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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."
I read the bill, though not in extreme detail. Maybe you could point me to the part which he is drawing his conclusions from? So far, I haven't seen anything in there that goes along the lines of what he is claiming. /shrug
Edit:
Ok found it.
Quote:
SEC. 113. PREVENTING CYBERSTALKING.
(a) In General.--Paragraph (1) of section 223(h) of the
Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 223(h)(1)) is amended--
(1) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``and'' at the end;
(2) in subparagraph (B), by striking the period at the end
and inserting ``; and''; and
(3) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
``(C) in the case of subparagraph (C) of subsection
(a)(1), includes 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 (as such term is defined in
section 1104 of the Internet Tax Freedom Act (47 U.S.C.
151 note)).''.
(b) <<NOTE: 47 USC 223 note.>> Rule of Construction.--This section
and the amendment made by this section may not be construed to affect
the meaning given the term ``telecommunications device'' in section
223(h)(1) of the Communications Act of 1934, as in effect before the
date of the enactment of this section.
Quote:
(a) Prohibited acts generally Whoever—
(1) in interstate or foreign communications— (A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly— (i) makes, creates, or solicits, and
(ii) initiates the transmission of,
any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene or child pornography, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person;
Looking over it, seems normal to me, though it is vague within the constraints of it. Though if we take where the law comes from in terms of its modification, it seems more as if this would be relevant to specifically targeted areas where the recipient is relatively understood as to be the only means of communication reception. That is, email, forum board PM's, etc...
I am taking into consideration that those are areas to which the victim can not easily "change" or make the choice to avoid interaction with such an attacker as it is not a public venue and the attacker can be solely identified as being specific in the intent of their harassment. It also seems that there must be a credited history of this abuse in order for someone to be acknowledged in this realm. Being that this section is closely tied in with that of "stalking" and is referred to as "cyber stalking", it would seem this area also falls within the context of that which we also define stalkers.
Certainly it would take a lot more reading into to identify the overall position of this section as it would be confined within the context of the main aspects of this law. So far though, it doesn't seem to be the "scare" that is being made up of it. I mean, if you take it out of context and insert your own brand of idea to this as an abuse, sure, but then we can do that with pretty much any law out there if we choose to be literal and ignore the "spirit of the law" or that which legislation intended it to be.
Sheesh! We shouldn't be taking stuff out of context and then twisting it? What are you trying to do...put the right-wing disinformation media out of business???
It's a "stacker" law.
When the government wants to convict someone (for whatever reason), the more laws they have at their disposal- the more things that are made illegal- the more likely they are to achieve their goals of prosecution.
So, when you sell drugs, you're not only charged with selling drugs, but also for selling them within 1000 feet of a church, selling a certain quantity, selling a certain type, about a dozen or so "conspiracy" charges, obstruction of justice, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.... They stack up the charges giving them a better chance at conviction- so, if they can't get Al Capone for murder, bootlegging or money laundering, they get him on tax evasion.
Whenever you hear the term "giving law enforcement the tools they need", that's basically code for removing civil rights, or, passing laws that are so absurdly 'low threshold' that it allows almost anyone to be convicted for anything. These are precisely the sort of laws we need to fight hardest against.
In short, you will never, ever see anyone charged and convicted on this alone, but you will CERTAINLY see people charged with this as part of a larger prosecutory effort.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,758,986 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by LM1
It's a "stacker" law.
When the government wants to convict someone (for whatever reason), the more laws they have at their disposal- the more things that are made illegal- the more likely they are to achieve their goals of prosecution.
So, when you sell drugs, you're not only charged with selling drugs, but also for selling them within 1000 feet of a church, selling a certain quantity, selling a certain type, about a dozen or so "conspiracy" charges, obstruction of justice, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.... They stack up the charges giving them a better chance at conviction- so, if they can't get Al Capone for murder, bootlegging or money laundering, they get him on tax evasion.
Whenever you hear the term "giving law enforcement the tools they need", that's basically code for removing civil rights, or, passing laws that are so absurdly 'low threshold' that it allows almost anyone to be convicted for anything. These are precisely the sort of laws we need to fight hardest against.
In short, you will never, ever see anyone charged and convicted on this alone, but you will CERTAINLY see people charged with this as part of a larger prosecutory effort.
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."
That was either really good sarcasm, or the dumbest comment in the history of human communication.
So, that's the 1st amendment, the 4th, the 10th, and maybe the 9th gone. There's only one other amendment that really defends the rights of the PEOPLE.
So, that's the 1st amendment, the 4th, the 10th, and maybe the 9th gone. There's only one other amendment that really defends the rights of the PEOPLE.
The second.
If this kinda crap keeps up......might NEED this last ammendment for taking MYSELF OUT of such a warped picture!
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