Illegal to anonymously annoy on the Net

[Me$$iah]

Wow,

Now this is scary shit
New Law

Tacked onto a must pass bill.
Here is he actual Bill.

I can see many websites being closed down using this bill, not to mention the potential for individual arrests. The language used is so vague, it is a prosecutors dream. I mean WTF is annoying, and who gets to decide.

Anyway Im off to anonymously troll the 'Intelligent Design' forums, whilst I still can....hehe

[erik]

*checks user name*

*continues on merry way*

[fodroy]

so i guess lightning ear fart and down with gender are criminals now.

[sausage boy]

Username crime!?

Wow... i wonder when jailable avatar offences will be introduced?

[Kamakura]

The upside is that you get a neat orange jumpsuit for free.

Truly frightening. Orwell will be grinning in his grave.

[Hoblit]

I fart in your general direction


/does that count?

[Kamakura]

I fart in your general direction
/does that count?

All things Python are exempt under Subsection 27 Para 22

[j$]

I (perhaps naively) hope this turns out to be one of those unenforceable laws ...

'Clinton Fein, a San Francisco resident who runs the Annoy.com site, says ... "Who decides what's annoying?"'

Well, you, clearly!

[deshead]

I (perhaps naively) hope this turns out to be one of those unenforceable laws ...

Further reading suggests that McCullagh might have jumped the gun (or tinted his writing a little yellow.) The law doesn't apply to server-centered communications, like blogs and phpBB: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/archives/002638.html

And the law can't trump the first amendment: http://volokh.com/posts/1136873535.shtml

So I confidently say "you can all suck it."

[fodroy]

in that case, i can keep embedding video clips of fran drescher in peoples' blogs.

[jb]

Here's my blog post on this issue.

---------------------------------------
Down at the bottom of this post is The Truth, if you want to skip all the stuff between, which is mostly me bitching and going through the process of figuring out whether this is crap or not, and just find out what the real deal is. I can't seem to insert an anchor into this text, so just read the first introductory bit, then scroll down until you see "<b>Update</b>". See, you can't just read my blog, you have to work at it. It's good for you.

There's a little bit of outrage going 'round the 'net about a bill recently signed into law by Mr. Bush. <a href="http://news.com.com/Create an e-annoyance, go to jail/2010-1028_3-6022491.html">Here's one of the articles about it</a>.

In that article Declan McCullagh includes the following quote, which is what everybody is freaking about, supposedly from the legislation:

<i>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 <b>annoy</b>, 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."</i>

Emphasis on the word "annoy" is mine. It's that word that's at issue; people seem to think this authorizes the government to prosecute them if they annoy somebody on Usenet or a message board or any kind of online, anonymous forum.

But here's the thing: I can't find that text ANYWHERE.

I looked at the bill in question on Thomas. I did a search on Thomas for the following:

"without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person"

Results:
0 bills containing your phrase exactly as entered.
0 bills containing all your search words near each other in any order.
0 bills containing all your search words but not near each other.

Now, I'm no Bush fan. Can't stand him. Straight up liberal over here, you see? Yellow Dog Democrat through and through. But this particular incident is just GALLING because it's just a bunch of bullshit! Completely not true, and it seems to be coming from my own side of the fence! Argh! There are so many things to fight for, WHY MAKE SHIT UP?!

Maybe somebody out there has more information than me. Maybe I'm completely misreading and misusing the Thomas Web site. I <b><i>would really like to know if I am</i></b>. I mean, sort of. On the one hand it would be great if all these people weren't trying to create a problem where there isn't one. On the other, I'd rather be right and have my legislators <i>not</i> be a bunch of clueless idiots (in this instance).

But really, I can't figure out where the outrage is coming from here. Ten minutes of research (just following the links in the news.com.com article and rooting around for a bit!) delivers the following information:

First of all, the news.com.com article refers to "Section 113" of this bill. THERE IS NO SECTION 113. I looked and looked, and I did CTRL-F for "113" and go no results! They don't even use the number 113 anywhere in the freaking bill.

The only section called "Preventing Cyberstalking" is section 509.

<a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c ... :">Section 509 of this bill</a> is called "Preventing Cyberstalking".
Its purpose is to revise <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/ ... l">section 2261A of Title 18 of the US Code</a>.

