You're annoying me!

D

Democratic Donkeys

TNPer
Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on
posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without
disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as
you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried
in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization
Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.

"The use of the word 'annoy' is particularly problematic," says Marv Johnson,
legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "What's annoying to one
person may not be annoying to someone else."

It's illegal to annoy

A new federal law states that when you annoy someone on the Internet, you must
disclose your identity. Here's the relevant language.

"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate
telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole
or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to

annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the
communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two
years, or both."

Buried deep in the new law is Sec. 113, an innocuously titled bit called
"Preventing Cyberstalking." It rewrites existing telephone harassment law to
prohibit anyone from using the Internet "without disclosing his identity and with
intent to annoy."

To grease the rails for this idea, Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican,
and the section's other sponsors slipped it into an unrelated, must-pass bill to
fund the Department of Justice. The plan: to make it politically infeasible for
politicians to oppose the measure.

The tactic worked. The bill cleared the House of Representatives by voice vote, and
the Senate unanimously approved it Dec. 16.

There's an interesting side note. An earlier version that the House approved in
September had radically different wording. It was reasonable by comparison, and
criminalized only using an "interactive computer service" to cause someone
"substantial emotional harm."

That kind of prohibition might make sense. But why should merely annoying someone
be illegal?

There are perfectly legitimate reasons to set up a Web site or write something
incendiary without telling everyone exactly who you are.

Think about it: A woman fired by a manager who demanded sexual favors wants to blog
about it without divulging her full name. An aspiring pundit hopes to set up the
next Suck.com. A frustrated citizen wants to send e-mail describing corruption in
local government without worrying about reprisals.

In each of those three cases, someone's probably going to be annoyed. That's enough
to make the action a crime. (The Justice Department won't file charges in every
case, of course, but trusting prosecutorial discretion is hardly reassuring.)


Clinton Fein, a San Francisco resident who runs the Annoy.com site, says a feature
permitting visitors to send obnoxious and profane postcards through e-mail could be
imperiled.

"Who decides what's annoying? That's the ultimate question," Fein said. He added:
"If you send an annoying message via the United States Post Office, do you have to
reveal your identity?"

Fein once sued to overturn part of the Communications Decency Act that outlawed
transmitting indecent material "with intent to annoy." But the courts ruled the law
applied only to obscene material, so Annoy.com didn't have to worry.

"I'm certainly not going to close the site down," Fein said on Friday. "I would
fight it on First Amendment grounds."

He's right. Our esteemed politicians can't seem to grasp this simple point, but the
First Amendment protects our right to write something that annoys someone else.

It even shields our right to do it anonymously. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas defended this principle magnificently in a 1995 case involving an Ohio
woman who was punished for distributing anonymous political pamphlets.


If President Bush truly believed in the principle of limited government (it is in
his official bio), he'd realize that the law he signed cannot be squared with the
Constitution he swore to uphold.

And then he'd repeat what President Clinton did a decade ago when he felt compelled
to sign a massive telecommunications law. Clinton realized that the section of the
law punishing abortion-related material on the Internet was unconstitutional, and
he directed the Justice Department not to enforce it.

Bush has the chance to show his respect for what he calls Americans' personal
freedoms. Now we'll see if the president rises to the occasion.
Click to expand...

Article



You are so busted: Indiegirl, OPArsenal, AA, Fedele, well pretty much all of you, except for Deikura. Hope you like jail! :mad:


But seriously, discuss
 
:tb1: When does this law take into effect...*hides away Democratic stuff*?

I think your article's writer is overdoing this to put it mildly. If I want to make fun of gov't to promote change, then I can still. If I think my boss is doing something illegal or unethical, then I likely want him or her to change, not just to annoy them. If I just want to annoy people to purposely bring them down for no reason, then it gets problematic.

Obviously, I don't imagine a 16 year old prank email is going to land that person in jail...but a large scale hacking or spam campaign to purposely screw with a person or organization should have room to be penalized.

I also wonder if I could see the complete law because a liberal rant and only one expert (from the ACLU) and one quack (from annoy.com) isn't too convincing...

Sarcodina
 
It takes effect when the President signs it, or ignores it for long enough. Overdoing it? It's the principle of the matter, it is a violation of our freedom of speech, which happens to be in the Bill of Rights.

The wording of the law itself is vague:

EC. 509. PREVENTING CYBERSTALKING.

Section 2261A of title 18, United States Code, is
3 amended--
4 (1) in paragaph (1)--
5 (A) by inserting after ``intimidate'' the fol-
6 lowing: ``, or places under surveillance with the
7 intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate,''; and
8 (B) by inserting after ``or serious bodily in-
9 jury to,'' the following: ``or causes substantial
10 emotional harm to,'';
11 (2) in paragraph (2)(A), by striking ``to kill or
12 injure'' and inserting ``to kill, injure, harass, or in-
13 timidate, or places under surveillance with the intent
14 to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate, or to cause sub-
15 stantial emtional harm to,''; and
16 (3) in paragraph (2), in the matter following
17 clause (iii) of subparagraph (B)--
18 (A) by inserting after ``uses the mail'' the
19 following: ``, any interactive computer service,'';
20 and
21 (B) by inserting after ``course of conduct
22 that'' the following: ``causes substantial emo-
23 tional harm to that person or''.
Click to expand...


but a large scale hacking or spam campaign to purposely screw with a person or organization should have room to be penalized.
Click to expand...

