President Bush makes trolling illegal

[Smoke]

Holy shit.

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.

That was the last straw. This time he's gone too far!

[Great Rumbler]

It would be almost impossible to uphold, not to mention that it would probably get struck down in court.

[A Black Falcon]

Definitely...

[Dark Jaguar]

Well, first I need to confirm the story, which I don't have time to just yet, but if true, that IS the last straw.

[Great Rumbler]

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."

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.

http://news.com.com/Create+an+e-annoyanc...&subj=news

[Dark Jaguar]

I really wish they would list their sources...

[EdenMaster]

So anyone who posts an opinion on a message board under a username that doesn't end it with their real name in a signature is breaking the law?



Seriously, Bush is crazy and a moron. How on EARTH he got elected (I don't consider him "re-elected" since he practically didn't win in 2000) is beyond me. How does this guy muster the mental strength needed to say even a simple word like nuclear?

...

Oh.

[Great Rumbler]

I really wish they would list their sources...

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext...=h109-3402

This is why there should be Line Item vetoes, although I'm doubtful about whether that line would have been vetoed if it was possible. Throwing random things into an important bill is just plain dumb.

[A Black Falcon]

Seriously, Bush is crazy and a moron. How on EARTH he got elected (I don't consider him "re-elected" since he practically didn't win in 2000) is beyond me.

He did win. 5-4, in the Supreme Court.

How does this guy muster the mental strength needed to say even a simple word like nuclear?

But everyone knows it's actually pronounced nucular... no? Right... :)

This is why there should be Line Item vetoes, although I'm doubtful about whether that line would have been vetoed if it was possible. Throwing random things into an important bill is just plain dumb.

Line-item vetoes won't happen, though. Lawmakers love the ability to hide things in the middle of important bills, thus forcing their passage whether or not the provision is truly supported unless it's a really big issue, far too much...

[Dark Jaguar]

Line item vetoes are NEEDED though.

Now, I understand the weakness in that. One can shred a new law into doing something that undermines the original intentions of the bill by disgarding a piece of it. However, if the house gets the chance to review what was individually vetoed and decide then whether or not the bill is still as it was originally intended, then it should be rendered immune to that sort of tampering.

The "paperclip trick" is pretty sickening if you ask me.

[Geno]

Anti-trolling law... 'kay, that makes about as much sense as... as... something that could finish this analogy.

[Dark Jaguar]

It's basically an attack of sorts on either privacy or freedom of speech, or both.

Besides, any forum can simply institute such a requirement themselves. I've seen a few that do as such.

Moving right along, there's something a bit more important I've seen on the news. That is, the attempt to give the executive branch more powers in this "time of need".

...

Well now...

I suppose we all know exactly what dark musical theme should be played about now.

[Geno]

So, which country are we going to bomb next? Was it Iran? I'm not so sure about North Korea; sure, they openly admit that they have a nuclear weapons program, but that could mean that they're dangerous. Best to go after the small fries, right? We've got three more years of Bush, that's plenty of time to liberate one more country.

[Dark Jaguar]

Hey, invading an enemy with open plans of DARKNESS with ACTUAL nukes may not be all that bad.

[Darunia]

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.

And how is this a bad thing, exactly?

[EdenMaster]

Because it's the tip of a very slippery iceberg. The laws of free speech are sitting a corner somewhere crying.

He did win. 5-4, in the Supreme Court.

And 49% of the popular vote. He got the electoral votes from his brother rigging Florida.

[Great Rumbler]

It was five years ago. Let's just move on, okay?

[Dark Jaguar]

It's a slippery slope! Today you have to reveal your identity when you annoy, tomorrow you have to expose your internal organs just to get into your heavily guarded bed and can only speak when they remove the lock from your mouth zipper, AND THERE ISN'T A DERN THING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!


http://frameofmind.ytmnd.com/

...

