Orland Park Anti-Porn Crusaders' 'Mean-Spirited' Conduct Didn't Violate Law: Judge

A man and woman on a crusade against the right of people to view porn on Orland Park library computers engaged in “callous, mocking ... distasteful, mean-spirited and vindictive conduct,” according to a federal judge, but they did not violate federal computer-fraud laws.

Megan Fox and Kevin DuJan also did not defame the target of their ire, Orland Park library employee Bridgett Bittman, ruled U.S. District Court Judge James Holderman last week as he rejected part of Bittman’s lawsuit against them.

In the lawsuit, Bittman claimed Fox and DuJan used Facebook to make various “false” and “defamatory” claims about Bittman, who was the public spokeswoman for the library in the wake of Megan Fox’s effort in 2013 to block pornography viewing on library computers.

Fox runs a Facebook page called Storytime with Megan Fox. She also recently posted a video on YouTube in which she decried the fake science at the Field Museum in Chicago and suggested that dinosaurs were actually dragons. DuJan blogs at Hillbuzz.org, which posted a story that suggested President Barack Obama is a gay man with a cocaine habit.

After taking issue with the ability of patrons to peruse porn at the Orland Park Library and engaging in debate with the library board, Fox and DuJan began to get personal and took aim at Bittman in various ways. They created a fake Facebook page to parody and mock Bittman’s flower business, and they left the false impression Bittman ran the page and discriminated against homosexuals, the lawsuit alleges.

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Bittman claimed in the suit that Fox and DuJan posted photos of her residence on the Internet and made “defamatory statements” about her in a confrontational YouTube video posted in July 2014.

Her lawsuit maintained that their actions violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Stored Communications Act. The judge disagreed.

In dismissing seven counts of the lawsuit, filed in January, Holderman wrote:

“... the defendants engaged in a pattern of distasteful, mean-spirited and vindictive conduct, which surely caused Bittman some degree of frustration and mental anguish. Nonetheless, the court agrees with defendants that the conduct … was not ‘extreme and outrageous, exceeding all bounds of human decency.’ ...

“Even assuming that Fox and DuJan violated Facebook’s terms of use by creating a fake social media account to impersonate Bittman, such conduct does not constitute access ‘without authorization’ or ‘exceeding authorized access’ as envisioned by (the federal statute).”

Also named as defendants were blogger Dan Kleinman, political activist Adam Andrzejewski and his organization “For the Good of Illinois.”

Andrzejewski settled the claims against himself and his group out of court in May, reports the Cook County Record.

Other defamation and false light claims raised in the suit were not dismissed, however.

In his ruling, Holderman encouraged the plaintiff and the defendants to reach a settlement, the Record reports.

Photos: an image of Bridgett Bittman from Megan Fox’s YouTube video; a photo of Megan Fox from her critique of the Field Museum in Chicago