# Annoying Someone Via The Internet A Federal Crime



## vern38

Just a bit of info I thought I would share with all of you...

Vern

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This story was printed from ZDNet News,
located at http://news.zdnet.com
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By Declan McCullagh
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6024695.html
*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." 
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 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.

*biography*
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's Washington, D.C., correspondent. He chronicles the busy intersection between technology and politics. Before that, he worked for several years as Washington bureau chief for Wired News. He has also worked as a reporter for The Netly News, Time magazine and HotWired.


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## PDX_Doug

Well....

On behalf of Wolfie, ee4308, HootBob, tdvffjohn and myself, I would like to say... It's been nice knowing you guys! We hope to see you when we get out!







(Wolfie, is it true you get the same cell Martha Stewart used!







)

Happy Litigating,
Doug


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## vern38

Would you like your files gift wraped or in a cake...























Vern


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## huntr70

Wow...

I am going to have to lurk on the site from now on!!!









I hope this post didn't ANNOY anyone......

Steve


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## tdvffjohn

Some people are annoying just by being









Interesting reading Vern,

John


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## 2500Ram

My real name is still Bill.



> 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.


Now can I flame







See name above


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## NDJollyMon

Cyber-stalking. Who would have thought. Yet, they continue to allow paparazzi to chase people, stalk them, invade their privacy, drive people to lash out at them, and crash them in their cars...sometimes killing them.

I'm sure glad they are getting tough on ANNOYING people via email!
Maybe we can put those spammers in jail now!


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## PDX_Doug

Gosh...
Wolfie sure is awfully quite, all of a sudden?









Happy Trails,
Doug

(Maybe if I turn States Evidence, the 'G' men will go easy on me!)


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## HootBob

I would have to agree to John
Some people get annoyed just because they have nothing better to do
Life is too short to be like that.

Don
P.S. Like Bobby McFerrin said (Don't Worry Be Happy)


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## nynethead

All you have to do is flame someone and then sign your name. Unless you live near them or meet them in a campground one day and then your in big trouble


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## Reverie

Finally, people are going to quit insulting the capabilities of my wonderful Tundra. Nobody can hide behind their cloak of anonymity and hurl insults (you bunch of morons)









Reverie


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## wolfwood

Reverie said:


> Finally, people are going to quit insulting the capabilities of my wonderful Tundra.
> 
> Reverie
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> [snapback]72247[/snapback]​


Ya think?


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## wolfwood

PDX_Doug said:


> Gosh...
> Wolfie sure is awfully quite, all of a sudden?
> 
> 
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> 
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> Happy Trails,
> Doug
> 
> (Maybe if I turn States Evidence, the 'G' men will go easy on me!)
> [snapback]72123[/snapback]​


See now ... there you go ... trying to get me in trouble again. This is really getting ANNOYING and I really don't think we should be allowing inidividuals with felonious tendancies to participate in this family site.


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## wolfwood

PDX_Doug said:


> Well....
> 
> On behalf of Wolfie, ee4308, HootBob, tdvffjohn and myself, I would like to say... It's been nice knowing you guys! We hope to see you when we get out!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (Wolfie, is it true you get the same cell Martha Stewart used!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> )
> 
> Happy Litigating,
> Doug
> [snapback]72090[/snapback]​


Thanks for taking the lead on that, Professor. I did put in a request for PADDED cells for us all (btw, I believe 'crawfish' belongs on that list, too). btw, if I do end up with Martha's cell, I demand new curtains!


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## Thor

wolfwood said:


> PDX_Doug said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well....
> 
> On behalf of Wolfie, ee4308, HootBob, tdvffjohn and myself, I would like to say... It's been nice knowing you guys! We hope to see you when we get out!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Â (Wolfie, is it true you get the same cell Martha Stewart used!Â
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> )
> 
> Happy Litigating,
> Doug
> [snapback]72090[/snapback]​
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks for taking the lead on that, Professor. I did put in a request for PADDED cells for us all (btw, I believe 'crawfish' belongs on that list, too). btw, if I do end up with Martha's cell, I demand new curtains!
> [snapback]72341[/snapback]​
Click to expand...

I love this forum - It goes from useful info to LMAO all in a matter of a few posts.

Thanks everyone









Thor


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## mswalt

> 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.


I hope this includes all those annoying political emails I've seen coming from those idio...uh, politicians, in Washington! Who knows who they *really* are anyway?

Mark


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## BigBadBrain

I believe it was politicians (yup, lawyers without jobs) who in the early 20th century passed a law (in Iowa I believe) to change the value of Pi (3.14159...) to 3.0 to make math easier.

Sure glad our government is on our side!

And my name is Doug.