That is already illegal.

I also wonder if I could see the complete law
Click to expand...

Sure. I love how it's tacked onto a Justice Appropriations bill. Which also has stuff on abuse in it, what a clever ploy. :eyeroll:

A liberal rant? I must have missed the part where the author said he was a liberal... :eyeroll:
 
From the law you showed, I think this is the equivalent of sexually harassing someone or stalking them. This is not playful hating, but possibly dangerous hating which must have the oppurtunity to be regulated.

Sarcodina

When I go...

Thanks for being a liberal hack :clap:

that is not in this resolution

When I go...

I think I am going to your house to do something to your [insert]

that is this law

I don't necessarily like it too much, but I haven't heard any reasonable argument against it. The internet can be a little anarchic though the US gov't shouldn't try to regulate beyond the most basic limits.
 
:eyebrow:

Ok, just to let all of you know, claiming someone is "annoying" you will not be considered grounds to get them banned from the forum. They've got to actually be violating ToS.

Yes, *Hersfold is democratic. :P
 
This is just plain annoying. :mad:

As I see it, merely claiming you were annoyed by something isn't enough, you have to show intent and the burden of proof is on the annoyed one. Tough to prove, if you think about it.
 
This thing will probably get repealed anyway. Good intentions but poorly worded.

To grease the rails for this idea, Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican,
and the section's other sponsors slipped it into an unrelated, must-pass bill to
fund the Department of Justice. The plan: to make it politically infeasible for
politicians to oppose the measure.
Click to expand...

That is common practice and it has been common practice for decades.

Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on
posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without
disclosing your true identity.
Click to expand...

That phrase makes me feel that this entire article is simply childish. He did not pull the little bit out of the mass and sign it individually, he signed the "Must-pass" bill which happened to have this in it.

This kind of thing happens regardless of who is president and it has been happening, like I said, for decades.

Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican,
and the section's other sponsors
Click to expand...

Why do they single out that one man and not mention the others? That one man is a republican... yes, obviously republicans are underhanded and sneaky... but what of those other men... Why are they not mentioned?
 
I hate riders. You attach a stupid bill like this to something vastly more improtant and meaningful like stopping domestic violence against women. The bill gets passed because who would vote down a bill stopping domestic violence, then the rider gets passed as well. tricky little republicans.

What the heck!!!

Bush can take a lovely trip to the fiery below.
 
:tb1: I always get confounded how people don't listen to such intelligent and well thought of arguments against Bush's administration. Simply Shakespearean :shifty:
 
Bush can go suck it hard.
Click to expand...

Yes, as this has been done for decades and has nothing to do with Bush. Had he turned this down due to the rider he would have caught a lot of heat and would be called a sexist.
 
Yes he would have Fedele. Fedele did you bother to read what else I wrote in that post? Obviosuly not based on your reply.
 
Sarcodina:
:tb1: I always get confounded how people don't listen to such intelligent and well thought of arguments against Bush's administration. Simply Shakespearean  :shifty:

Am I to be confounded yet again by people deaf to the words of wise and noble men, who doth scold the house of Bush?
Click to expand...
"Am I to be confounded yet again by people deaf to the words of wise and noble men, who doth scold the house of Bush?"

I would have thought that was a bit more 'Simply Shakespearean'! :lol:
 
Heh, the law signed into effect is in direct contradiction to a previous court decision involving the CDA (Common Decency Act) that Janet Reno and Bill Clinton tried to enforce to squelch opposition to the Clinton Administration.

The Law signed by Bush will get shot down by the Supreme Court the first time it is suggested.
 
Avenging Angels:
I hate riders. You attach a stupid bill like this to something vastly more improtant and meaningful like stopping domestic violence against women. The bill gets passed because who would vote down a bill stopping domestic violence, then the rider gets passed as well. tricky little republicans.

What the heck!!!

Bush can take a lovely trip to the fiery below.
Click to expand...
A bill does not stop domestic violence!! If it did, we'd just pass bills stopping murder, rape, burglary etc etc!! Oh wait, we have laws for those...yet people still break them!! What to do!! :blink:
 
First off, now that AA editted his post, my last comment seems odd.

Secondly, AA let's keep Church out of State, you offended me :duh: :shifty: .

Third, why can't we all get along...

Fourth, I think people should find reliable article about this and have a mature conversation about them...stupid heads! :lol:
 
Unconstitutional, unenforceable. To be ignored.

Further. Riders work both ways. I'd greatly appreciate it if someone had the brass ones to do on the federal level what was done in West Virginia, making English the official language of the state.
 
Deikura:
Unconstitutional, unenforceable. To be ignored.

Further. Riders work both ways. I'd greatly appreciate it if someone had the brass ones to do on the federal level what was done in West Virginia, making English the official language of the state.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I'm good at slipping things in at unexpected moments so I may just become a politician.
 
I am a peaceful man, but that POSt pushed me over the edge. lol

I am going to get Rambo on his arse.
 
Now Roman, you know how annoying it is when people go off-topic. I'm afraid I'm going to have to report this...
 
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