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Nightmare
Lyran Alliance
Kommandant-General
Joined: 03-May-2002 00:00
Posts: 2214
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 Posted: 10-Jan-2006 00:52 Post subject: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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This article is so absurd that you can only laugh, but it could cause us much annoyance. I post it outside the Saloon in the hope it won't go too political.
http://news.com.com/Create+an+e-annoyance%2C+go+to+jail/2010-1028_3-6022491.html
Create an e-annoyance, go to jail
By Declan McCullagh
Published: January 9, 2006, 4:00 AM PST
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."
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."
"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."
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.
_________________
A tree fall in the forest, and no one is around, and it hits a mime. Does anyone care?
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Slythis
Federated Suns
Colonel
Joined: 09-Aug-2002 00:00
Posts: 712
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| Posted: 10-Jan-2006 04:47 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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In my ANTI-partisan manner I will laugh heartily as I have gained yet another example of whats wrong with the system, this one goes up there with the Fishing Industry gettng funding out of the Patriot Act.
_________________
"It is pleasant, when the winds are high and the seas are rough to watch the stuggles of another from the shore."
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SaberDance
Federated Suns
Colonel
Joined: 07-May-2004 00:00
Posts: 837
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| Posted: 10-Jan-2006 13:15 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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I've used the news.com website from time to time, though I don't know how reliable it is.
Let's just say my B.S.-O-Meter blows a gasket when I read "ACLU," "Opposes," and "Violence Against Women Act" in the same breath.
VAW being one of many causes the ACLU has strongly advocated.
I do recall news.net was the website that reported the FEC was going to start arresting bloggers for posting political messages. That turned out to be nothing (though in fairness, that could be a chicken or the egg phenomenon).
Those elipses in the text of the law in the sidebar could also be blocking important caveats, interpretations, et cetera. For example, "annoyance" could be defined in the same terms as "sexual harrassment" which I think is a dumb law precisely because what is sexual harrassment is impossible to know until after you do it, but such things are accepted in the legal system.
And rarely do you find a list of terms like "annoy, abuse, threaten, or harrass" without an accompanying definition.
And then, this was Arlen Specter's bill? Well, OK, maybe Specter would do something like this.
But I remain unconvinced.
_________________
"Politics is the Art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, misdiagnosing the problem, and applying the wrong solution."
-Groucho Marx
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Motown Scrapper
Clan Ice Hellions
Galaxy Commander
Joined: 24-Jul-2003 00:00
Posts: 2074
Location: United States
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| Posted: 10-Jan-2006 18:52 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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Well if this is for real Emmy is the only person who posts in the Saloon who has not violated it. 
_________________
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have-Rush Limbaugh www.rushlimbaugh.com
Force of nature
Still crazy after all these years
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Raven!
Clan Snow Raven
Galaxy Commander
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 1326
Location: United States
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| Posted: 11-Jan-2006 13:16 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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I am here to annoy you Motown! Annoy annoy annoy! GASP! ------ but its ok cause my name is Jay. BUT! ANNOY!!! MUHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
For those who don't know, this is my little way of saying that this is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. With all the little kids who use the internet and get into fights with other little kids, the FBI will have about fourty thousand new cases to prosecute each hour.
I wish them the best of luck if this is real.
Raven!
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Warhammer: 3025
Freelance
Captain, AFFC (Ret.)
Joined: 29-Jan-2005 00:00
Posts: 1856
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| Posted: 11-Jan-2006 14:30 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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I play World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike, and Day of Defeat. If they start trying to even COUNT the number of stupid and/or annoying (or offensive) dialogue/comments seen in chat, I'm pretty sure their computers will melt down. The law is, quite simply, ludicrously unenforcable.
_________________
Evil is like a bowl of oranges. Only one, instead, is an orange of DOOM. That orange has a fate to rule over the other oranges with an iron fist. That orange is me.
Because sometimes, there are many guards in the castle.
Ya Rl'yeh!
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Seraph
Blighted Sun Battalion
2nd Company
"Seraph's Slaughter"
Major
Joined: 11-Mar-2004 00:00
Posts: 1744
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| Posted: 11-Jan-2006 22:16 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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It is not meant to be enforcable. It gives them a fall back for when they catch someone and want to detain them legally for longer than the legal time which i believe is 24 hours. It will give them time to either find the prrof they need to get for something else or to make up proof against you for something else.
