news.com.com — 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.
Jan 9, 2006 View in Crawl 4
billpolyJan 9, 2006
If this is true, then we have a lot of criminals trolling on Digg...
Closed AccountJan 9, 2006
I for one hope everyone who's ever annoyed me online goes to prison. They really do deserve it. Either that or torture. And it's not the trolls that annoy me--it's the simpering groupthink f**kers who dominate forums through social politics, despite being wrong on every point.Such people are like Mongo from Blazing Saddles. "Don't prove him wrong. That will only make him angry." That's when they start in with the irrational insults and, if their particular irrational ideology represents the majority view on the site (or the view of a vocal minority that dominates the forum through intimidation or spamming), all their buddies join in. I've been called everything you could think of by Moonbats (and had my life threatened by conservative Wingnuts). Yeah, I'd like to see every belligerent idiot behind bars.That said, however, the constitution is more important than personal vengeance, and I don't trust any government official to enforce such a vague law. Politicians enact laws like this for the purpose of criminalizing EVERYONE, enabling selective enforcement against those deemed undesirable by the state (or the personal whim of petty bureaucrats).You know, it's hard to convince people that they've committed felonies. People just can't get their head around the idea that taking one cigarette, touching someone's briefcase, borrowing their parents' prescription medications, and so on, are really felonies. I think a lot of people will realize, though, that they've broken THIS law. I think everyone realizes that they've annoyed someone online.
suicidal_kidJan 10, 2006
Thank you bush! The president with the 2nd grade education making stupid laws!
velocipenguinJan 10, 2006
Damn this administration and its fascist ways.
avatarofvirgoJan 10, 2006
<a class="user" href="http://www.downsizedc.org/read_the_laws.shtml">http://www.downsizedc.org/read_the_laws.shtml</a>
bobothnJan 10, 2006
Spammers going to jail for 2 years is awsome. or if they give us there name we can look them up and beat them
majordad1984Jan 15, 2006
This has absolutely nothing to do with politics, it has to do with society...it's just a continuation to a growing sector of the population that is cruising through life thinking that they have the right to live a conflict free life. Unfortunately, there are still bastions of sanity that consider life a "full contact sport" (guess which side of the fence I'm on!)It's a result of:1. Holding smart kids back while the slow ones try to catch up.2. Not keeping score in "little league" athletic events.3. Teachers not being able to use red pens to grade papers.Feel free to add even more....
jgrandolphDec 2, 2008
I definately see the purpose behind this with regards to cyber stalking and other forms of online security but I agree that the general wording is a problem. While I do think that people should have to use their names if they want to bash someone on the internet there is no way to enforce it and huge leaps would have to be made with specific cyber law to create anything that even came close to surviving the many lawsuits it would face.