<font size=" 2">Section 509</font>
SEC. 509. PREVENTING CYBERSTALKING.

Section 2261A of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
(1) in paragaph (1)--
(A) by inserting after `intimidate' the following: `, or places under surveillance with the intent to kill, injure, haras, or intimidate,'; and
(B) by inserting after `or serious bodily injury to,' the following: `or causes substantial emotional harm to,';
(2) in paragraph (2)(A), by striking `to kill or injure' and inserting `to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate, or places under surveillance with the intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate, or to cause substantial emtional harm to,'; and
(3) in paragraph (2), in the matter following clause (iii) of subparagraph (B)--
(A) by inserting after `uses the mail' the following: `, any interactive computer service,'; and
(B) by inserting after `course of conduct that' the following: `causes substantial emotional harm to that person or'.
<b><center>----------------END SECTION 509--------------</center></b>

For one thing, the word "annoying" <b>does not appear</b>. There is an "s" left off the end of "harass" in one sentence and an "o" left out of "emotional" in another sentence... I guess that's worthy of some indignation.

Next, this may have been "tacked on", but fully half of this bill is updates to the Violence Against Women Act, of which I can totally see cyberstalking as a part of. I know that the Internet is pretty damned central to MY life, and if somebody wanted to make my life hell, they should do so by stalking me and threatening me via email, IM, comments on my blog, etc.

There are two versions of this bill from 2005 (they were working on it at the end of last year, hence the dates-- they aren't old bills), and their titles are listed as "Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005." I don't know why they removed "Violence Against Women" from the title, since all that legislation is still in the bill. Maybe they *are* trying to hide something, but THIS issue isn't it.

Also, if this were actually "tacked on", it wouldn't have been in the version of the bill as it was introduced in the house. But it was. Thomas (the site where you go to review legislation) lists all the different versions that came out of the house, and that section is in the very first one, with typos intact, and the typos were never fixed, so I don't think anyone looked at that section for the rest of debate.

But really, before you fucking freak out over legislation, take the VERY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME it takes to look at the text itself and MAKE UP YOUR OWN DAMN MIND rather than believing people on the Internet who have random agendas of their own, one of which is to keep you reading and thusly keep themselves working.

So, if you know better, or somebody has pointed you to what all this hub-bub is about, please let me know, 'cause if this isn't just a bunch of bullshit, then I am obviously incompetent at the Internet and should just go dig ditches for a living.

<a name="thetruth"></a>
<b><font size="+2">Update:</font></b>
<a href="http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin ... .pdf">Here is the actual bill they're referring to</a>, rather than the bill they *think* they're referring to. It comes from the Senate, not the House, and it actually does contain a Section 113 called "Preventing Cyberstalking". However, here's what it says:

S 1197 ES
SEC. 113. PREVENTING CYBERSTALKING.
(a) INGENERAL.—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 sub-
paragraph:
‘‘(C) in the case of subparagraph (C) of
subsection (a)(1), includes any device or soft-
ware that can be used to originate telecommuni-
cations 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) RULEOFCONSTRUCTION.—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.
<b>End Section</b>

Notice that the word "annoy" <b>STILL isn't in there</b>. The language everyone is freaking out over actually comes from <a href="http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html ... tml">TITLE 47 > CHAPTER 5 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part I > § 223</a> of the <b><i>existing</i></b> US Code:

<b>§ 223 Obscene or harassing telephone calls in the District of Columbia or in interstate or foreign communications</b>

Release date: 2005-03-17

(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, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person;
<b>end quote</b>

There's more to that section, go look.

So, my position stands. If we were going to get pissed about this, we should have done so LAST YEAR, sometime before March, 'cause this section's been on the books at least since then. And that's just when the last update was made, the word "annoy" could have been on the books for much longer, relating to telephone harrassment. I dunno, I haven't done that bit of research.

The word "annoying" is there, and I'm just a tech writer, not a legal expert, so I dunno how it might be interpreted, and I haven't thought about it, 'cause really, this fucking long blog post is enough for now. Suffice to say, I think I'm right, and people are just f-ing STUPID.

[Tonamel]

And, as Ars Technica notes, "annoy" has a much more limited legal definition than the common usage.

[Ryan Rickenbach]

Looks like I'm fucked.

[Southwest_Statistic]

But which way?