Gilberto Valle typed many things into his Google search bar.
Where to buy the world's largest baking dish? How to properly tie a woman to a rotating life-size barbeque spit? "How to chloroform a girl"?
The questions Valle asked were bizarre, disturbing, misogynist, and, to many of us, unthinkable. But Valle thought them. He typed them. And he hit the "enter" button.
But in doing so, did he commit a crime?
The New York Police Department officer, crowned the "Cannibal Cop" by New York papers, is the subject of the new documentary "Thought Crimes," premiering this week on HBO. The film uses the lens of Valle's incredible story to peer into the world of online fetish and fantasy. It is disturbing, interesting, and even funny. (Full disclosure: I have a brief appearance as a talking head in the film.)
In short, the judge noted that fantasy alone cannot be a conspiracy.
After his day job as a cop, Valle came home every night and lived a second life online as a member of the "Vore" community. Vore — short for "Carnivore" — describes a fetish too disturbing for mainstream fiction or pornography, yet common enough to have a community of like-minded wannabe woman-eaters on the darker pages of the web.
Valle's (now ex-)wife, to her horror, discovered his online life and turned his web activity — his Google searches, his online Vore identity, his graphic cannibal fantasy chats — over to the NYPD. Valle instantly went from employee to suspect. He was indicted on federal charges of, among other things, conspiracy to commit kidnapping. The charge was based on his search history and the volumes of online chats with other men about kidnapping, raping, tying up, and roasting women to death.
And not just any women: real women. Real women Valle knew — his friends from school, and even his wife. He even abused his authority by looking up their names, street addresses, ages, and sizes in the NYPD's database. (He was separately convicted of misusing police resources.)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the jury wasn't sympathetic to Valle's defense that his actions were nothing more than online role-playing. They voted to convict him. But the judge presiding over Valle's trial granted the defense's motion to set aside the jury verdict, holding Valle couldn't be found guilty for conspiracy to kidnap.
The judge, in a 100-plus page opinion, focused on the fact that over and over again Valle and his Vore contacts made plans to meet up to kidnap women — and the days for those plans came and went, time after time, with no real-world action. In short, the judge noted that fantasy alone cannot be a conspiracy.
The judge's ruling rightly highlights the problems with finding someone guilty of a "conspiracy" or an "attempt" to commit a crime when the evidence of a crime is nothing but words. It's one thing to use a Google search as evidence of intent or knowledge, when an actual crime has resulted and there's a real victim. But in the Cannibal Cop case, no women were hurt. No kidnapping plans were consummated. For Valle, the words were the crime. The online world was the conspiracy.
Valle's case is now before the federal appeals court, which is deciding whether to uphold the judge's determination that Valle committed no crime. The court heard oral argument in the case yesterday, where one judge asked the prosecutor on the case:
"You'd concede that trying to draw lines in this unbelievable collection of emails about what is fantasy and what's not is a difficult if not surreal exercise, wouldn't you?"
The documentary's director, Erin Carr, has said she was prompted to make "Thought Crimes" because she wanted to wrestle with thorny questions about online anonymity, the meaning of our online search history, and the line between fantasy and action. She deserves credit for taking such a sensational story and teasing out the bigger questions about how we behave online, and what it all means.
After all, you might be surprised to find out what you Googled last year, or five years ago. And while what you've typed into your search bar might not be as sensational as Valle's queries, it's not a bad idea to check out your Google search history — and delete it as you like. (As a free speech attorney, my own history is a virtual smorgasbord of sociopathy, since nothing is NSFW.) Or better yet, use a search engine that doesn’t track your searches. My colleague Jay Stanley has written a great guide to protect the privacy of your online inquiries.
Apparently, Valle himself was aware of how a review of his Google searches might read. Slate reporter Daniel Engber, whose constant and excellent coverage of the Valle trial first hooked Carr, reported that Valle had also read a Techdirt blog entitled "If You're Kidnapping Someone, Maybe Don't Search Google for Kidnapping."
But what if you do, and no crime is committed and no one is hurt? Simple: That search is fully protected by the First Amendment.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
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Free Speech
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Free Speech
Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.
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Minnesota Supreme CourtNov 2024
Free Speech
Energy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn RiotEnergy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn Riot
This case in the Minnesota Supreme Court asks whether the MFFIA's protections apply to newsgatherers even if they are alleged to have engaged in trespassing while newsgathering. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Minnesota and law firm Biersdorf & Associations, filed a brief representing Unicorn Riot, a media organization that covered protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The brief argues that MFFIA and constitutional reporter’s privileges, under both the U.S. and Minnesota constitutions, protect Unicorn Riot from having to comply with Energy Transfer’s subpoenas.