Sign up for 5280's weekly e-newsletters. Want the latest restaurant scoop? The latest happenings around town? Access to exclusive events and deals just for 5280 readers? We all better learn to think twice before clicking our mouses. A new law signed by President Bush last week makes sending annoying anonymous e-mails or posting annoying messages on websites a federal crime.
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.
….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.”
For people who comment on use-net groups and blogs, this could be a problem. Here’s the actual text:
“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.”
Question: What is the definition of “intent to annoy” ? Who decides? Why doesn’t this violate the First Amendment?
As for how this bill slipped in under the radar, here’s the explanation:
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.
Posted 1/9/2006 at 1:40 pm by Jeralyn Merritt
Crime :: Permalink :: Comments (2)
New Law Criminalizes Anonymous Annoying E-mails and Web Posts
We all better learn to think twice before clicking our mouses. A new law signed by President Bush last week makes sending annoying anonymous e-mails or posting annoying messages on websites a federal crime. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into…
Define “anonymous”. There’s a lot of us out there that say stuff on blogs, online anywhere, and don’t use “identies” that aren’t legalized by federal mandate.
Annonymously yours,
The guy who had to supply his email address, that belongs to a profile that includes real names and numbers of the user and doesn’t think this legislation undermines anything that isn’t hasn’t been happening with surveillance in this country for years.
(P.S. The key word should have been “harass” as it is in the legislation. Not “annoy” as was misquoted. There’s a million companies with my name that considering me annoying, or for that matter that I consider annoying. The Bush White House would not profit from a bill/amendment that brings the econonmy to a dead stop because consumers and their businesses can no longer talk because of their “annoying” service? I don’t know much, but I know pissed off consumers is bad for American business. So I doubt it reaches as far as stripping us of our right to bitch.
This legislation is about domestic violence and more importantly, about situations that have come up to justify such legislation. It’s not an across the boards sweep of our civil liberties, it’s to keep the bad guys in check.
And I’m a registered left-wing, bleeding heart. (Anonymously, of course)
Go Broncos!