Thanks to William 2006 - here some news - who's game to bring a suit?
If you don't know, you've commited a crime many many times by calling people names online. It is enforcable and the provisions of the law allow for a simple 'annoyance' to constitude a crime. When will be your amnesty? Wanna pay $2000?
http://www.biashelp.org/ http://www.ic3.gov/
Annoy someone online--two years in jail? By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com Published on ZDNet News: January 9, 2006, 11:19 AM PT
Commentary--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."
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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 ****.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.
I think the person being annoyed also has to or have their real name disclosed. Two pseduonyms (sp?) bashing each other seems to be fine. It seems that the point of the law is to prevent one from annonymously bashing someone or even some company.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sugarpuff,
Let us all pray and hope that some day the law would be passed imposing lifetime incarceration for usage of the word "poopster" in all too obviously satirical context!
Posts: 2501 | Location: NJ, USA | Registered: 03-11-2006
Just to play devils advocate and to sharpen my arguing skills:
He really isn't calling YOU anything. He is calling your login identity a name. So wouldn't you have to have to have your real name and address listed for it to consideered an attack on you?
Honestly, William, that is not true. Defamation is the term you intended to use. Using the wrong term in this situation, as well as the witch/which and many others is a sign of an uneducated person and/or one who is accustomed to speaking only, not reading. This is when mistakes like the above occur the most often. In circles of educated individuals I certainly have very rarely seen or heard of this happening. It can also occur when someone is constantly exposed to slang, and, also uneducated, or when English is second language.
Merriam-Webster: Main Entry: de·for·ma·tion Function: noun Pronunciation: "de-"fo r-'mA-sh&n, "de-f&r- 1 : alteration of form or shape ; also : the product of such alteration 2 : the action of deforming : the state of being deformed 3 : change for the worse - de·for·ma·tion·al/-sh&-n & l/ adjective
The law you were discussing is certainly interesting and you might want to post statistics on actual successful cases based on it. It is virtually unenforceable in a situation like this due to privacy laws, etc., and the sheer nature of discussion boards such as this one.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: spring,
Event though you are of superior intelligence I will try my best to help you reword your argument so that it is more clear. Here is what you said:
I've read the actual law and it says that you cannot annoy others under false nicknames, identities, etc.
If he puts his name/address, he can call me whatever he wants, although I will sue his *** day and night for deformation of character.
In YOUR mind this statement comes across as meaning one cannot violate the law when using a log in name and that the law is only violated when one uses their real name. Despite not answering my couter point that individual being insulted also must have their real identity revealed, you fail to make a clear connection between violationg the law and "one cannot annoy others".
You see, in English as spoken and as understood in the USA, when you make a statement such as:
"I've read the actual law and it says that you cannot annoy others under false nicknames, identities, etc."
you have to also understand that it has a dual meaning. In order to make a clear point, an educated person would rework such a phrase so as to clairify the meaning you are intending to put forward.
A simple reworking of your phrase makes your point much clearer:
One does not violoate the internet annoyance law when they engage in annoying behavior toward others under false nicknames,identities, etc.
The law specifically prohibits anonymous electronic transmissions with an INTENT to ANNOY a PERSON, either through EMAIL or personal BLOGS.
It does NOT prohibit FREE SPEECH on PUBLIC FORUM, and SATIRE is PARTICULARLY WELL PROTECTED under FREE SPEECH CLAUSE. Add to that the fact it was directed "against" POOPSTERS. Are you hereby suggesting that your legal name is "Mr. Pooopster" and that www.ilw.com forum is your personal BLOG and that you were in PERSON ANNOYED BY SATIRICAL POSTS AIMED AT POOPSTERS BECAUSE YOU TOOK IT PERSONALLY AND TOO SERIOUSLY AS AN INTENTION TO ANNOY YOU? Now what kind of case is that if not psychiatric?
As to DEFORMATION law.. what you wrote and suggested before is so laughable that I don't want to comment any further
Posts: 2501 | Location: NJ, USA | Registered: 03-11-2006
Lol, gawd forbid participating in online blogs would have the effect of deforming one's character. One poopster would turn everyone reading their comments into poopsters. Soon after everybody would turn into a LieMaster and instead of civil exchanges we'd have pooping all over..
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