Look at some of the gangsters they busted in the mid to late 20th century. Some were convicted of tax evasion as they could not find proof needed to convict them of anything more serious.
_________________
If ignorance is bliss, then why are you so miserable?
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Warhammer: 3025
Freelance
Captain, AFFC (Ret.)
Joined: 29-Jan-2005 00:00
Posts: 1856
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| Posted: 12-Jan-2006 05:13 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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Quote:
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On 2006-01-10 18:52, Motown Scrapper wrote:
Well if this is for real Emmy is the only person who posts in the Saloon who has not violated it.
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I have annoyed people? 
_________________
Evil is like a bowl of oranges. Only one, instead, is an orange of DOOM. That orange has a fate to rule over the other oranges with an iron fist. That orange is me.
Because sometimes, there are many guards in the castle.
Ya Rl'yeh!
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Kalo Osis
Clan Ice Hellions
Star Colonel
Joined: 07-Jul-2005 00:00
Posts: 446
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| Posted: 12-Jan-2006 16:33 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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Hey Warhammer, I play World of Warcraft as well, what server do you play on and what is your character?
_________________
"I prefer to fight for a meaningful purpose, rather than to provide a spectacle for the ignorant masses."
-Kalo on the Solaris 7 Battlemech Arenas
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Kalo Osis
Clan Ice Hellions
Star Colonel
Joined: 07-Jul-2005 00:00
Posts: 446
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| Posted: 12-Jan-2006 16:35 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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Quote:
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On 2006-01-11 22:16, Seraph wrote:
It is not meant to be enforcable. It gives them a fall back for when they catch someone and want to detain them legally for longer than the legal time which i believe is 24 hours. It will give them time to either find the prrof they need to get for something else or to make up proof against you for something else.
Look at some of the gangsters they busted in the mid to late 20th century. Some were convicted of tax evasion as they could not find proof needed to convict them of anything more serious.
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A little nod to Al Capone for those people who are not history geeks, but yes what you have to say is true Seraph. Besides, this crap encroaches on a little thing called the 1st. Ammendment, which is what gives us our freedoms. Take that away, and we are a whole new country all together.
_________________
"I prefer to fight for a meaningful purpose, rather than to provide a spectacle for the ignorant masses."
-Kalo on the Solaris 7 Battlemech Arenas
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Warhammer: 3025
Freelance
Captain, AFFC (Ret.)
Joined: 29-Jan-2005 00:00
Posts: 1856
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| Posted: 12-Jan-2006 18:51 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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Quote:
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On 2006-01-12 16:33, Kalo Osis wrote:
Hey Warhammer, I play World of Warcraft as well, what server do you play on and what is your character?
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Used to play on Hyjal with my Human Paladin named Berne. I now play on Gurubashi with my Forsaken Mage named Emonn.
_________________
Evil is like a bowl of oranges. Only one, instead, is an orange of DOOM. That orange has a fate to rule over the other oranges with an iron fist. That orange is me.
Because sometimes, there are many guards in the castle.
Ya Rl'yeh!
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Raven!
Clan Snow Raven
Galaxy Commander
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 1326
Location: United States
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| Posted: 13-Jan-2006 11:08 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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Hey, any of you guys on Skywall? If so look for Lemurulus, gnome warlock!
Raven!
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Kalo Osis
Clan Ice Hellions
Star Colonel
Joined: 07-Jul-2005 00:00
Posts: 446
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| Posted: 14-Jan-2006 09:13 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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Quote:
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On 2006-01-12 18:51, Warhammer: 3025 wrote:
Quote:
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On 2006-01-12 16:33, Kalo Osis wrote:
Hey Warhammer, I play World of Warcraft as well, what server do you play on and what is your character?
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Used to play on Hyjal with my Human Paladin named Berne. I now play on Gurubashi with my Forsaken Mage named Emonn.
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I play on Perenolde with an Elf Rogue named Markus
_________________
"I prefer to fight for a meaningful purpose, rather than to provide a spectacle for the ignorant masses."
-Kalo on the Solaris 7 Battlemech Arenas
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Delta
Lyran Alliance
Leutnant
Joined: 11-Dec-2004 00:00
Posts: 635
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| Posted: 14-Jan-2006 17:24 Post subject: RE: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail |
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Off topic alert! 
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