Unprotected lying

Of course, we’ve heard from all of the pseudointellectuals how lying about military service is protected speech, but there are instances of lying which are not protected. TSO sends us a link about a teenager who convinced everyone that she had cancer and took them for a coupla bucks;

Police officials said Tuesday that a three-month investigation found that Angie Gomez, 18, had no record of having leukemia, as she claimed while allegedly collecting about $17,000 in donations.

Gomez is accused of theft by deception over $1,500, a state jail felony. The case has been sent to the district attorney’s office as a non-arrest, meaning she has not been taken into custody.

“There is nothing to indicate she had cancer. There is no medical records, no doctors,” Detective Liliana Medina said. The investigation determined there were no other suspects in the case, Medina said.

A three month investigation? Really? When i turned over all of the information I had on Charles Baxter to the FBI, they told me I had too much time on my hands. But law enforcement took three months to catch someone without cancer?

in a related story from Wall Street Journal, the Congress and the Obama Administration want to criminalize lying on Facebook in the name of cyber security;

In 2009, the Justice Department prosecuted a woman for violating the “terms of service” of the social networking site MySpace.com. The woman had been part of a group that set up a MySpace profile using a fake picture. The feds charged her with conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Prosecutors say the woman exceeded authorized access because MySpace required all profile information to be truthful. But people routinely misstate the truth in online profiles, about everything from their age to their name. What happens when each instance is a felony?

But if you make claims to be a veteran, like Rick Duncan and Xavier Alvarez, it’s not a crime, it’s free speech. they both made a living based on their lies, so there was a monetary benefit I guess they’re lucky they didn’t claim to have cancer or misstate their ages.

Category: Phony soldiers