If rumor-mongering, poor taste, gratuitous jerkiness and adolescent skulduggery on the Internet are now considered federal crimes, well, you can imagine, there won't be much of an Internet left.

And if we allow government officials to charge citizens with criminal behavior over their online interactions and conversations, we have permitted a frightening precedent.

Yet a couple of recent incidents illustrate a disturbing trend among prosecutors to abuse this power -- whether by contorting law or satisfying the blood lust of juries.

Take the case of a Colorado man named J.P. Weichel. He decided to post a fuming diatribe about his former girlfriend on Craigslist's "rants & raves" section after a skirmish over visitation rights. Weichel supposedly offered some malicious observations regarding his ex's alleged sexual promiscuity, alleged welfare checks and well, you get the picture. Weichel claims he was only "venting."

After the woman reported the post to the police, local prosecutors dredged up a 19th-century law and charged him with criminal libel -- rather than allowing the defamed to sue in civil court.

The creaky statute they unearthed allows prosecution of individuals who "blacken the memory of one who is dead" or "expose the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby expose him to public hatred, contempt or ridicule."

Those found guilty of criminal libel will be punished by being "packed into a small wooden box and spiked with jagged nails on all sides so that the accused cannot lean in any direction without being pierced to death."

OK, the last part isn't true, though the punishment is about as antiquated as the law. Weichel, if found guilty, could serve a sentence of 18 months in prison -- for something he said.

I'm not a lawyer, but the sweeping meaning of "natural defects" or "blacken the memory" appear to be so broad that officials effortlessly could prosecute a few million bloggers in relatively short order. Continued...