WASHINGTON — Beverly Hills esthetician and lash stylist Gina Bisignano has been so present on social media that the federal criminal complaint against her has practically written itself off.
The story of a 52-year-old salon owner who charted a dark path for disinformation to the US Capitol on Jan. 6, where she allegedly snatched a horn and urged rioters to take up arms, backed up by one social media post after another. Included in the file of the Ministry of Justice.
There Bisignano, wearing a Louis Vuitton sweater, is pictured in front of the Capitol talking about her work and her hometown as the riots began. Here she is again rants about globalization, George Soros and stolen voices. And again, he asked for guns and gas masks moments before a hooligan attacked the officer with what appeared to be a baseball bat.
Now, Bisignano is silent on the internet. It is not allowed on the Internet. Not because social media blocked it, but because a federal judge did. If Bisignano goes online while awaiting trial, she risks imprisonment.
Judges have long been reluctant to ban anyone from the Internet, a restriction that essentially cuts off a person from much of modern society and has been reserved mostly for those accused and convicted of child sexual abuse. But as toxic misinformation becomes an increasingly serious threat, leading to terrorism and domestic violence, courts are confronting nagging new questions about how often and under what circumstances those accused of participating should be disconnected from the Internet altogether.
“We are heading into uncharted waters,” said Nina Jankovic, a fellow at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank, which studies disinformation. “Given the threats we see continuing and the heightened alerts, it is clear that things are not dissipating. … That is why the judges are making these calls.”
In Bisignano’s case, the ban may have been easy for the judge to enforce. The defendant requested it. Her lawyer saw it as one of the few bargaining chips the Capitol riot suspect from California has to stay out of prison for now.
“If it weren’t for social media, she wouldn’t have been a defendant,” Bisignano’s lawyer, Charles Perrotto, said. “She knows that’s what caused her confusion in the first place.”
However, other lawyers accused of participating in the attack on the Capitol are resisting the restrictions vigorously, and judges are struggling to see how far they can go.
Prosecutors moved to prevent at least five accused in the Capitol rebellion from appearing on social media platforms or even going online at all, according to The Times’ review of court files. These defendants await trial dates that will be months away as the Justice Department grapples with one of the most complex and exhausting investigations in its history.
Among them is John Sullivan, a Utah man accused of obstructing Congress by allegedly joining a rampage through the Capitol in tactical gear, encouraging rioters to do damage. Regardless of prosecutors’ objections, a federal judge ruled that Sullivan may continue to use Facebook, Twitter and “encrypted platforms” under supervision.
Defending the ban, prosecutors pointed to a video of Sullivan threatening police, smashing a window and telling other rioters “we have to burn this stuff.”
However, Sullivan’s attorney, Steve Kirsch, argued that the defendant was there as a journalist, claiming that he sold some of his footage to news networks. He accused prosecutors of trying to impede his client’s ability to “communicate the way the vast majority of Americans communicate.” Kirsch wrote in a court note that the restriction would prevent Sullivan from keeping up with friends and family online or even checking the news, as media sites, which invite user feedback, fall under the social media umbrella.
These concerns prompted the US Supreme Court in 2017 to overturn a North Carolina law banning convicted sex offenders from using social media platforms. The court found that the unconstitutional prohibition put it out of reach “for many to be the primary sources for knowledge of current events, for checking employment advertisements, for speaking and listening in the modern public arena, and for exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge.”
“The courts recognize that social media is very important to people’s lives in many ways,” said Alexis Carteron, director of the Rutgers Clinic for Constitutional Rights. In September, the Rutgers Clinic and the ACLU persuaded a federal court to block enforcement of a New York law that broadly bans the use of social media by sex offenders.
“There are serious rights at stake, no doubt,” Carteron said.
The Ohio Supreme Court found the same in June, when it struck down a protective order barring a man from posting on social media about his mother and sister. The man had accused both of them of playing evil in their husbands’ deaths, even when the police found no such thing. The state Supreme Court ruled 7 to zero that the ban was an unwarranted violation of his rights to free speech.
The court wrote that “the potential infringement of speech rights in the future cannot justify the blanket ban imposed here on … speech even before it is spoken.”
As courts make an effort to overcome the effects of isolating people from social media in a society in which its use has become an increasingly essential function, the escalation of criminal behavior driven by disinformation makes the task even more difficult.
“There are some real concerns people have that it is social media that drives people [to] During a hearing in late January, District Judge Zia Faruki, Washington, DC, while considering whether to impose an internet ban in one of the most high-profile cases in the wake of the Capitol attack, said abnormal behavior.. .to make bad decisions. The accused, 22-year-old Riley Williams, is accused of helping to steal the laptop of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the rebellion.
“I want to do everything in my power to make sure that Ms. Williams remains on parole and does not find herself regressing back into something that could cause herself more problems,” Farocki said. “But, obviously…it’s a fine line between paternity and release terms.”
At a court hearing, Williams’ attorney said she did not own the laptop, and that a search of her home and car by law enforcement did not locate them. Lawyer A. c. Kramer, a key government informant against Williams, described as a “former romantic partner” in court papers, has a vendetta against her. The FBI says Williams was videotaped and in social media posts, rioters walked toward Pelosi’s office and bragged about stealing from him.
Besides the legal and ethical challenges posed, Farooqi faced minor practical challenges. After prosecutors warned that Williams could use the Internet to destroy evidence such as social media posts and instruct others to do the same, he ruled that he should stay off the Internet and only use the foldable phone to make necessary calls. But then came the question of whether Williams could watch TV.
At the hearing, the prosecutor noted that smart TVs can access the Internet. The judge noted that even some refrigerators are now connected online. This was followed by a back and forth about how Williams was able to watch TV while awaiting trial. Hold on for a while. There was talk about the Netflix app.
The judge finally ruled that Williams could watch TV under her mother’s supervision, and that bugging the device’s web function could send her back to prison.
The court’s long efforts to prevent Williams from potentially criminal behavior online to completely isolate her from society have highlighted the challenges that lie ahead, as more crimes are spread across social media, and prosecutors are on the move. perpetrators currently.
“This ban is not something to consider for your common criminal,” Jankovic said. “But these are not your normal cases.”