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.

15 of 666 comments (clear)

Is this law really needed? by dada21 · 2006-01-09 05:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually, I think the entire law against crank calling is pretty worthless now, anyway.

We have Caller ID -- we can refuse to answer the phone. If crank calls were a major concern, you'd see market solutions to the problem. Companies would come up with "quiet time" phone features that would prevent any ring after a certain hour unless you coded it with numbers that were acceptable.

As you can see with this law, and thousands of other bad laws, you enter into a slippery slope of stupidity.

The Department of Justice is completely out of control -- nearly 99% of the Department is unconstitutional and unnecessary at the federal level. In this end, this is an abridgement on the freedom of speech. Every time government wants to penalize "edgy" speech, they are just finding another way to control normal speech.

I think we know who the real cranks are in this case -- read the entire law/budget, you'll find more bad things than usual. In fact, I can't see anything in the budget that seems worthwhile anymore.
1. Re:Is this law really needed? by Evil+Adrian · 2006-01-09 05:15 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Caller ID is not free, it is an optional pay service on most carriers, and not everyone has it, so not everyone can just sit there and screen the calls.
  
  That aside, if someone doesn't answer the call (because they know who is calling via Caller ID), what is to stop that person from calling 300 times consecutively in an attempt to annoy/harass them?
  
  I guess you could block the caller... but that too incurs a fee.
  
  "As you can see with this law, and thousands of other bad laws, you enter into a slippery slope of stupidity."
  
  I don't think it's out of line for the government to outlaw harassment. You could certainly argue that this law in particular perhaps goes too far, but you're almost saying it's OK to harass people, until some company invents technology that you can purchase to stop harassment. That is just plain silly.
  
  --
  evil adrian
2. Re:Is this law really needed? by RexRhino · 2006-01-09 09:03 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  What you are saying is true, but only to a certain extent.
  
  Yes, at the present state of time, we probably still need a small state to protect us from certain groups who would step in and take power in the absence of the government. But that is a huge jump to saying that we need the monster government that we have today.
  
  First of all, you are assuming that the government protects us from, lets say, a corporation. It is clear right now that corporations use law suits, government legistlation, intellectual property laws, all as tools for control and intimidation. It is not that the government protects us from corporations, but more like our government is being used as an enforcer for corporations.
  
  Intimidation of minorities was/is largely carried out by the government (Jim Crow laws then, drug and gun laws now that almost exclusivly target minorities now) Ask a black man living in inner city Detroit if he is more scared of the KKK, or of the police! At least half a million black men are imprisioned right now for victimless crimes... When you consider that there is only 10-15 million black men in the United States, I would say that the U.S. government is several orders of magnitude more dangerous to minorities that the KKK.
  
  In most places, the government acts WITH organized crime... for example, in many places you can't get a building permit unless you pay off the local goodguy, who then pays off the local politician to let you build. Or we have drug laws that do more to raise the price of illegal drugs and make them highly profitable than they do to stop illegal drugs (the DEA is the OPEC of drug smuggling!!! And I won't even go into the CIA drug operations).
  
  And, I am of course talking about the United States. The Soviet Union and Stalin's purges, Mao and his "Cultural Revolution" and "Great Leap Forward", Pol Pot in Cambodia, Nicolia Chochecau in Romaina, I could go on and on about governments with far greater domestic power than the United States and the attrocities they commited. The United States is generally a more pleasent place to live because the lack of total government control. (But even without a totalitarian government, we have the U.S. government's participation in the genocide of native Americans, or massive bombing of civilians in WWII and Vietnam, and other attrocities that have nothing to do with fighting big corporations or the mafia).
  
  Yes, you are correct, an immediate jump to anarchy is probably not a good thing right now... we probably need the government to protect us from warlords, aggressive foriegn governments, powerful economic interests, etc. But you are not defending that, you are defending a government that regularly invades peoples homes on the slightest of pretext, spies on its own citizens, takes 80% of their income in taxes and hidden fees, and now can arbitrarily throw people in jail for being "annoying". We are so far away from the concept of liberal democracy that maybe having a few more mafia people might be an acceptable price to pay for a little bit more freedom.
Re:So wait... by ihatewinXP · 2006-01-09 05:04 · Score: 5, Funny

Give me some mod points and we can find out!

--
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Re:So wait... by Snap+E+Tom · 2006-01-09 05:07 · Score: 5, Funny

Yes. Coming soon, the mod option will be "-1, Jail."
Re:well let me be the first to say by pHatidic · 2006-01-09 05:10 · Score: 5, Funny

Hey Jean I teabagged your coffee.

-Steve
you might not need it, but they do by aeoo · 2006-01-09 05:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

Yes, you're right. What sane person would need such a law?

But on the other hand, I can see how politicians and people in power might need such a law. It would make it illegal to criticize them anonymously.
The point is obvious by Deep+Fried+Geekboy · 2006-01-09 05:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

The point of all this bullshit is simply to create a web of laws which can be used to ensnare anybody.

The next time some wingnut retard says 'so long as you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear', point this out (and tell them how annoying they are).

--
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.
Blogging and e-mail way different by Cyphertube · 2006-01-09 05:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

This law sweeps across with a broad stroke and that's bad legislation.

One problem is a matter of 'annoying' people. What is annoying varies from person to person.

On the one hand, this means that spammers face yet another law against them. So, spamming while in the U.S. is a really bad idea. I'm sorry, if your name is really Ivan Charles Wiener, then, ok, I guess you can continue to send me erectile dysfunction ads as I.C. Wiener. But Heywood Jablowmie had better look out!

