Crank Blogging, Like Phone Calling, Now Illegal

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Crank Blogging, Like Phone Calling, Now Illegal

Posted by jamie on Monday January 9, 2006 @05:00AM from the do-people-get-prosecuted-for-this? dept.

On Thursday, President Bush signed into law a must-pass DoJ appropriations bill which contained a little gotcha for the internet. For decades, making anonymous abusive phone calls has been a federal crime, good for up to two years behind bars -- and the term "abusive" has included threats, harassment, and the much weaker "intent to annoy." Now, that telecommunications law has been extended to include the Internet, so when you post an anonymous troll to wind up your least-favorite blogger, you may break the law. This is silly: the law needs to start taking into account the qualitative differences between things like telephones, email inboxes, blogs, and IM accounts. A 3 AM phone call is different from a post to blogger.com calling me a jerk. I don't need federal protection from that Night Elf who keeps /chickening my Orc.

5 of 666 comments (clear)

And let me be the first... by quokkapox · 2006-01-09 05:08 · Score: 0, Troll

To mod you Redundant. Except I never get mod points anymore. Oh well. Zonk is a tool.

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it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Anyone Willing to Test This? by eno2001 · 2006-01-09 05:24 · Score: 1, Troll

Based on my old account's JEs, I'm sure that a lot of neocons would find me "annoying". Hell, even my new account is rife with JEs and comments that are calculated to annoy. (Too bad today's not Tuesday). What about things like this? What about my freedom of speech that I am supposed to be guaranteed? You know what? Dubya can lick me from crack to sack. And you can quote me on that. I hate that fucking little imbecile.

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-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Re:So wait... by Soporific · 2006-01-09 05:43 · Score: 1, Troll

Not unless you are considered an enemy combatant...

~S
Re:So wait... by orthogonal · 2006-01-09 06:15 · Score: 0, Troll

Anyone know what happens when the anonymous poster is an eight year old kid?

I dunno about eight year olds. Ten year old girls get strip searched in Bush's America.
ALITO SUPPORTS UNAUTHORIZED STRIP SEARCHES: In Doe v. Groody, Alito agued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home. [Doe v. Groody, 2004]

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Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
AnNoyMusLee AnNoYinG by TriZz · 2006-01-09 06:50 · Score: 0, Troll

DuZ DaT MeEn DaT aLL dA PeEps dAT TyPe Lyke DiS wILL B jaYled? ...God, I hope so.

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No matter how hot a girl is - some guy somewhere is sick of her shit.