St. Louis lawmaker seeks to create crime of 'malicious prosecution of a journalist'
JEFFERSON CITY — A St. Louis lawmaker wants to create the crime of “malicious prosecution of a journalist,” a class E felony punishable by up to four years in prison.
Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis, said he was inspired to file the legislation last week after Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, in October announced a criminal investigation into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch when one of the newspaper’s journalists alerted the state to a significant data vulnerability that exposed educators’ Social Security numbers to public disclosure.
“The attacks by certain folks on journalists doing their job frighten me,” Merideth said. “They’ve been rising and that one went to a new level of actually pursuing prosecution for something that he (Parson) had specific knowledge wasn’t a crime.”
After alerting the state about the data issue contained on a Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website, the Post-Dispatch didn’t publish its report until after the officials moved to protect the vulnerable information. The newspaper did not disclose any personal information.
Read more: https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-lawmaker-seeks-to-create-crime-of-malicious-prosecution-of-a-journalist/article_c3beafcd-b210-5bd4-99bb-4253b77d56a1.html
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