My question then is a matter of whether or not posting anonymously on a blog is a problem. If you allow real anonymity and you aren't prepared to handle the system, well, you're a fool. But most blogging software takes care of that. And if you force people to register, problem solved.

The big problem is that 'recipient of communication' is undefined. So, if I have a blog, and I allow people to post anonymously and they don't annoy me, is it a problem if some politician visits my blog and sees that? The original author is anonymous. Granted, as the owner and effective publisher who is not anonymous, well, I would argue that it's now my problem, and too bad, and so on. But sites, like Slashdot, that allow anonymous and disavow ownership of any kind of the post, well, that could be a big problem, as then Slashdot is not committing a crime directly, but can be considered an accessory.

Hopefully, this thing will be given a reasonable smackdown, but I doubt it.

--
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
Re:So wait... by Surt · 2006-01-09 05:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Well of course it won't be direct to jail, there will have to be a trial to determine if you are actually guilty, unless the executive branch has some sort of magical power to just throw people into jails without due process.

--
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Re:First Anonymous Post by gfxguy · 2006-01-09 05:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

And yet here we are, posting here and in all those articles MarkusQ referenced... free speech is alive and well, believe it or not, and people bitching about it not being free while they freely post their rants here are too oblivious to see the irony.

--
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Re:So wait... by atomm1024 · 2006-01-09 06:21 · Score: 5, Funny

Heh... meanwhile, we also need a "-1: Missed Obvious Sarcasm" moderation.

--
Signature.
I vote we slashdot the Federal criminal system! by michaelwigle · 2006-01-09 06:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

For every -1 Flamebait that appears on Slashdot we should all file a federal lawsuit that must be investigated and tried. Sometimes you just have to prove that something is too stupid to be in the rule book. We'll see how long the justice system can withsatnd a very stupid law that can be invoked by the average citizen. Any takers on a template complaint form to save lawyer fees? :D

And just for clarification, I'm all for protection agains harrassment, but a law against making an anonymous message that annoys someone is ridiculous.
Only the anonymous cowards by SmallFurryCreature · 2006-01-09 06:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

If you read the article it is only if you hide your identity. It is an intresting move. It could be seen as part of the move to a trusted internet.
Currently the internet is not trusted. I don't really know who you are and you don't know who I am and we can pester each other without really being able to do anything about it.
Total open internet doesn't work. That is clear from slashdot alone else why would we have moderation and bans? If you ever run a website you will quickly learn that you will need to secure your site from many attacks.
There is something about being anonymous that can bring out the worst in people and with the internet it doesn't matter how small a group it is, they still number in the millions because of the global reach. Or put another way I don't need to worry about some kid from Japan gatecrashing my Dutch LUG. That same kid however can easily try attacking the website and I can't grab him by the throath and show what happens to little punks.
So lets move to a totally un-anonymous internet where who you are is known. Post a troll on slashdot and be assured someone from your hometown will come by and teach you a lesson.
Nice idea no? No. Because for all the trolls and flamers and idiots and time wasters there are also those people who contribute stuff they can get in trouble for but we would really like to know. Oh they ain't many, every slashdot story has trolls versus only a handfull that have inside information BUT some people find that the trolls are worth it.
And yet should that mean anyone can do anything they want and not have to fear being punished for it? Saying that people should be able to harras, threathen or even annoy while hiding behind anonymity is al very good until you are at the receiving end.
I happen to know one of the people who claims to be one of the gnaa members. Yes he is as sad in real live as well but that is not the real funny thing. He sometimes gets "attacked" himself and then bitterly complains about how people are costing him bandwidth from a DOS (yeah a DOS not even a DDOS). A lot of people are for freedom but only if it is them being free, the moment someone else uses freedom against them it is time to get the law involved.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This says you are free to speak. Strictly speaking it does not say you do not have to face consequences of what you say. (Shouting fire in a crowded theather example) It certainly does not say you have the right do speak anonymous. The amendment was clearly not written by lawyers. Not good ones anyway.
Of course it also was written a long time ago when if you wanted to say something you had to either own a press or stand up in front of your audience. The tech to speak from another continent without ever having to show yourselve was unheard perhaps even undreamed of.
This law has a lot of nasty possibilities but as someone who has had to clean to many websites after a visit by a person with the intent to annoy I am torn in two. The majority of me knows this is going to lead to trouble and the other part of me has a list of IP's in his firewall that he would loved to have traced by the feds and their users put in a wooden chair with leather straps and a link to another kind of net.
Should at least make for some intresting bash.org posts when someone convinces an annoying kid they are about to be arrested for talking in caps.

--

MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There is more to this than you think by surfingmarmot · 2006-01-09 07:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

Most of you are looking at this from an individual perspective and you are grossly mistaken. How foolish you all are to think this law is to protect you! You the people! Hah! This administration doesn't do things for the people, they do them for big businesses with lots of funding to contribute to campaigns and with lobbyists who have big entertainment budgets. In other words corporations who are tired of trying to use ineffective civil law suits to stifle free speech about them. So this law is _not_ to give you power--it is to give corporations the power to criminalize product and corporate criticism on the internet. After all, civil suits are so darned expensive, but if a corporation can send a few people to jail, then that will have an immediate and severe chillng effect and squelch bad product reviews and negative comments about customer service and corporations. Don't believe me? Wait an see.