Does this bother you? I'm not touching you.

So...the next flame-thread on AoSHQ will make us all felons?

Jesus, yet another reason that yanking the (R) level in '06 is becoming less likely than ever. This is just retarded.

My stomach's itchy.

Can't believe this is going to pass constitutional muster. At the very least, it's overbroad.

Fuck Bush for signing it.

Ace, some of your posts have been intended to annoy me, and you didn't attach your real name to them, so welcome to Federal prison.

--Excitable Andy

P.S. Margaret Cho's lawyer is here and he's not happy. He doesn't placate.

This is just retarded.

Nuh uh. You are the retard, retard.

Stop hitting yourself retard.

Fuck Bush for signing it.

Amen, O Creator of Worlds. And let me add: sideways. With a wire brush.

Oh, and thanks to *me*, who also sent it to you. But apparently, I'm annoying. And a criminal now too. Go figure.

BTW, does this mean the next Ace of Spades HQ Flamewar (TM) has the potential to land us all in the clink?

Sweet.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/HR3402LegRpt.pdf

I did a quick search for the word annoy and got no matches. I don't feel like doing a grand search for something similar nor do I feel like reading it. Perhaps this is a hoax? Just in case its real I'll use my real name.

-Shtetlus Geeus Maximus

Add to that list of you gotta be kiddin' the recent change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice that makes use of a prostitute a crime.

Reason? To combat human trafficking? The collective altruists have taken over the minds of lawmakers!

Which one of you pansies is gonna be my girlfriend in the big house?

I ate a big red candle!

Monty, Be careful about which switch you pull. Putting Dems back in will be much more problematic.

Don't forget, we on the right can actually have reasoned discourse, on the left they can't go more than a word or two without ad hominem attacks and expletives deleted. This bill may yet prove a good thing. Those maniacs on the left won't use their real names on the kind of inflammatory posts they write and if they tone down, they won't be riling up the faithful which may mean a lot less money will be collected on line.

I have no problem using my real name as long as I don't get hassled by telemarketers and the like. Right now my former persona's email address gets over 300 spam a day. Can't close it down because I still need to use on the nonce.
_____________________

Ace: Why doesn't this program remember personal info?

"I hope they didn't even notice it, and now that it's brought to their attention, they will repeal it double-plus-quick."

After McCain-Feingold, somehow I doubt it.

Jersey can lick my sweaty balls ...

Oops! Now I'm a felon!

Come and get me, coppers!

This sounds like something the Kosmonauts had their friends put in to stick it to us, but will wind up biting them in the ass.

Half the fun of the internet is 40 yearolds acting like six year olds on boards.

The other 90% of fun on the internet is porn

When anonymous insults are outlawed, only outlaws will have anonymous insults!

And your Mom.

What if Jersey like licking sweaty balls? Could that be used as a defense? If so, have your attorney contact me and I'll let you have the pictures.

Allah is anonymous and annoying.

Hence he is a criminal.

New York has its own version of this bullshit.

And who can we thank for this little gem?

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.

I'm not crazy about these laws either, but usually these type of laws have follow up sections that define annoying, etc. Such as, 25 phone calls at your place of business in less than 24 hours.

Stop hitting yourself retard.

Your Honor, this "Iowahawk" person (and clearly this person is Iowahawk and not "not Iowahawk" despite his weak attempts to conceal his identity) had defamed and shamed my client by suggesting that he has a congenital mental defect. Further, he uses a defamatory and degrading slang term, viz. retard, in this context.

We therefore ask your honor to force this Iowahawk person to suck the shit straight out of my client's dirty asshole. It's the only fair repayment for such a slander, your Honor.

My client stands ready to squeege. Give us back our honor, your Honor!

Oh this is just too funny:

But men, too, can dress too sexy for work, San Antonio executive coach Barbara Greene said. "Sometimes they'll wear a shirt with too many open buttons," she said. "They'll show cleavage."

Bwahahahahaha!

Offenses like that, committed by men or women, often go unpunished, but sometimes a little cleavage can mean losing a job.

