When does tweeting about a person qualify as cyberstalking?  A federal judge in Maryland ruled yesterday that the First Amendment applied to tweets and called into question the scope of the federal cyberstalking law.

The federal law against cyberstalking originally dealt just with serious threats of violence.  But the law was expanded in 2006 to criminalize using the internet to “harass and cause substantial emotional distress to a person in another state.”  

William Cassidy was charged with cyberstalking Alyce Zeoli, a Buddhist religious leader, based on his tweets, such as “Do the world a favor and go kill yourself. P.S. Have a nice day.”  Zeoli asserted that the tweets made her so fear for her safety that she had not left her house for a year and a half, except to see her psychiatrist.  

In assessing our rights in the digital age, Judge Roger Titus analogized to the colonial era in order to determine whether the U.S. Constitution applies to tweets and blogs: 

Did you know that key features of your smartphone—its camera, microphone, and its ability to connect to the Internet—can be surreptiously used against you?  Read my blog about it on Time.com.

Could you be in hot water with the cops based on what you post?  Cops routinely search Facebook photos, Myspace posts, Twitter feeds and YouTube videos to gather evidence and build a case.  Even innocent people can be ensnared in these digital dragnets.  Are you wearing a jacket that looks like one that was shoplifted from a local store?  Did you offer to sell homemade jewelry on Etsy while IRS agents were scrutinizing the site?  Are you Facebook friends with someone in Cuba or Iran?  Have you Googled the word “chloroform”?