A Texas state district judge dismissed felony charges against Priscilla Villarreal, a self-styled local journalist who posted police dispatches on Facebook. The Laredo Police Department upset a number of her 82,000 followers when they arrested her on charges of “misuse of official information.” The judge ruled there was no legal restrictions on the police dispatches, and she had not used them for her own benefit. Legal experts think Villarreal would have won on First Amendment grounds had the judge chose to go there. Should the case have gone against Villarreal, it would have set a bad precedent in restrictions on public information. (The Texas Monitor, April 3, 2018, by Mark Lisheron)
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