ALBANY N.Y.— New York’s highest court said on Tuesday that a law designed to criminalize cyberbullying was so broad that it violated the First Amendment, marking the first time a U.S. court weighed the constitutionality of such a law.

The 2011 Albany County law banned electronic communication intended to “harass, annoy, threaten…or otherwise inflict significant emotional harm on another person.”

The law was challenged on First Amendment grounds by Marquan Mackey-Meggs, who at age 15 in 2011 pleaded guilty under the law to creating a Facebook page that included graphic sexual comments alongside photos of classmates at his Albany-area high school.

The Court of Appeals in a 5-2 decision said it was possible to pass a law outlawing bullying via social media or text message that respected free speech rights, but that the county’s statute went too far.

“It appears that the provision would criminalize a broad spectrum of speech outside the popular understanding of cyberbullying,” Judge Victoria Graffeo wrote for the court, “including, for example, an email disclosing private information about a corporation or a telephone conversation meant to annoy an adult.”

The majority rejected a bid by the county to sever the provisions that violated free speech rights and leave the rest of the law intact.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Robert Smith said the law could have been saved by applying it only to children and deleting certain vague terms, such as “hate mail.”

The ruling reversed a lower court decision, which dismissed the free speech claims.

Mackey-Meggs did not appeal his conviction but pressed forward with the First Amendment challenge. Since the court overturned the law, however, the indictment against Mackey-Meggs was also struck down.

Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy said in a statement that he was disappointed with the decision and would work with county lawmakers “to craft a (new) law that both protects free speech and keep kids safe.”

Officials at the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represented Mackey-Meggs, did not immediately return a request for comment.

More than a dozen states, including Maryland, Washington and Louisiana, have adopted criminal sanctions for cyberbullying, according to the non-profit Cyberbullying Research Center. Lawmakers in New York and a handful of other states are considering similar laws.  g

Obama to reform immigration on his own, 

bypassing Congress

WASHINGTON — President Obama said on Monday he would take executive action to revamp the U.S. immigration system and move additional resources to protect the border after hopes of passing broad reform legislation in Congress officially died.

Republican John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives, told Obama last week that his chamber would not vote on immigration reform this year, killing chances that a wide-ranging bill passed by the Senate would become law.

The collapse of the legislative process delivers another in a series of blows to Obama’s domestic policy agenda and comes as he struggles to deal with a flood of unaccompanied minors from Central America who have entered the United States.

It also sets up a new battle with congressional republicans, who accuse Obama of going beyond his legal authority to take executive action on issues such as gay rights and equal pay for women and men.

Obama chided republicans for refusing to bring immigration reform to a vote and said only legislation could provide a permanent fix to the problem.

“The failure of the House Republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security, it’s bad for our economy, and it’s bad for our future,” Obama said in the White House Rose Garden.

“America cannot wait forever for them to act. That’s why today I’m beginning a new effort to fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own.”

The president directed Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to move enforcement resources from the U.S. interior to the border. A White House official said the administration would look at ways to ensure the deportation process was focused on national security priorities and that more investigative teams were available to prosecute smugglers bringing people across the border.

Obama asked his team to prepare recommendations on other actions he can take unilaterally by the end of the summer.

The president has pushed for reform that would create a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants within the United States. The Senate bill had such provisions, but republicans in the House largely opposed them as amounting to amnesty for people who entered the country illegally.

Immigration activists, frustrated with the administration’s deportation practices, pressed Obama to make his executive actions aggressive.

“We are pleased that President Obama finally understands that Speaker John Boehner has officially allowed the extreme wing of the (Republican Party) to kill the best chance for immigration reform legislation in decades,” said PICO National Network, a religious and community organizing group, in a statement. “We hope that now that the facts are straight, President Obama will do the job Congress failed to do.”