Free speech in Peoria?

YOU should think twice before setting up a Twitter account impersonating someone else.

Jonathan Daniel, 29, from Illinois found that out the hard way after police raided his house and arrested him over the account @peoriamayor which spoofed the town’s Mayor.

Twitter hosts thousands of accounts parodying athletes, actors and politicians. Daniel thought his account would be a good way to entertain friends.  “It was created to be a joke,” said Daniel, a father of two boys.  “I thought my friends would find it funny.”

His friends may have been amused but Peoria’s Mayor, Jim Ardis, was upset that the account suggested he was a drug addict and associated with prostitutes.

Mayor Ardis complained to the police prompting the April 15 raid on Daniel’s house to unmask him as the fake account owner.

Daniel’s house was searched and he was arrested with misdemeanour for impersonating a public official.

Lucky for Daniel, the State’s Attorney of Peoria County decided not to charge him.  Had he been charged he faced one year in prison and a $US2500 fine.

But it doesn’t end there. Daniel, a short-order cook at a local bar, is now suing the mayor and six other city officials for violating his constitutional rights.

“Political parody is a great tradition in the United States — from Thomas Nast to Jon Stewart,” said Harvey Grossman, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and Daniel’s lead attorney.

SOURCE