SEPARATION of CHURCH and STATE

by Leigh Lundin

Last week, I wrote about the police raid of the private home of the Gizmodo editor who obtained Apple’s lost iPhone and returned it to Apple. Prosecutors acted on the presumption that news blogs don’t enjoy the same First and Fourth Amendment rights as newspapers they are gradually replacing. Who pays attention to that silly old Constitution, anyway!

Following a brief by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (kind of the ACLU of technology), suggestions began to circulate that the DA’s office may have lied to get the search warrant, and likely overreached state and federal laws. The perception of a war against news blogs wasn’t helped when Assistant District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe opposed a hearing for unsealing the search warrant filed by the Associated Press, Bloomberg, the Los Angeles Times, CNET, and other news organizations. We may or may not see whether the warrant was justified.

In researching the article, I was stunned how often public officials abuse their offices in pursuit of critics in blogs and forums. It must be frustrating to be the focus of a one-sided article, particularly if the forum or blog doesn’t allow the other party to respond, but if you’ve chosen to be in the public eye, a modicum of maturity is expected. I respect officials who handle criticism professionally, even when I may not agree with them.

One of the most disturbing stories I came across happened– where else– here in Florida. Police, prosecutors, and two preachers teamed up to learn the identity of and denounce a devout Christian critical of his mega-church’s "abusive fund-raising". ("Abusive" in this sense refers to ethics and finances.) Criticisms included Preacher Mac Brunson negotiating a $300,000 salary, constructing a "lavish" $100,000 office suite for his dogs and himself, putting his wife and son on the church’s payroll without discernible duties, accepting an extravagant $300,000 half acre golf club building site for himself instead of his church– a summary of what the alarmed blogger called "valid concerns". Despite all his perqs, Preacher Brunson managed to claim he’s one of the lowest paid members in the Southern Baptist Conference.

And they say fiction doesn’t pay.

WWJD?

What would Jesus do? First Baptist Church of Jacksonville Pastor Mac Brunson didn’t like reading the criticism in a blog called FBC Jax Watchdog. After railing about it in church, he sought out a church member, Detective Robert Hinson, to uncover the identity of the blogger.

No police reports were filed, but to force Google and the ISP Comcast to reveal the information about the blogger, the Rev. Brunson, the Executive Pastor Rev. John Blount, and Detective Hinson apparently fabricated "an ongoing Internet incident" with "possible criminal overtones" to obtain a State Attorney’s Office subpoena that demanded names, addresses, and personal details.

Comcast handed the information over to the sheriff’s office, then Detective Hinson turned it over to the First Baptist Church. The church held a sort of hearing using wrongfully obtained information and terminated the membership of its critic, Thomas Rich, banishing him and his wife on pain of trespass. Ironic, because the point of blogging anonymously was fear of reprisals if his identity were known.

While he was at it, Detective Hinson investigated two other religious blogs, one of them documenting sexual predation at another church. Surprisingly, Undersheriff Frank Mackesy defended the abuse of his office, implying criticism could be considered a threat against "the city’s large religious institutions." He went on to say, "The detective hasn’t done anything wrong. I’d be disappointed in the detective if (he) didn’t do it."

For a man who doesn’t like criticism, the Rev. Brunson doles it out freely He psychoanalyzed the member of his flock as having "obsessive compulsive" disorder and characterized him as "not very stable. What you’re dealing with is a sociopath."

How Christian of the man.

Thomas Rich has brought suit in federal court. The lawsuit claims the investigation "served no governmental interest," was "fabricated to create the illusion of legitimacy" in "a mere pretext for the discovery and disclosure" of Thomas Rich’s identity to the church. The sheriff’s department, "acting under color of state law, spent taxpayer money and government time prosecuting an errand of the church and in so doing acted as an extension and enforcer for a particular religious entity."

Both the county and the mega-church are seeking to have the suit dismissed. The county argues it did nothing wrong while the mega-church claims immunity for "internal religious matters" and "excessive entanglement in church policies, practices and beliefs."

Let a court decide.

Benny Hinn

It doesn’t have to be this way. I live within jogging distance of Benny Hinn’s World Center of Healing (once known as the World Center of Heroin after revelations of drug use and a couple of drug-related deaths). Security guards and spiked iron fences protect the spirit of the Christ child from, well, the Hinn family, I suppose. Benny has a younger brother, Christopher, an Orange County reserve deputy. Christopher developed a bit of a reputation for roughing up protestors, including other ministers. Among other accusations, Brother Hinn used an Orange County sheriff’s car to chase down Volusia County videographers in Seminole County and demand their video tape.

That June, Christopher Hinn and his fellow deputies arrested the Rev. Ricky L. Johnston and members of his congregation for appearing at Hinn’s church. Although Christopher Hinn represented himself as an Orange County undercover officer and used Orange County cars and equipment, he was actually a reserve volunteer who’d recruited a few other Orange County officers to act as ‘church security’.

Many of the abuses were documented by the local ABC affiliate in the days before blogging became popular. Once the Orange County Sheriff became aware of the situation, he investigated and took action immediately, disciplining officers. Ten of the people Christopher Hinn arrested received approximately $600,000 in recompense.

Two different sheriffs, two different media outlets, two different outcomes.

What Lies Ahead

The behavior of shady evangelists and dubious detectives, I leave to a higher authority, but the attitudes of law enforcement toward blogging gives me pause. News and opinion pieces published in the least of newspapers from the National Enquirer to supermarket throw-aways enjoy legal protection. However, a segment of police and prosecutors (and pastors) are deciding digital reporting doesn’t deserve the same constitutional protections as print, radio, and television.

And that should concern us all.