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."
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6 comments:
....avatar?
Not everyone agrees with the interpretation of that law. Read the comments left by some Boing-Boing readers.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/09/flame_someone_anonym.html
Sorry the link seems to have gotten cut off in the comment. Here's a tiny url:
http://tinyurl.com/85utb
Will this cause more people to immigate to the states? What happens when someone of a different nationality breaks the rule. Stupidity has been taken to a higher level. Actually thinking about it, isn't stupidity what Joe Regular expects from politicians anyway?
Maybe that guy who legally changed his name to kentuckyfriedcruelty.com had the right idea.
Bush is an asshole. Annoyed yet George? Signed, Anonymous
The way Bush is going, it makes me wonder how much longer it will be before he's got everybody goose-stepping in jackboots.
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