If you're showing off MAN-BOOB CLEAVAGE you have some serious issues, and it's pretty unlikely you have a job anyway.

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/HR3402LegRpt.pdf

I don't find it either, Shtetl. I don't get it. The article talks about section 113. But this PDF file does not even have a section 113, as near as I can tell. There is a section 509 called "Preventing Cyberstalking", but it looks harmless to me. Something isn't right about all this. I'd like to see the actual law that I'm supposed to be up in arms about. I'm skeptical.

So long, everyone. It's been fun.

Dammit, wrong thread.

How illegal was that? Did anyone feel threatened by MAN-BOOB?

Tall Dave,

You are getting too annoying. I shall now call the police on you and your man-boobs.

Just make sure you keep them hidden away while in the prision shower...

There's easy time and there's hard time. I'm thinking telling your roomate at the big house that you got sent up for anonymously being annoying online would constitute the beginning of a hard stretch.

Just a thought, but I've got to wonder how much of this is the work of the print MSM? Just think about it: we say something "annoying" about a print journo, and HEY, PRESTO, you are in the Federal Pen. This little gem would go a ferociously long way toward putting us little folk back in our little box...just where they want us.

surf-actant

I'm not crazy about these laws either, but usually these type of laws have follow up sections that define annoying, etc.

There's no definition of "annoying" in the New York laws, shawn.

Just a thought, but I've got to wonder how much of this is the work of the print MSM? Just think about it: we say something "annoying" about a print journo, and HEY, PRESTO, you are in the Federal Pen.

The federal statute is part of the Violence Against Women Act. That should give you a clue who's responsible. Hint: it ain't journalists.

In fact, the only reason I know about the New York statute is because it got brought up on a feminist blog the other day.

I can't find anything about this on the ACLU's web site, either. I'm starting to suspect you've all been had.

Allah,
Thanks for that....

surf-actant

The "annoy" etc is in the language of the original bill (follow the links in the article, it's right there.) The reauthorization changed the definition of "telecommunications device" to include internet communications. The language of the original bill was designed to make crank calls a federal offense. Go figure.

sjkevin:

I found it here.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode47/usc_sec_47_00000223----000-.html

Link to the original, if you're having trouble finding it in the article.

I guess if Benjamin Franklin were alive today, writing on the internet as either Poor Richards or Silence Dogood, would be fair game.

It's strange, I went with an online persona precisely so I wouldn't get trolled as much, but I'm going to have to think long and hard before linking someone or posting a comment on a site where I'm not sure the owner won't sue me.

Think how famously thin-skinned some of the lefty bloggers are. Posting a comment saying "you're an idiot" on someone's site could see you hauled into court. But interpreted broadly, it could also mean posting ridicule on one's own site about someone could be considered "annoying."

Not that I expect the courts would actually put someone in jail, but just the nuisance value of a lawsuit could muzzle someone. If I attack David Brock or one of his idiotic, filet o' fish eating henchmen, and he sues me, using Soros's checkbook, it's going to get pretty old for me pretty fast.

Or think of Patterico -- whom an L.A. Times columnist recently compared to a Stalinist apparatchik. Who has a bigger legal budget -- the Times or Patterico?

This is law designed to empower the already powerful against the less powerful. And not in a good way.

...And the meanest father-raper of them all come up to me and said, "What you get?" And I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and start using my real name." And he said, "Kid, what were you arrested for?" and I said "Being anonymous on the Internet." And they all moved away from me on the bench. Till I said "And creating a nuisance" and they all came back and we had a great time talking about crime mother-stabbing father-raping and all sorts of groovy things that we were talking about there on the bench.

I'm thinking telling your roomate at the big house that you got sent up for anonymously being annoying online would constitute the beginning of a hard stretch.

I don't know -- let's say there's a four-block in the Big House. You've got your kiddie rapist, a bank robber, a serial killer and an Anonymous Internet Annoyer.

