He was treated, on January 13, 2004 to a visit, and subsequent arrest, at his apartment by NYPD Detective John Garvey and then in the course of 20 hours taken to three different jails, until his release. If you take a look at the chargesheet, Sirohi was arrested for his intent to annoy, harrass, threaten, or alarm another person etc. etc.

What is going on with free speech and institutions of higher learning? I don't understand what or how this man is being charged with two counts of Aggravated Harassment in the Second Degree. I have been to New York, and I know there is actual crime that needs to be fought in the city, as opposed to an arrest of a mathmetician who has voiced his opinion (via email) and subsequently made a couple of professors get their "panties in a bunch," for lack of a better term. Do professors really think that students don't talk about them (and email about them) in the off hours? Ridiculous.




Click here to see the full story from Officialspin.com, and here to see Sirohi's page on the whole thing.

posted by sajit @ 5:48 PM