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## Thor

BigBadBrain said:


> I believe it was politicians (yup, lawyers without jobs) who in the early 20th century passed a law (in Iowa I believe) to change the value of Pi (3.14159...) to 3.0 to make math easier.
> 
> Sure glad our government is on our side!
> 
> And my name is Doug.
> [snapback]72510[/snapback]​


Above is not for real is it?

Thor


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## CamperAndy

Thor said:


> BigBadBrain said:
> 
> 
> 
> I believe it was politicians (yup, lawyers without jobs) who in the early 20th century passed a law (in Iowa I believe) to change the value of Pi (3.14159...) to 3.0 to make math easier.
> 
> Sure glad our government is on our side!
> 
> And my name is Doug.
> [snapback]72510[/snapback]​
> 
> 
> 
> Above is not for real is it?
> 
> Thor
> [snapback]72629[/snapback]​
Click to expand...

Thor I heard this one before but it was someone in Newfoundland that did it.


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## Thor

CamperAndy said:


> Thor said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> BigBadBrain said:
> 
> 
> 
> I believe it was politicians (yup, lawyers without jobs) who in the early 20th century passed a law (in Iowa I believe) to change the value of Pi (3.14159...) to 3.0 to make math easier.
> 
> Sure glad our government is on our side!
> 
> And my name is Doug.
> [snapback]72510[/snapback]​
> 
> 
> 
> Above is not for real is it?
> 
> Thor
> [snapback]72629[/snapback]​
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Thor I heard this one before but it was someone in Newfoundland that did it.
> [snapback]72631[/snapback]​
Click to expand...

CamperAndy - LMAO

They have to be related.


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## PDX_Doug

Actually, the law did not change the value of Pi.

It just required the schools to teach the value of 3 as being fact, along side the 'theory' that the value is actually 3.14159...

That way the students would have a fair chance to make up their own minds as to which value they wanted to use!










Happy Trails,
Doug


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## BigBadBrain

The story of the legislated value of 3.0 by Iowa State legislature is true to a point. The bill was actually composed to make math simpler for school children by a not-particularly-mathematics-inclined state legislator. It never made it to the floor before someone decided that the entire election process was flawed evidenced by the fact that complete idiots could be elected.

A fact that is still true to this date apparently.

And I'm sorry if I offended or annoyed anyone, my name is Doug.


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## PDX_Doug

BigBadBrain said:


> And I'm sorry if I offended or annoyed anyone, my name is Doug.Â


Gee! Thanks *BRIAN!*








Come on, I'm perfectly capable of offending without anybody elses help!









Happy Trails,
Doug


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## Dreamtimers

NDJollyMon said:


> I'm sure glad they are getting tough on ANNOYING people via email!
> Maybe we can put those spammers in jail now!
> [snapback]72112[/snapback]​


It would be great if this would get rid of the spammers, but it won't! That is unless they are in the US, don't have immunity, and we can tell the police who they are and show that they were the ones at the terminal when the typing was done!

















All it will do is get wolfie, et.al. in Martha's cell. Hope no-one snores!
















Dreamtimers


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## wolfwood

Dreamtimers said:


> All it will do is get wolfie, et.al. in Martha's cell. Hope no-one snores!
> 
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> Dreamtimers
> [snapback]72775[/snapback]​


"The bill was actually composed to make math simpler for school children by a not-particularly-mathematics-inclined state legislator."

Changing Pi to 3 but otherwise leaving Geometry, Algebra, Trig, & Calculus untouched .....? P-L-E-A-S-E!!!!!!

...and no one said I'd have to share Martha's cell with et al !

oh - yeah - almost forgot to identify myself - wouldn't want to offend in felonious anonimity. My name's Doug.


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## tdvffjohn

Sure is a lot of people named DOUG









Doug


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## PDX_Doug

Yup.

They seem to be coming off that conveyor belt like clockwork these days!
I guess it's true.... None of us live in a vacuum.
We may own a bowling ball, but can any of us honestly say we have 53 bicycles?
I think not!









Happy Trails,
John-Bob Wolfwood


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## wolfwood

PDX_Doug said:


> Yup.
> 
> They seem to be coming off that conveyor belt like clockwork these days!
> I guess it's true.... None of us live in a vacuum.
> We may own a bowling ball, but can any of us honestly say we have 53 bicycles?
> I think not!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> Happy Trails,
> John-Bob Wolfwood
> [snapback]73116[/snapback]​


No....but I do have a PI(e), inspite of being math challenged, AND an Outback....and I will gladly assist a height-challenged individual with access to elevator buttons, even on a sunny day. Now, how could that combination possibly be offensive?

My name's Doug. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.


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## vdub

Here's the snope scoop on the Pi controversy.


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## kjdj

Lets see it was 7th grade









I won a math contest to memorize Pi to the most digits. (it was 61)

3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939
wel there's 44 of em' anyway.


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