When one them tells you he's going to use you as a human toilet, who's more likely to have a witty retort? Not the guy who spends his day making jumpsuits out of skin all day. No, the snappy come-back is going to come from the guy who spends his valuable time figuring out new ways to say that Oliver Willis is stupid and fat, am I right?

Who's going to have cute-yet-demeaning nicknames for everybody? The guard who escorts you to the infirmary? He might become known as Sparky McNightstick. When he's cracking all of your floating ribs, I'll bet he'll even chuckle a little, on the inside.

Oh damn it, now I have to start using my real name?

Here are the first section on prohibited acts from 47 USC 223:

(a) Prohibited acts generally
Whoever—
(1) in interstate or foreign communications—
(A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly—
(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and
(ii) initiates the transmission of,
any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person;

I'd say we're reasonably screwed.

Michael was hitting on some guy named Harold?

That is so annoying.

POLICE!

I stand corrected.

Oh, Jesus, Phinn, I was drinking something . . .

Dave's testimony

I swear your honor all I wanted was a sandwich. No! It's not "code" language. Who the hell would say "sandwich" when he means "sex"? No, besides Michael, who else would say that ?

Michael was hitting on some guy named Harold?

Call me Harry.

Who's going to have cute-yet-demeaning nicknames for everybody? The guard who escorts you to the infirmary? He might become known as Sparky McNightstick. When he's cracking all of your floating ribs, I'll bet he'll even chuckle a little, on the inside.

Try it bitch.

Tookie

"Oh damn it, now I have to start using my real name?"

But there are no mortal charcaters that can express the radience of my true name.

Um, any and all previous offers to f*ck someone's brains out are hereby withdrawn.

ROFLMAO!!!

What if the intent wasn't to annoy someone?

I mean, shit, EVERY f'ing comment I make here is with the fervent hope that Ace will recognize it as the wittiest damn thing he's seen in the last fifteen minutes.

Which means, of course, that I'll get my name up on the main page, in the slightly larger font.

Your Honor, my client had absolutely no intent to annoy, and thus cannot be convicted! My client merely employed one of the many code phrases which are commonly used on the internet. For example, when a person says online that 'I want to make you my hot little gag-slut," that actually means "I agree with you completely."

Absolutley. Amen.
This is good legislation.

No more anonymity = accountability.

No, it's not fuck Bush. It's fuck the anonymous cowards who want to post or host a website on the Internet.

Another thing that should be outlawed in America is wearing a mask while protesting. Fucking cowards. They want to protest the WTO or whatever but they don't want to risk losing their jobs. Fuck 'em. Put your money where your mouth is.

(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and
(ii) initiates the transmission of,
any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person;

Stupid? Yes, but for whom? Us "regular people" slamming one another in threads is one thing. I have the feeling they may be eyeing the ones who parody, insult, invoke the liar liar pants on fire clause or Photoshop them in the name of good clean fun, i.e. (all the pee in your pants funny Photoshop’s Allah did of the 2004 election, or Ace's brilliant Apprentice series) Frankly this smacks dirty of the same thing the UN really wanted control of the internet for (you get 2 guess's, and equal access for third world web surfers ain’t one of them). Fuck them all in the ear for pulling this kind of shit .

HEY! What the fuck!!!

or other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent,

All right, "annoying" is one thing, but does this mean we also have to clean up our language?

Does this mean we have to use FCC-approved (TV, radio) words now? Oh, gosh darnit!

This is good legislation.

No more anonymity = accountability.

Bart, I'm totally with ya on accountability, but to legislate it? Fu--whoops! Heck no!

Bite my crank, Michael

They'll never take me alive!!!

All right, "annoying" is one thing, but does this mean we also have to clean up our language?

Am I a hypocrite? Perhaps. I know some of you will accuse ofbeing hypocritical when I say I'm against gun registration but definitely in favor of Internet user registration.

People don't usually pick up their telephones, start calling random numbers and rant about the latest political scandal.

Hello?

I know that you are a registered Republican. How do you feel about Bush disregarding the Constitution?

