Annoying someone via the Internet is a federal crime

Kaelina · Post by **Kaelina** » January 10, 2006, 1:54 pm

http://news.com.com/Create+an+e-annoyan ... &subj=news

Hope they have fun enforcing this one!

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » January 10, 2006, 1:57 pm

This post annoyed me. Expect the feds at your door real soon!

Kaelina · Post by **Kaelina** » January 10, 2006, 2:00 pm

oh noes! =(

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » January 10, 2006, 2:00 pm

...to prohibit anyone from using the Internet "without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy."

VV will have to close

Can't see that one staying as-is, the courts will force a revision.

Cartalas · Post by **Cartalas** » January 10, 2006, 2:47 pm

Im screwed!!

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » January 10, 2006, 3:16 pm

I'm going to look into bringing charges on Winnow for annoying me on the internets, and have him extradited to Canada as a form of torture for him.

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » January 10, 2006, 3:33 pm

Ok,. quick quys, lets use this opportunity to clean up a little in here. Who was bothered by sweetcastings

Wulfran · Post by **Wulfran** » January 10, 2006, 4:33 pm

So if you annoy someone who was annoying you first, is it self defense or do you both go to jail?

cid · Post by **cid** » January 10, 2006, 5:32 pm

Cartalas wrote:Im screwed!!

Now that is pure comedy!!!

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » January 10, 2006, 6:21 pm

Man... I love this administration!

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » January 10, 2006, 6:56 pm

Wulfran wrote:So if you annoy someone who was annoying you first, is it self defense or do you both go to jail?

It will be determined in a Trial by Buggery: Both offenders will be locked in a room with Cletus, the 400lb cross dressing albino gerbil afficienado. The first one to win his affection goes to trial.

Sylvus is in trouble.

Truant · Post by **Truant** » January 10, 2006, 7:57 pm

Marbus wrote:Man... I love this administration!

my thoughts exactly.

noel · Post by **noel** » January 10, 2006, 8:15 pm

My thoughts are... fuck that. Are we far away from having to agree to a disclaimer that you won't be an overly-sensitive fuck when someone flames you on the Internet? What happens if I say a congressman or senator is doing a bad job. Seriously what a waste of resources if they intend to enforce this shit.

Wulfran · Post by **Wulfran** » January 10, 2006, 8:24 pm

noel wrote:My thoughts are... fuck that. Are we far away from having to agree to a disclaimer that you won't be an overly-sensitive fuck when someone flames you on the Internet? What happens if I say a congressman or senator is doing a bad job. Seriously what a waste of resources if they intend to enforce this shit.

By extension, isn't flaming just another extension or expression of free speech? I mean I know up here we have some pretty stupid laws (such as verbal abuse being a type of assault: if they want to try and enforce it calling someone profane insults can result in that charge) and we also have more tolerance for infringing on free speech if it transcends the personal level and becomes something espousing violence against a particular group (in essence our definition of hate crimes): both of these are limitations that Canadian law accepts. I'm just curious how this could be constitutional in the U.S.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » January 10, 2006, 8:31 pm

Ok, I just read bits and pieces of the original link here. I think the biggest problem is if it actually includes the word "annoy." Hell, there are times I get annoying IF someone posts, not just WHAT they post. So, does that mean they should be charged?

I can understand, what I am guessing to be, the actual intent of the law and I agree with it. It would cut down on people basically doing things that would otherwise be illegal now while anon. Our comments to each other here are not what I am interpreting my limited exposure as. It would be different if we were roommates, co-workers, etc. and I went all over the place writing false things about you without saying who I was. *shrug*

Who knows what the heck they really meant, but if it's worded the way the article infers.......wow

Drasta · Post by **Drasta** » January 11, 2006, 12:56 am

what about kids .. are they forced to say .. hi, im 12 year old johnny ... sorry i annoyed you ... ya. .

Zamtuk · Post by **Zamtuk** » January 11, 2006, 1:49 am

pretty stupid considering that some people are under 18 and most are out of the country (internet wide speaking).

Drasta · Post by **Drasta** » January 11, 2006, 2:44 am

wow, imagen if this was around when people were steamrollin for ragefire in EQ1 .... lol would of been interesting to see how that played out ... and what about GM's ... can they get in trouble for not .. helping to play police when someone is being annoying?

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » January 11, 2006, 4:39 am

So can Noel flame away and Midnyte has to stop posting altogether now?

