NationStates Jolt Archive


BUsh cracks down: send annoying emails, go to jail.

Minoriteeburg
09-01-2006, 18:47
Perspective: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail

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.


read more on this article here (http://news.com.com/Create+an+e-annoyance,+go+to+jail/2010-1028_3-6022491.html?part=rss&tag=6022491&subj=news)



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Dodudodu
09-01-2006, 18:49
So if I pissed off someone and told them my name was mike, that'd be against the law?
Yathura
09-01-2006, 18:51
Oh Congress, you and your unenforceable laws, you amuse me so.
Cahnt
09-01-2006, 18:56
Oh Congress, you and your unenforceable laws, you amuse me so.
You do wonder how on earth they're going to track somebody who's posting through a hotmail account, right enough.
Fass
09-01-2006, 19:02
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=463184

Checking the front pages to see if it's already been posted, is it really that tough?
Gassputia
09-01-2006, 19:06
let me say this with a quote from The Simpsons, "I have said it before, and I'll say it again, democracy simply does not work":p
Willamena
09-01-2006, 19:10
What a horribly-worded law. While I am all in favour of e-mails sent without anonymity and on reducing hate mail, prohibiting "intent to annoy" would seem to be a violation of privacy.
Mt-Tau
09-01-2006, 19:11
Yeah, check the forum before you post something...you dolt!

-Anonymous

*Is listening to Judas Priest's "Breaking the law" while writing this post* :D
Damor
09-01-2006, 19:17
How unfortunate, the only positive effect this might have, cracking down on spam, is excluded
<snip> with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...<snip>
If there is no intent to annoy, you're not culpable. And the intend of spam is to sell, not to annoy.

And of course it doesn't help against annoying people from outside US jurisdiction.
Minoriteeburg
09-01-2006, 19:19
What a horribly-worded law. While I am all in favour of e-mails sent without anonymity and on reducing hate mail, prohibiting "intent to annoy" would seem to be a violation of privacy.


annoying people is one thign that we americans can do very well.