Who is this?

Nevermind who this is, you fascist. Answer the question. Bush is ruining the country and it's all your fault.

What?

Don't change the subject, you chickenhawk. You better listen to me read this 1,200-word essay by Juan Cole about the Truth in Iraq.

That shit won't happen over the phone because asshole like [you know who] won't want a fucking maniac like me knowing his phone number and his address. Also, this is not a free-speech issue. Free speech does not some asswipe to lecture me in my own home or even in front of my own home.

Are you kidding me, Bart? You just stumbled on the greatest new idea ever. I'm calling up Kos and Dean right away to give it to them.

Man, if it works and Democrats start reading Juan Cole essays over the phone...

Well, let's just say that the two party system will start to look like a race between the R's and the I's. Or maybe L's.

I don't know what's wrong with me lately -- typos, missing words, pointless comments, irrelevant comments, crazy tirades . It really has me concerned.

In the last few weeks, there isn't much of a difference in my commnets and Spurwing's comments.

This ought to make one wonder what else is hidden away in the mountains of sh!t the Congress writes every year.

Senator Specter: The preceding remark was written and transmitted with intent to annoy you.

The way I read this legislation, it applies to telecommunications between the sender and a person, or recipient, of the message. It applies to phone calls and individually addressed email. Statements made in a public forum (like this website) would not fall under this law's purview.

Lighten up, asswipes!

The way I "read" your comment, you seem to think the way you "read" the law is very simply the way it must be "read" and the way everyone will in fact "read" it. That's pretty grandiose. And even if your views really were dispositive, that would still leave the little problem that you're now a felon--a felon, @ssw!pe--if you send someone an annoying email. That's what we're supposed to lighten up about?

Bart: "commnets"

In the spirit of friendship, I come to kick you when you are down.

I mistakenly left out my name on the posting two entries above. And I'm not the, only one reading it this way. Check out the legal blogs. The intent of the legislation is to extend phone call protections to email. Read the whole thing. And try this blog:
http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/01/annoy_someone_o.html

Make that three above my last posting...

I don't know what's wrong with me.
Maybe my weightlifting supplements are making me stupid.

P.S. Thanks, Pickens, for putting a name to "lighten up, asswipes."

The link that Pickens provides is none too reassuring. Some reader interprets the law to mean that it will only affect :

those who send a "communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent."

Ace, I'm reasonably sure you're all looking in the wrong direction. The law was probably changed to include calls placed through VOIP. The definition seems to specifically exclude interactive computer activity, and the bill's summary mentions voice over internet.

I blog about it here with cites to make it clearer.

I should say that I'm not 100% sure of this, if only because everyone else seems so upset that I wonder if I'm missing something. But normally, it'd be completely obvious. VOIP is an information service, not a telecommunications service. Without this addition, stalkers could conceivably use Vonage with impunity.

I'll reiterate.
Public speech, as in this PUBLIC weblog, is NOT COVERED under this legislation.
Telecommunications referred to in this law is directed at a recipient. There is LOTS of case law in which the difference between a phone call or an email and "publishing" as in posting in a public forum is made clear.

Don't get your panties in a bunch.

Public speech, as in this PUBLIC weblog, is NOT COVERED under this legislation.

Glad to see you're so confident.

Of course, I was once convinced that the 5th Amendment could NEVER allow a city to seize people's homes for the express purpose of giving the land to Pfizer for its new office and parking lot. It's written right there in the text that it only allows condemnation for public use! Then we saw Kelo.

I was once convinced that Congress could make no law abridging political speech, concerning politicians, near election time. Then we saw McCain-Feingold.

But, hey, you're the one recklessly tossing out dangerous phrases like "lighten up, asswipes." I don't know about everyone else here, but I know I'm annoyed. Are you absolutely 100% sure that there is not a prosecutor out there somewhere who reads the statute a little more broadly than you? And a Clinton-era judicial appointee who agrees?

Enjoy prison. Say hi to Sparky McNightstick for me.