[8/20/16] Posting critical blogs is now a crime in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, where sheriff’s deputies raided a blogger’s home and seized two computers and five cell phones.
The deputies were trying to identify the person behind a blog called ExposeDAT.
ExposeDAT accused a number of local officials, including Sheriff Jerry Larpenter, Parish President Gordon Dove and District Attorney Joe Waitz, of various forms of corruption, according to WWL-TV.
One of the last entries on the blog, dated July 31, accused officials of helping a company called Baby Oil and Environmental Equipment Inc. avoid paying $400,000 in taxes to the parish.
On August 2, Larpenter’s deputies went to the home of Houma, Louisiana, Police Officer Wayne Anderson and executed a search warrant. The deputies seized computers and Facebook information in an attempt to determine who is behind ExposeDAT. The warrant is part of Waitz’s attempt to prosecute Anderson for a crime called criminal defamation.
Legal experts say the raid probably was unconstitutional.