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » January 11, 2006, 9:54 am

I am surprised no one has noted that it is anonymous flaming. Hell not too many people here have that problem.

Most of us are honest about who we are and where we are, well excepting some of those cowards who have never even posted an image.

Deward · Post by **Deward** » January 11, 2006, 11:46 am

The fact that we don't use our real names in our handles could be signified as being anonymous. I don't think this law will ever be successful though because it goes directly against the 1st amendment. This law is just another back door law that law enforcement can use to hold people in jail while they beat a confession out of you for something else.

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » January 11, 2006, 1:26 pm

Zaelath wrote:So can Noel flame away and Midnyte has to stop posting altogether now?

Nah. Midnyte isnt annoying, at least not always. He do have some good points once in a while.

Noysyrump · Post by **Noysyrump** » January 11, 2006, 7:31 pm

Cartalas wrote:Im screwed!!

Understatement of the year!!!! But its only the 11th.

btw, Noysyrump is in fact, my real name.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » January 11, 2006, 7:42 pm

Ars technica had a summary of this as well. Here's an excerpt from the summary itself:

If I could boil my reading down to a few sentences, it would be as follows: the statute makes it illegal to send communications with the intent to "annoy," when those communications are sent anonymously. Previously, it was already illegal to attempt to annoy others with telecommunications services, anonymous or not. Now anonymity is explicitly addressed, but incidental annoyance is still not the same thing as intentional annoyance, which often requires a pattern of abuse to establish (since it is often otherwise very difficult to establish someone's state of mind when engaging in a particular behavior). Yet this has been illegal for some time. In fact, this entire amendment to the statute is only updating a rather old prohibition against malicious telephone usage.

In a phrase: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Why add this language then? That's a good question, and if I had to guess, I would say that this looks like a rather lame attempt to address the burgeoning VoIP world, which will soon include all instant messaging clients supporting making calls to Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). But this bill does not make anonymity illegal, nor does it make everyday annoyance illegal. However, if you attempt to hide your identity while engaging in a campaign to annoy someone electronically, you could find yourself on the other side of a lawsuit. But this was already possible before this bill was passed.

Full link is here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060110-5947.html

Drasta · Post by **Drasta** » January 12, 2006, 12:29 am

wait a second ... does this mean that i can sue those stupid spam e-mail people???

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » January 12, 2006, 2:28 am

Drasta wrote:wait a second ... does this mean that i can sue those stupid spam e-mail people???

Nope their intent is to advertise at you...that would actually be useful legislation so congress hasn't done shit about that...

Truant · Post by **Truant** » January 12, 2006, 12:59 pm

I actually see this as have no point at all except for making baby steps toward eliminating anonymity on the internet for security purposes.

Which is a far fetched idea I know. But i honestly can't thing of any other reason.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » January 12, 2006, 5:36 pm

well there is some CAN-SPAM compliance issues that are certainly out there for companies like the one i work for to be VERY careful about.

even if my company doesn't send you an email or so forth - affiliate marketing is a very common, useful, and more or less unpoliced process out there where consumers are potentially vulnerable to spyware, etc.

for instance if at the top of this page the banner was an advertisement for BestBuy.com, if I clicked it and bought a TV, Xouquoa might get $50. That's cool, Best Buy and VV have an affiliate agreement, and its all good.

but if somebody else passed that referall through this site from a site previous to that, then the money exchanges become more tricky, then there are parties that are involved that are unknown to the merchant (Best Buy in this example), things can get messy.

And i think the legal burdon is on the merchant too. There is real legislation out there, maybe not a lot, that is starting to make the bigger brands (at least) a little more careful in how they message online.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » January 12, 2006, 8:21 pm

Excellent post. Then you misspelled "burden," at then end.

Truant · Post by **Truant** » January 13, 2006, 12:20 am

Excellent post, then you mispelled 'the' at the end.

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » January 13, 2006, 12:38 pm

Truant wrote:Excellent post, then you mispelled 'the' at the end.

Excellent post.

Hoarmurath · Post by **Hoarmurath** » January 13, 2006, 1:11 pm

Except for the misspelling of misspell.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » January 13, 2006, 1:16 pm

Searyx better show back up and tell us all his name of he's going to jail for two fucking consecutive life terms.

miir · Post by **miir** » January 13, 2006, 1:33 pm

Hoarmurath wrote:Except for the misspelling of misspell.

Excellent psot.

Noysyrump · Post by **Noysyrump** » January 14, 2006, 8:28 pm

waht?