Stolen Valor Act is now LAW

[Sdiver]

Well, the big eared git finally did something right.

Obama Signs Stolen Valor Act Into Law

If you lie about being awarded military honors for profit, you can now be subject to criminal prosecution, according to a new law signed by President Obama today.

The Stolen Valor Act of 2013, introduced in January by Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.), “makes it a Federal crime for an individual to fraudulently hold oneself out to be a recipient of any of several specified military decorations or medals with the intent to obtain money, property, or other tangible benefit,” the White House said today, announcing the signing.

The law was the latest attempt by the government to help protect real military heroes from phonies. The original iteration of the bill, the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, had been in effect for six years before the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional.

At the time, the law was written to say it was a crime simply to lie about military service and awards — a broad characterization the Supreme Court said violated a person’s First Amendment right to free speech.

A new version of the bill, introduced by Heck in late 2012, narrowed the act to say the liar must be attempting to somehow materially profit from the lies, making the would-be crime more akin to fraud. A tweaked version of that bill was reintroduced in 2013.

President Obama took a hard stance against military phonies last year when he announced a new government website to track awards for legitimate heroes.

“It may no longer be a crime for con artists to pass themselves off as heroes, but one thing is certain – it is contemptible,” he said in reference to the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2012. “…[N]o American hero should ever have their valor stolen.”

[Team Sergeant]

It's not going to stop the frauds..... not in the least, they added about six medals to the list. Most frauds say there were in certain units, many Special Operations units. This bill will do very little and very few DA's are ever going to waste their time or efforts to enforce this law.

[Stobey]

See link on jihadwatch.org:

Texas: Hizballah member falsely claimed to be U.S. special forces officer

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/06/te...s-officer.html

[ddoering]

Lying is a Constitutional right after all. Unless you do it to a cop. For some reason you can't lie to them.

[MR2]

Originally Posted by ddoering

Lying is a Constitutional right after all. Unless you do it to a cop. For some reason you can't lie to them.

But they can lie to you! (and to congress apparently).

[Utah Bob]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

Not to mention the liberal judges may strike the law down as unconstitutional.

The first SVA was bound to be struck down. I knew that when it was enacted. But this one I suspect will pass the Constitutional test. True, it's far from what we'd like to see, but the reality is that it's about the best we can hope for.

[MSRlaw]

I strongly advocated for the initial SVA but the problem was that it criminalized lying, in and of itself. The problem with the new law, is the inverse of the old, is the determination of value of the concurrent fraud.

Here's the law in full (minus legislative notes):
"Stolen Valor Act of 2013 - Amends the federal criminal code to rewrite provisions relating to fraudulent claims about military service to subject to a fine, imprisonment for not more than one year, or both an individual who, with intent to obtain money, property, or other tangible benefit, fraudulently holds himself or herself out to be a recipient of:

a Congressional Medal of Honor,
a distinguished-service cross,
a Navy cross,
an Air Force cross,
a silver star,
a Purple Heart,
a Combat Infantryman's Badge,
a Combat Action Badge,
a Combat Medical Badge,
a Combat Action Ribbon,
a Combat Action Medal, or
any replacement or duplicate medal for such medal as authorized by law."

NOW, what is a "tangible benefit?" Getting LEOs to attend your special forces tactics school for $2K/head is certainly tangible. What about getting head from a chick at the bar by telling her you were wounded in Kabul or something? Pretty tangible but I think we can see where courts are going to have trouble with this law.

And it's not just "scary LIBRUL" judges. How should a judge applying the law view a benefit as tangible? And what about the issues here on this board's Dishonorable Fake GBs? This SVA permutation only entails false claims of medals and not of heroics or job duties in the military.

The "tangible benefits" part could legit be struck down under the same line of reasoning as the "honest services fraud" statutes the feds used to nail many crocked local politicians.

I'm all for the SVA but it should do 2 things:
1) criminalize people claiming false association with military units they were not in.
2) define "tangible benefits" as "were the 'victim' (the person giving the benefits) to have known the truth about the teller, would they have given said benefit to the liar?"

I think 2) is a fair definition and will get around the "vagueness" constitutional issue by making the harm rest on the victim.

$0.02

Marc

[RTK]

I'm proud to know the men of this forum had a hell of a lot to do with the publicity and attention this issue has received, especially TS. Well done.

[echoes]

Originally Posted by Utah Bob

..., but the reality is that it's about the best we can hope for.

To add to your sentiment Sir,

The BEST we can hope for is that Team Sergeant and PS.com will continue to vigorously hunt down and defame ALL SF PHONIES, and send them to pound-in-the-ass prision cells where they belong!!!

Keep up the fight amigos!!!

Holly

[miclo18d]

PS.com made the news about this on mil.com. It talks about the Hillar case.

http://m.military.com/daily-news/201...ESRC=army-a.nl

[sinjefe]

As much as I hate posers, I hate the idea of ANY new law worse.

[RB]

The lights are about to come on and the cockroach lying POS posers are going to fade back into the shadows.

Hopefully a few fast SVA convictions, fines, and time served will send a message that we won't take Stolen Valor lying down.

[booker]

TS is still going to have a full time job ferreting out the posers. The law looks good to most people, but it won't stop the scum who use fake unit credentials. I ran into one of those types recently, got him DQ'd from the position he applied for at one of our partner companies. It wasn't on par with what TS does, but it still made a small difference, at least to me and that company.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by MSRlaw

I strongly advocated for the initial SVA but the problem was that it criminalized lying, in and of itself. The problem with the new law, is the inverse of the old, is the determination of value of the concurrent fraud.


$0.02

Marc

Lying has been "criminalized" for a long time already, just lie to a law enforcement officer.

You're not going to find a DA in the country that will prosecute any of the sections of the SVA except for maybe the Medal of Honor. So this signing of the new SVA is just about useless, (just like the fella that signed it).

It's a moot point, you can lie and pretend to be anyone you want to be except a law enforcement officer......

Trust me the only reason the FBI went after William "Bill" Hillar was because he scammed the FBI..... It had nothing to do with the SVA.

[Utah Bob]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Lying has been "criminalized" for a long time already, just lie to a law enforcement officer.

You're not going to find a DA in the country that will prosecute any of the sections of the SVA except for maybe the Medal of Honor. So this signing of the new SVA is just about useless, (just like the fella that signed it).

It's a moot point, you can lie and pretend to be anyone you want to be except a law enforcement officer......

Trust me the only reason the FBI went after William "Bill" Hillar was because he scammed the FBI..... It had nothing to do with the SVA.

In most cases, DAs will only prosecute if a significant amount of publicity results and they begin to look bad in the public's eye. Anything that may affect their re-election campaigns will light a fire under there ass. It's important to ferret these jackasses out and get the press on them.