That's a non-sequiter, as is the vast majority of "slippery slope" logic. However, Darunia, what the heck? You find it horrible to have laws ordering you to frickin' buckle up, but this doesn't bother you at all?

The fact is, people should be able to leave inflamatory remarks without having to disclose their identity because there is a serious safety risk involved. Now, you may say "they made inflamatory remarks!", but so what? Annoying just for the sake of annoying is stupid, and petty, and really people should learn better. It's also likely true that childish people do it because they won't get in trouble. Still, such a law is idiotic. If a web site in particular demands one reveal their identity to join, that's fine. A number of forums are starting to instigate this policy. However, to require it by law is, well, the government's job is NOT to mandate polite behavior. There's also the blatant possiblity of abuse of such a law. What constitutes annoyance? A lot could! What if someone shows up at a homeopathy message board and decides to mention the lack of evidence that such things work, suggesting scientifically valid treatments instead. Such a person would be seen as a "troll" to the vast majority, perhaps everyone, at that board. If that person reveals their identity as required by law, stalkers! Someone should have the benefit of being able to converse anonymously!

[Geno]

Indeed, this law appears to be vaguely defined (what constitutes as annoying behavior can vary from one person's viewpoint to that of another) and also contradicts the basic first amendment right to freedom of speech. It's ridiculous that this bill would have gotten past one house of Congress let alone made it all the way through the system so intricately explained by School House Rock on how a bill becomes a law.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well, it's not too much of an attack on free speech, more of a "work around". Sort of like saying "okay you can say whatever you want... but I want to know WHO YOU ARE". If that's not a violation of freedom of speech, it's at least violating an unlisted right, and the unspoken rights are protected under the 4th ammendment. Namely, right to privacy within reason.

[EdenMaster]

It was five years ago. Let's just move on, okay?

I'll move on when that mental patient posing as a world leader leaves the Oval Office.

:D

[Dark Jaguar]

Do you have evidence that Florida was "rigged"? With something that close, is it that hard to believe it "just happened"?

[Great Rumbler]

The Florida ballots were so messed up from years of fighting between the two parties that something like that was bound to happen eventually.

[lazyfatbum]

I guess president Bush got in to an argument with OB1 too.

This has very little to do with internet message boards and more to do with spam. the internet has no government at all so everything is up for grabs, if Bush can state a law that causes spam to be illegal we'll all have a much more pleasant internet experience, no pop-ups, no '50 emails a day' no self-installing ad-ware... it would be great.

for small websites who need income throwing a banner or two or three on their site shouldn't be an issue even if this act is passed. It's a sponsor, the viewer is therfore accepting the advertizement of that sponsor. It's just like television, commercials come with the territory. But imagine watching a TV show and in the middle of the show it turns the channel to an infomercial periodically or bogs down the network so bad you cant even watch the show. That's what's happening and it seriously needs to be adressed.

You cant stop people from doing or saying what they want on the internet but you can stop business and their third parties from shoving krap down our throats.

Interesting ideal though, that the president can enitiate an act for something the entire world uses over a physical world-wide network. I wonder if he's speaking specifically of .com

[Geno]

Less spam = win

[Dark Jaguar]

http://www.footballfansfortruth.us/archives/001318.html

According to this VERY obscure thing, it would appear no, this isn't entirely accurate. It seems this law is based entirely on the need to prevent stalking using "VOIP", or basically over the internet phone services to harrass people. Due to the nature of a VOIP, the FCC can't regulate it in the same way that normal phones are regulated. That's fine, but at the same time a stalker might be able to get away with telephone harrassment, so they passed this law to prevent that. I have no issues with the law if that is it's intent and usage.

Message boarding is safe, if THIS article is to be believed, and considering the substantial links to official statements concerning the law, I do in fact lean towards this interpretation.

[Darunia]

I think it's a good law. It's only for anonymous assholes online. If you want to shit all over someone, just let them know your name so that they can go to your doorstep and kick your ass.

That sounds perfectly fair to me!