According to a recently passed Tenessee law, if someone posts a picture online that "frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress" to someone who see’s it, that person can be fined, jailed, or taken to small claims court.

There is nothing in the law that requires the picture to be of the person, nothing that requires it to be reasonably thought that it would cause someone to be offended, frightened, or sustain emotional distress, just that it do so.

Any amount of frightening, intimidating, or emotional distress is illegal.

People can get frightened, offended, or get emotional distress from anything (or someone could pretend to be, in order to collect monetary gain). Should everything that offends, frightens, or causes emotional distress to someone now be illegal?

So you don’t have a right to express your political or religious beliefs through the form of a picture? You don’t have a right to use photos as evidence of abuse because people may be offended?

This could also be extended to things like people being scared of certain animals, bugs, plants, etc.

Now, look at what the First Amendment says:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

This law will render virtually all posting of pictures illegal. This is against the First Amendment, which was for Freedom not only of Speech but of Freedom of Expression. Period! 

There are three main things you can do:

1. Sign the petition; every signature counts.

2. Print out my summary of this article and give it out to people in order to get more and more people informed about this.

3. Email the letter through the email tool on the left to everyone you know. Everyone. We need as many signatures as we can get, and word of mouth is the best way to get it. Post it about it on your social media profiles, as well.

Here is my website.

For a summary of all the things you can do, click here.

Check out the law in it's entirity.